If the sword in the stone is Excalibur and not the given to him by the lady of the lake...?

Question

How does this change the story of King Arthur?

Answer 1

I believe that the Sword in the Stone is an Allegory referring to the discovery of how smelt iron, from it's ore. Any Tribal Chieftain in Bronze Age Britain, would become the most Powerful King in the country with, for instance, forty Warriors with Iron Swords. Iron would cut right through Bronze, or shatter it, and if your Warband were armed with Iron, they would be pretty unstoppable. And of course, legends about your mightiness, and that of your "Knights" would echo down the ages.

Answer 2

In a way it simplifies the story, because it writes the Lady of the Lake out of it. Then it gives us an example of how simplifying a process at the beginning can lead to complications at the end. Without the Lady of the Lake, what happens to Arthur's sword when he dies? Sir Bedivere can still throw it into the lake, but he won't see anything unusual to report back as proof that he has done so. In between, though, I suppose that the difference wouldn't affect the story very much. He'd still have a sword with a magical or supernatural element about it.



Incidentally, having Sir Bedivere be the last knight of the Round Table, the one with Arthur when he dies, is a beautiful touch. The oldest source to mention any of Arthur's knights or companions by name calls them Bedwyr and Cei. Gawain, Lancelot, Percival, and all the others are later additions to the legend. Yet, after almost a thousand years as the center of a continually growing legend, when Arthur dies in Malory's account, it's as if all the later additions have fallen away and he's back at the beginning.

Answer 3

There is also the theory that the High King's sword was placed into the stone by Merlin to prevent the Titled Lords from going to war with each other over who should become High King.

"That" sword, was the High King's sword which was/is

Excalibur and was given to Arthur's father by the Lady of the Lake (The "given" Title to the Pagan High Priestess) as it was also given to all previous High Kings. The theory states that Arther, in a time of doubt as to whether he was worthy to rule, tossed the sword Excalibur into the Lake to have it "returned by the "mythical" hand rising from the depths, to prove to him that he was indeed the High King.

Answer 4

Excalibur, or Caliburn, is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. In Welsh, the sword is called Caledfwlch!



The best known version of the story of the sword depicts the wizard Merlin thrusting the as yet unnamed sword into a huge stone, saying that the throne will be claimed by the one who was able to withdraw it. Young Arthur would later prove to be the one to do it. The second story has Arthur obtaining the sword named as Excalibur at a magical lake, where it is given to him by the mysterious Lady of the Lake. Beginning with Sir Thomas Malory's version of the story, the Sword in the Stone and Excalibur became identified as the same weapon.



The sword, made by an elf of Avalon, was later stolen by Arthur's half-sister Morgan le Fay, at which time its magical healing scabbard was lost, although Arthur recovered the sword itself. In the battle of Camlann, Arthur was mortally wounded. As he lay dying, he told his companion Sir Bedivere (Griflet) to return the sword to the lake. When Bedivere did so, an arm rose from the lake to catch the sword, brandishing it three time before it disappeared beneath the waters.

Answer 5

The Sword in the Stone is not Excalibur. That is a common misconception. Excalibur was forged by the Lady of the Lake.



That is how I've always know it but to be fair, it depends on your source for the Arthurian legend. Some stories believe that they are one and the same, and some believe (as I do) that they are in fact two separate swords.



So take your pick of which story you wish to go with.

Answer 6

Nothing would change in the 99% of medieval Arthurian romances that do not refer to any particular origin for Excalibur.



The only change I can think of is that the tale of the scabbard stolen by Morgain would not work, since Arthur did not pull a scabbard from the sword, while in the lake version, the sword held by the hand from the lake was in a scabbard. But the story of Morgain stealing the scabbard is also found in the “Post-Vulgate Merlin” which is also, in surviving texts, introduces the story that Arthur got his sword Excalibur from the lake. (Malory’s early chapters in “Le Morte d’Arthur” are mostly just adaptation and abridgement of the “Post-Vulgate Merlin” account.)



