The Excalibur, true or false?!!

[Sephynos]

Can some body tell me what is the true story of the Excalibur. There a many stories about it. Is it really from a true story, a part of a story, or a total fairy tale?

[sephodwyrm]

It might be based on a historical event.
But a sword given to you by a disembodied hand in the middle of a lake in the British Isles is rather...weird...won't you think?
And that sword in the stone trick...

Lets look for another sword story.
Do you think that Attila really had the sword of Mars?

[Sephynos]

It might be based on a historical event.
But a sword given to you by a disembodied hand in the middle of a lake in the British Isles is rather...weird...won't you think?
And that sword in the stone trick...

Lets look for another sword story.
Do you think that Attila really had the sword of Mars?

But seriously, to make such a legend they must have done something with a sword that change the fate of a nation or an empire.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Christ almighty.

There's ****-tonnes of celtic legends about magical swords. But, and I can't believe I have to point this out, magical swords do not actually exist.

[sephodwyrm]

Maybe it was the only steel sword that was left behind by the Roman legions.
While everyone else had cast iron floppies, Arthur had a real Roman sword.
EEK!

[Sephynos]

So you believe Arthur did actually exist? There are not may proof for that. Proving is existence could help identify the nature of Excalibur, maybe.

[Earl of Rochester]

If there were an Arthur, then im sure he had a sword. Perhaps it was named Excalibur.

But by no means was it magic, therefore making the story nothing more than a fairy tale.

[Amorphos]

well the sword in the stone idea comes from blacksmiths literally pulling a newly formed sword from the casting stone. the Britons believed that the sword was imbued with magic possessing something of its owner and their ancestors, so a sword may well have been passed down from king to king.

but Arthur was not a king he was if anything more of a braveheart type character. weather or not he existed [in the name] someone kicked the first wave of saxons back to germany.

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

well the sword in the stone idea comes from blacksmiths literally pulling a newly formed sword from the casting stone. the Britons believed that the sword was imbued with magic possessing something of its owner and their ancestors, so a sword may well have been passed down from king to king.

It's a good idea not to state vague speculation as though it's fact - your sentence above needs a big, fat "might come from" where it says "comes from". That speculation would carry more weight if the legend of the sword in the stone had parallels/analogues in earlier Celtic legend, but it doesn't. So it's just as likely a writer of a medieval romance simply thought the idea of challenge where the rightful king had to pull a sword from a stone was cool and it had no earlier origin at all.

Besides, the guys who cast swords weren't blacksmiths - you cast bronze swords, a cast iron sword would be useless.

Not that the sword in the stone story is relevant to Excalibur, since they were two different swords. And any historical Arthur probably had a sword, but it sure as hell didn't have a medieval French name like "Excalibur".

It's a story about a magical sword, that's all.

[Rush Limbaugh]

but it sure as hell didn't have a medieval French name like "Excalibur".

The original didnt have any knight with a french name like Lancelot either LOL.
Gawain was the original greatest knight in the Welsh version. And Im sure the sword wasnt called Excalibur in the Welsh version either. All this was added later when the French took over the legend. I think it was called Caledfwlch.

Not that the sword in the stone story is relevant to Excalibur, since they were two different swords

I think it was the same sword but two different stories.

In surviving accounts of Arthur, there are two originally separate legends about the sword's origin. The first is the "Sword in the Stone" legend, originally appearing in Robert de Boron's poem Merlin, in which Excalibur can only be drawn from the stone by Arthur, the rightful king. The second comes from the later Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, which was taken up by Sir Thomas Malory. Here, Arthur receives Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake after breaking his first sword, called Caliburn, in a fight with King Pellinore. The Lady of the Lake calls the sword "Excalibur, that is as to say as Cut-steel," and Arthur takes it from a hand rising out of the lake.

As Arthur lay dying, he tells a reluctant Sir Bedivere (Sir Griflet in some versions) to return the sword to the lake by throwing it into the water. Bedivere thinks the sword too precious to throw away, so twice only pretends to do so. Each time, Arthur asks him to describe what he saw. When Bedivere tells him the sword simply vanished underwater, Arthur scolds him harshly. Finally, Bedivere throws Excalibur into the lake. Before the sword strikes the water's surface, the hand reaches up to grasp it and pull it under. Arthur leaves on a death barge with the three queens to Avalon, where as his legend says, he will one day return to save Britain from a threat. Malory records both versions of the legend in his Le Morte d'Arthur, and confusingly calls both swords Excalibur. The film Excalibur attempts to rectify this by having the Lady of the Lake only repair the sword after it is broken.

