“... and i know for a fact Excalibur isnt the sword King Arthur pulled from the stone.”
In the “Story of Merlin”, attributed to Robert de Boron, which is the source of all later accounts of the sword in the stone, the author does not give a name to the sword in the stone. Is it Excalibur or isn’t it?
First, the name “Excalibur” with an “x” is an invention of Sir Thomas Malory in his “Le Morte d’Arthur”. His known sources name the sword “Escalibor” with an “s”. Perhaps Malory just thought “Excalibur” sounded cooler. Malory’s form of the name is often used by modern translators for “Escalibor” because it is now more familiar.
Earlier texts name the sword Caliburn. In medieval Welsh tales it is named Kaletvwlch, usually normalized to Caledfwlch.
The “Story of Merlin” originally ended with Arthur’s coronation. But some later writer or writers continued it to provide a history of the first five years of Arthur’s reign and to provide a link to the “Prose Lancelot”. This extended version is today usually known as the “Vulgate Merlin”.
According to the medieval “Vulgate Merlin”, the sword from the stone is indeed Escalibor. See http://www.archive.org/details/vulgateversionof02sommuoft , page 94. See the Middle English translation at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=cme;idno=Merlin;rgn=div1;view=text;cc=cme;node=Merlin%3A7 , page 118. Rupert T. Pickens translates from the original French in Norris J. Lacy’s “Lancelot-Grail”, Volume 1 ( http://www.amazon.com/Lancelot-Grail-Routledge-Arthurian-Post-Vulgate-Translation/dp/0415877229/ref=cm_lmf_tit_6 , page 219):
“After King Arthur had been brought back to his senses, he drew his sword from its scabbard, and it cast a great light, as though two tapers had been lit. The was the sword that he had pulled out of the stone. And the letters that were written on the stone said that it was named Excalibur—this is a Hebrew word that means in French ‘cuts through iron and steel and wood,’ and the inscription told the truth, as you will hear in the story a little further along.”
Needless to say, there is no word in Hebrew anything like “Escalibor” or “Caliburn” or “Kaletvwlch”, much less one with that supposed meaning.
See also Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur”, ( http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Morte_d%27Arthur/Volume_I/Book_I/Chapter_IX ) where Malory adapts this description.
See http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/kaledvwlch.html for a fragment of a Welsh adaptation of the “Story of Merlin” which identifies Arthur’s famous sword with the sword in the stone.
One should not use the word “fact” when discussing material told in legend and fiction.
In the “Perceval” by Chrétien de Troyes and in its first continuation, Escalibor is in the possession of Gawain, who fights with it. The same situation appears later in the “Prose Lancelot”, where Arthur has another sword named Sequence. But in the “Mort d’Artu”, after the death of Gawain, Arthur has Escalibor back again to bestow on his last knight, Girflet (Bedivere in the English “Stanzaic Morte Arthur” and in Malory), who throws it into a lake.
In the “Vulgate Merlin” it is explained that Arthur gives Escalibor to Gawain when Arthur knights Gawain. From that point on Arthur uses the sword Marmiadoise which he had won in battle from King Rion (Malory’s King Rience).
There is another early history of Arthur’s reign, known today as the “Post-Vulgate Merlin” which provides a very different account of Arthur’s early reign following the “Story of Merlin”. In this account, Arthur breaks his sword in a single-combat with King Pellinor. Whether this sword is to be understood to be the sword from the stone is not made clear. Merlin promises Arthur a new sword, and brings him to a lake, from which a hand and arm rises, the hand holding a sword. A damsel agrees to get the sword and give it to Arthur in return for an unnamed boon. Arthur agrees and the damsel seems to walk across the surface of the lake, take the sword, and return, giving it to Arthur.
Later the damsel comes to court to obtain her boon, and tells Arthur that this sword is called Escalibor. She then demands that either the head of Balain or the head of a damsel whom Balain has freed from an enchanted sword should be given to her. Balain, in anger, beheads this damsel.
See http://www.archive.org/details/merlin01robegoog , beginning at page 193. A medieval Spanish adaptation was made of this, and has been translated into modern English. The actual getting of the sword from the lake is accidentally missing from this Spanish retelling, but the material which follows it is in Chapter 22 and Chapter 23. See http://members.terracom.net/~dorothea/baladro/index.html .
A manuscript known as the Cambridge MS contains the beginning of the “Vulgate Merlin”, but then segues into the contradictory “Post-Vulgate Merlin” account. As a result, Escalibor appears first as the sword in the stone used by Arthur in his first battle but then later, in contradiction, is identified with the sword from the lake. An account related to this was Malory’s source for his earliest chapters, and so he also tells both contradictory versions. Malory also changes the tale so that Arthur and Merlin row out in a boat to get the sword and says that the damsel is the “Lady of the Lake”, though since she is killed soon after he does not intend her to be identified with the main Lady of the Lake in Arthurian tales.
According to Geoffrey of Monmouth’s “Historia Regum Britanniae”, the oldest surviving attempt at a somewhat complete account of Arthur’s reign, Arthur’s sword Caliburn was forged in Avalon. See http://www.lib.rochester.edu/CAMELOT/geofhkb.htm , Book IX, Chapter IV.
One can attempt to reconcile these three accounts if one wants, but that there was a single account behind them seems to me unlikely. The story that Arthur got his sword from a lake may have been invented to provide a prequel to the account in which Arthur orders his last knight to throw the sword into the lake, and a hand appears. Or it may be an early account. But one can’t prove that or disprove it.
A description of Arthur’s sword, presumably Caledfwlch/Caliburn/Escalibor/Excalibur, appears in the medieval Welsh tale, “The Dream of Rhonabwy”. See http://www.donaldcorrell.com/mabinogn/rhonabwy.html and search on “Cadwr”.
Etymologically, the name Kaletvwlch/Caledfwlch may be related to Caledbolg or Caladcholg, the sword of Fergus mac Leide and later Fergus mac Roich in medieval Irish tales. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caladbolg .
That there were words on both sides of the sword meaning “Take me” and “Cast me away” is an invention of the Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson.
“As long as Arthur carried Excalibur, he could not be defeated” is not in ANY medieval romance.