King Arthur

:For the 1691 opera by Dryden and Purcell, see King Arthur (opera).

Arthur's swords

:Main entry: Excalibur.

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In Robert de Boron's Merlin, later followed by Thomas Malory, Arthur obtained the throne by pulling a sword from a stone and anvil. In this account, this act could not be performed except by "the true king," meaning the divinely appointed king or true heir of Uther Pendragon. This sword was presumably the famous Excalibur and the identity is made explicit in the later so-called Vulgate Merlin Continuation.

Related Topics:
Robert de Boron - Thomas Malory - Sword - Anvil - Uther Pendragon - Excalibur - Vulgate Merlin Continuation

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However, in what is sometimes called the Post-Vulgate Merlin, Excalibur was taken from a hand rising from a lake and given to Arthur sometime after he began to reign by The Lady of the Lake. According to many sources, Arthur broke the sword pulled from the stone whilst fighting King Pellinore, and thus Merlin took him to achieve Excalibur from the Lake (as cited in many novels including Howard Pyle's King Arthur and His Knights, King Arthur and the legend of Camelot, and indeed most modern Arthurian literature). In this Post-Vulgate version, the sword's blade could slice through anything and its sheath made the wearer invincible. Some stories say that Arthur did indeed pull the sword from the stone (Excalibur), giving him the right to be king, but accidentally killed a fellow knight with it and cast it away. Merlin told him to undertake a quest to find another blade, and it was then that Arthur received his sword from the hand in the water, and named it Excalibur, after his original sword. The first appearance of the sword named Caliburn is in Geoffrey of Monmouth who asserted that in battle against Arthur "nought might armour avail, but that Caliburn would carve their souls from out them with their blood." (http://www.bartleby.com/211/1206.html).

Related Topics:
Post-Vulgate Merlin - The Lady of the Lake - Pellinore - Post-Vulgate

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