Excalibur - Excalibur and The Sword in The Stone

Excalibur and The Sword in The Stone

In Arthurian romance, a number of explanations are given for Arthur's possession of Excalibur. In Robert de Boron's Merlin, Arthur obtained the throne by pulling a sword from a stone. In this account, the act could not be performed except by "the true king," meaning the divinely appointed king or true heir of Uther Pendragon. This sword is thought by many to be the famous Excalibur, and its identity is made explicit in the later so-called Vulgate Merlin Continuation, part of the Lancelot-Grail cycle. However, in what is sometimes called the Post-Vulgate Merlin, Excalibur was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake sometime after he began to reign. She calls the sword "Excalibur, that is as to say as Cut-steel." In the Vulgate Mort Artu, Arthur orders Griflet to throw the sword into the enchanted lake. After two failed attempts (as he felt such a great sword should not be thrown away), he finally complies with the wounded king's request and a hand emerges from the lake to catch it, a tale which becomes attached to Bedivere instead in Malory and the English tradition. Malory records both versions of the legend in his Le Morte d'Arthur, naming Excalibur as the sword the Lady of the Lake gives to Arthur to replace the sword that Arthur broke in his fight with King Pellinore.

In popular fiction, the two are often made as the same, such as in the film Excalibur, as well as the Disney film adaptation of The Sword in the Stone. The novel itself does present the swords as separate.

The challenge of drawing a sword from a stone also appears in the Arthurian legends of Galahad, whose achievement of the task indicates that he is destined to find the Holy Grail.