The Sword in the Stone: Malory's Two Excaliburs

Quotations below are Thomas Malory's own English from Le Morte d'Arthur, as printed in Project Gutenberg eBook 1251. Malory cites "the French book" as his source, and that source shows through in places.

A child bought with an oath

The sword in the stone begins with a king who wants another man's wife. Uther Pendragon summons the duke of Tintagil and his wife, Igraine. Both refuse to come. Uther gives the duke forty days' warning. The duke puts Igraine in the castle of Tintagil and shuts himself in Terrabil, and Uther lays siege. Malory says the king then "fell sick" for anger and for love of Igraine.

Sir Ulfius goes looking for Merlin and finds him dressed as a beggar. Merlin's price comes before any help. Uther must swear on the Four Evangelists that the child conceived on the first night with Igraine will be handed to Merlin "to nourish there as I will have it." Uther agrees. Merlin gives him the duke's likeness, makes Ulfius look like Sir Brastias and himself like Sir Jordanus, and they ride the ten miles to Tintagil.

The timing matters later. That same night the duke rides out of a postern gate at Terrabil to attack the besiegers and is killed "or ever the king came at the castle." Uther lies with Igraine "more than three hours after his death." Igraine hears the news and cannot work out who came to her bed. Malory says she "mourned privily and held her peace." The barons arrange a marriage, and only half a year later, when she is visibly pregnant, does Uther tell her the truth.

The child at the postern

Merlin picks Sir Ector as foster father and asks that Ector's wife nurse the royal child while her own baby goes to another woman. When the baby is born, two knights and two ladies carry him out of a back gate, wrapped in cloth of gold, and give him to the first poor man they meet there. The poor man is Merlin. A holy man christens the boy Arthur.

Within two years Uther falls ill. Merlin has him carried into battle at St Albans on a horse-litter, and his side wins. Back in London he lies speechless for three days and nights. Merlin gathers the barons and asks aloud whether Arthur is to be king. Uther gives the boy "God's blessing and mine" and dies. The barons heard it, and it made no difference. Malory says "every lord that was mighty of men made him strong, and many weened to have been king."

Christmas in the greatest church of London

Merlin advises the Archbishop of Canterbury to call every lord to London by Christmas and pray for a miracle. After the first mass a stone appears in the churchyard, facing the high altar. Malory is exact about it. It is a great four-square stone, like marble. On top sits a steel anvil a foot high, and the sword is stuck in the anvil "by the point." Gold letters read: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England."

Malory cannot say which church it was: "whether it were Paul's or not the French book maketh no mention." Nothing shows his working method better than that line.

The men who want to be king try and fail. Ten knights are posted to guard the sword, and a tournament is called for New Year's Day to keep the lords in town.

An errand for Kay

Sir Kay was knighted at All Hallowmass. On the way to the jousts he finds he has left his sword at his father's lodging and sends young Arthur back for it. Nobody is home, because the lady and all the household have gone to watch the jousting. Arthur is angry and decides that Kay "shall not be without a sword this day." He rides to the churchyard, ties his horse to the stile and finds the guards gone, since they have gone to the jousting too. He pulls the sword out "lightly and fiercely" and takes it to Kay.

Kay knows the sword at once. He goes straight to his father: "lo here is the sword of the stone, wherefore I must be king of this land." Ector takes both boys back to the church and makes Kay swear on a book how he got it. Kay tells the truth. Ector has Arthur put the sword back. Ector cannot pull it out, Kay cannot either, and Arthur pulls it out again with no effort.

Then Ector and Kay kneel. "I was never your father nor of your blood," Ector says. Arthur "made great dole." Before anything else, Ector asks that Kay be made seneschal of all Arthur's lands. Arthur promises that no other man will hold the office while they both live.

Five times at the stone

The miracle does not settle the matter. On Twelfth-day the barons try and fail, and Arthur succeeds. They are "wroth" at being ruled by "a boy of no high blood born" and put the question off until Candlemas. He succeeds at Candlemas, then at Easter, and they put it off each time. Finally, at Pentecost, the common people shout that they will have Arthur and will kill anyone who opposes him. The lords kneel, Arthur forgives them, lays the sword on the altar, is knighted and is crowned.

Even that does not end it. At the Pentecost feast at Carlion six kings refuse his gifts and send word that they will give him gifts "with hard swords betwixt the neck and the shoulders." Merlin tells them Arthur is Uther's son. "Then is he a bastard, they said all." Merlin answers with dates: Arthur was begotten more than three hours after the duke died, and Uther married Igraine thirteen days later. On that basis Merlin declares him no bastard. King Lot calls Merlin a "dream-reader."

In the battle that follows, Merlin tells Arthur not to use "the sword that ye had by miracle" until the fight is going against him. When he draws it, Malory names it: "his sword Excalibur," so bright it gave "light like thirty torches." In Malory, then, the sword from the stone is Excalibur.

The sword breaks

It does not last. A knight camps beside a fountain and jousts with anyone who rides past, and he nearly kills the young Griflet. Arthur rides out alone to stop him. They break spear after spear. On foot their swords meet, and the knight's sword "smote King Arthur's sword in two pieces." Arthur refuses to yield and says he would "liefer die." He is pinned with his helmet torn off when Merlin puts the knight to sleep. The knight is Pellinore.

The arm in the lake

Arthur, still healing, says plainly, "I have no sword." Merlin takes him to a broad lake, where an arm "clothed in white samite" holds a sword above the water. The Lady of the Lake gives it to him in exchange for a gift she will name later. Arthur rows out and takes it, and the hand sinks. Merlin asks which he likes better, the sword or the scabbard. Arthur picks the sword. Merlin calls that unwise, because the scabbard "is worth ten of the swords": while he wears it he will lose no blood.

Two swords, one name

That leaves two swords, and according to Wikipedia's "Excalibur" article (CC BY-SA 4.0), that is because Malory joined two French traditions. The sword in the stone first appears in Robert de Boron's Merlin of about 1200. The Vulgate Prose Merlin says outright that the stone sword is Excalibur. The Post-Vulgate, written soon after, leaves the stone sword unnamed, has it broken against Pellinore, and makes the lake sword the real Excalibur. Malory kept both stories and called both swords Excalibur. That is why his Arthur has an Excalibur that shines like thirty torches and then breaks.

The name is older than both. Geoffrey of Monmouth, around 1136, calls the sword Caliburnus and says it was forged in Avalon. Behind that is the Welsh Caledfwlch, "hard cleft," from Culhwch and Olwen. Neither of those texts has a stone. The Wikipedia article also notes that the Vulgate has Griflet, not Bedivere, throw Excalibur back into the lake at the end. Malory's young squire at the fountain has the same name. The article does not say they are the same man; that connection is mine.

What the pictures dropped

Wikipedia's caption for the illustration in Our Island Story (1906) points out that the anvil is missing there, as in "many more modern depictions," so the sword goes straight into rock. Malory's inscription names the anvil. Modern pictures also tend to leave out the stories on either side of the stone: the lie at Tintagil before it, and the broken blade after it.

Sources