Note that the woman through whom Arthur gets the sword is only called the “Lady of the Lake” by Malory, this being one of the changes that he made to his source. But even in Malory she is not the important Lady of the Lake who is introduced later. In the “Post-Vulgate Merlin” she is simply a damsel, though one who knows magic. And she walks on the water of the lake, takes the sword and scabbard, and then walk back on the lake and gives it to Arthur. Malory also changes this, having Merlin and Arthur row out to the sword in a boat and having Arthur take the sword directly.



The damsel appears very soon afterwards in Arthur’s court, and in exchange for the sword, asks for the head of the knight Balain/Balin or of the damsel whom Balain/Balin has freed from a sword that encumbered her. Balain/Balin promptly beheads the damsel, claiming she is the damsel who had slain his father with poison. See http://members.terracom.net/~dorothea/baladro/Chapter22.html and http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/mart/mart029.htm .



The story that one of Arthur's knights threw Arthur’s sword into a lake and a hand rose from the lake and caught it first appears in extant texts in the “Mort d'Artu”. The suggestion that this would not work without a previous story that Arthur received the sword from the Lady of the Lake ignores the fact that the damsel responsible is not known as the Lady of the Lake before Malory’s account and in any case she is long dead, and also not the source of the arm.



The story in the “Post-Vulgate Merlin” may have been known to the author of the account in the “Mort d’Artu” or it may be a later invention to provide a prequel to the account of casting away the sword. No-one knows.



The knight in the “Mort d’Artu” account is Girflet, who appears in Malory as Griflet. But in the retelling of the tales in the “English Stanzaic Morte Arthur”, the knight Beduer/Bediever and appears instead. (See http://www.lib.rochester.edu/Camelot/teams/stanzfrm.htm .) Malory knew both accounts and decided to use the name Beduer/Bedivere instead of Griflet in this case.



This is not the only account of the fate of Arthur’s sword. King Richard of England had a sword which he believed was Arthur's sword Caliburn/Excalibur which he gave to Tancred, King of Sicil,y for use on the crusades. See http://books.google.ca/books?id=irUdMNNvlakC&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=Richard+tancred+cALIBURN&source=bl&ots=NydFNSoPQr&sig=r_JUGB098GAaQTIjb-nUrMp-XCg&hl=en&ei=DScdS4GfIILd8QaL-uTUAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Richard%20tancred%20cALIBURN&f=false . It is possible that this sword had been found buried with the supposed body of Arthur that the monks of Glastonbury unearthed.



In the earliest surviving Arthurian romance, “Culhwch and Olwen'' ( http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/culhwch.html ) it is said:



“... and Morvran the son of Tegid (no one struck him in the battle of Camlan by reason of his ugliness; all thought he was an auxiliary devil. Hair had he upon him like the hair of a stag). And Sandde Bryd Angel (no one touched him with a spear in the battle of Camlan because of his beauty; all thought he was a ministering angel). And Kynwyl Sant (the third man that escaped from the battle of Camlan, and he was the last who parted from Arthur on Hengroen his horse).



Here Kynwyl Sant, that is Saint Cynwyl, is the last who departs from Arthur, riding away on his horse just as Girflet is the last to depart from Arthur in the “Mort d’Artu”, riding away on his horse and then forsaking knighthood to become a hermit. Note that the title “sant'' or “saint” in medieval Welsh is used freely and is applied to any supposedly holy man. There was no official canon of saints. Therefore Cynwyl, like Girflet, may well have been imagined as one of Arthur’s solders who became a hermit after Arthur’s last battle.



Whether the author of “Culhwch and Olwen'' imagined Cynwyl as casting away Arthur's sword Caledfwlch is unknown.



That the sword in the stone is an allegory referring to the discovery of how smelt iron, from it's ore runs afoul of the story of Theseus who had to learn the truth of who his father was by obtaining his father’s sword which was buried under a stone. This sword would have been bronze, not iron. The suppose allegory remains only a possibility, whether for Arthur or Björn in the Norse “Hrof Kraki's Saga”. In the Icelandic story of Sigmund, Sigmund alone can draw a magic sword from a tree.



That the Lady of the Lake may have originally been a mortal priestess is just a rationalization sometimes used by modern novelists.