King Arthur (?)

[imaditzyreader]

OK...so here is my question...

My English teacher says that there are two different myths about how KIng Arthur got his sword (Excalibur).

He says that the first is from the lady in the lake. This is the accepted one.

Then he says that Excaliber also could have come from the sword in the stone. I have never heard that this was a legend.

Could I have your opinions on this??

thank you, me

[Schokokeks]

I only know the version with the stone that it was stuck in a stone and nobody but Arthur (being just a boy or teenager I think it was...) managed to pull it out.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

There is a theory that the "sword in the stone" legend was based on a much earlier tale about a bronze-age tribe that first learnt how to smelt iron, thus producing far better swords and ushering in the iron age, gaining supremacy over neighbouring tribes in the process. Like a lot of the legends, this oral traditional legend was corrupted by the usual "chinese whispers" process and became linked with Arthur.

I'm afraid that I don't know the provenence of this theory but it's interesting.

[PeterL]

Your teacher is right.

[Virgil]

Yes, I think you teacher was right. I think they were two separate swords. But I'm not 100% sure.

[~Maude~]

I have heard both, I remember hearing the sword in the stone version first and later I heard the lady in the lake story.

[shortysweetp]

i too have heard both stories and there are several movies about each i believe. I will look these up and let you know the titles. I know for sure that there is a cartoon version by disney of the Sword in the Stone

[shortysweetp]

here is a link to the Lady of the Lake version (text)
http://www.2020site.org/kingarthur/

here is a link for the Sword in the Stone version (text)
http://www.kellscraft.com/ledgends1.html

[EAP]

The legend of the sword in the stone is probably adapted from Persian/Arabian/Turkish literature.

[emily655321]

My friend wrote her college thesis on the King Arthur legend, so when I saw this I e-mailed her, and this is what she had to say about it:

In Malory's version of the legends (which*could be considered to be the definitive version as it is the last great work of Arthurian literature of the middle ages (1480s) and since it brings together all the narrative threads that had been knocking about for three hundred years and makes a complete whole, plus it is the version most modern retellings are based on) Arthur breaks the sword from the stone ("Whoso pulleth out this sword...") and Merlin takes him to the lake where the Lady of the Lake bequeathes to him Excalibur and it's magical sheath which protects the wearer from death. Later Morgan steals Excalibur and throws the sheath into a lake, which is why, it is implied, Arthur died from the wounds he recieved at Camlann. There are, of course, other variations that I could look up if I had my books with me. In the earliest sources Arthur's sword is called Caliburn(us) and I think there may be a version in which he breaks*Caliburn and it is reforged into Excalibur (ex Caliburn*= Latin, from Caliburn).

So, at least in Malory's version, the Lady of the Lake doesn't give Excalibur to Arthur; he gets it from the stone, and then she gives him the sheath and formalizes Arthur's ownership of the sword.

[Virgil]

My friend wrote her college thesis on the King Arthur legend, so when I saw this I e-mailed her, and this is what she had to say about it:

Emily - My last grad class that I took was on the Arthurian legends and loved it. My grad school required that we have an area of concentration, and I concentrated on the 20th century english novel. After the Arthurian legends class, which of course was at the end, I had wished I had concentrated on medieval lit. It seemed like so much more fun, and you don't wallow in depressing works as much.

Anyway, you're friend seems very intelligent and too bad she doesn't participate in lit net.

[rachel]

Emily,
your friend's writing of the events of the sword is what I learned.Because just as the legend of Arthur evolves and different events happen, so too the sword, its import and its part in his life. the lady morgana lefey spends a great part of his existence trying to ruin or destroy his life. and as she is part faerie she has more time to do these th ings.
i have Mallory, a second edition i believe. I was in a little known tiny bookstore two summers ago and was browsing the old dusty and slightly ripped jacketed section of the store. And there it was. And for an embarrasingly low price. No one had noticed or if they did ,no one had cared.
I picked it up with trembling hands and right then and there had tears beginning to fall down my very cold feeling face.
I actually told the sales person but she didn't care and so I paid for and brought my treasure home. awesome.

[emily655321]

i have Mallory, a second edition i believe. I was in a little known tiny bookstore two summers ago and was browsing the old dusty and slightly ripped jacketed section of the store. And there it was. And for an embarrasingly low price. No one had noticed or if they did ,no one had cared.
I picked it up with trembling hands and right then and there had tears beginning to fall down my very cold feeling face.
I actually told the sales person but she didn't care and so I paid for and brought my treasure home. awesome.

Wow. That's amazing, Rachel. Congratulations on finding something so precious! It should be in a museum, but I'm sure you will always treasure it much more than they would.

[rachel]

i thought about such but my children are totally in love with all such things and have literally thousands of books, many rare, that they saved up for forever. I shall probably give it to one of them and entrust that they will do what is proper in their time.

[crisaor]

I believe they're two separate swords.

From what I recall, Arthur's first sword was the one he removed from the stone, the one that made him king. Later on, when Arthur fought Sir Pellinore against the advise of Merlin, the sword broke. It was then that Merlin took Arthur to the presence of the Lady of the Lake, who gifted him with Excalibur and its magical scabbard.