Also i think Excalibur is taken from the latin Ex calce liberatus, "liberated from the stone"

[Amorphos]

That speculation would carry more weight if the legend of the sword in the stone had parallels/analogues in earlier Celtic legend, but it doesn’t.

probably true, i just saw some archiologist say it on time team

remember that thousands of celtic legends were lost when the romans killed off the druids [in the main] so one can never exacty say much about parallels, but we can see ancient techniques and determine where ideas ‘may’ have come from. it probably was bronze swords in the origin of the idea.

Excalibur etc is an embellishment of perhaps many stories woven into one, some of which may well have still been passed on orally at the time.

[Rex Invictus]

I saw a Documentary on german TV, indem they accualy "proved?" the existence of Arthur. They even showed his grave, somwhere in Croatia i think.
And the story went like this: Arthur or Arthurius or somthing, was a roman general send in to war with sarmatians. At some point he was in some sacret place of them with a sword in the ground, and no one could ever pull the sword out, he tryed and he made it, and after that point the best sarmatian warriors (leaders?) sweard an oath to him and became his guardians.
They have managed to find out that Arthur was send to Britania after that, and when he retired, he went to live in a region where many succesful roman generals (heroes) lived old (in todays Croatia i think).

[ThiudareiksGunthigg]

I saw a Documentary on german TV, indem they accualy "proved?" the existence of Arthur. They even showed his grave, somwhere in Croatia i think.
And the story went like this: Arthur or Arthurius or somthing, was a roman general send in to war with sarmatians. At some point he was in some sacret place of them with a sword in the ground, and no one could ever pull the sword out, he tryed and he made it, and after that point the best sarmatian warriors (leaders?) sweard an oath to him and became his guardians.
They have managed to find out that Arthur was send to Britania after that, and when he retired, he went to live in a region where many succesful roman generals (heroes) lived old (in todays Croatia i think).

That's certainly one theory, and it's one that's been given a boost by the fact that bloody awful King Arthur movie had a sequence at the beginning that said it was now considered "fact" - thank you Hollywood for misleading people with junk, fantasy "history" yet again.

Unfortunately that theory isn't actually highly regarded by scholars and is based on some extremely dubious ideas and wild leaps of logic. It has been proposed by Linda Malcor and C. Scott Littleton and it's based largely on some parallels between the later Arthurian legends and some Sarmatian legends. Since some Sarmatian units were stationed in Britannia, Malcor argues that these legends survived in Britain and gave rise to the Arthur stories.

There are several problems with this. Firstly, parallels are always a highly dubious basis for an assumption of derivation. They can be an indication that one thing is derived from another, but there are all kinds of other reasons for parallels. Stories can travel vast distances and be adopted by cultures that have no connection with each other at all. Stories can also develop in parallel despite having no connection at all - basic themes like "the hidden heir" or "the magical artefact that signifies kingship" come up in lots of stories, this doesn't mean they are connected (it just means they are being told by humans).

Some of Malcor's other arguments are pretty dubious. Yes, the Sarmatians were good cavalrymen, but no, that isn't the reason Arthur's men were depicted as knights. They were depicted as knights only in the medieval versions - the Middle Ages being a period when any King and his retinue were armoured cavalrymen. That doesn't mean there is any connection in that to the origins of the legend.

Bascially, there are as many theories about "who", "where" and "when" Arthur was as there are theorists and they range from the sober and reasonable to the totally whacko. Malcor's one is not totally whacko, but it's got some serious problems.

[Sephynos]

Made with the origin of some name they can find some answers. What's the origin of ''Merlin'' name, and Pandragon.

[Amorphos]

well merlin does derive from a welsh name i think it is myrddin, there is an old book of his life called the ‘vita merlini’ i think it was from 10th/11th century. pendragon i think was later. the celts gave great importance to swords hence the ceremonies of throwing them into a lake or river as an offering - there is a temple near me called weylands smithy [the saxon name of it] that is devoted to the magical arts of the smith and its god.


there are thousands if ideas about arthur etc, if anyone wants a good llok then start here:

http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/v...rnhomepage.htm

and

http://www.druidry.org/board/viewtopic.php?t=10890

[Amorphos]

oops double post

[TestudoAubreii]

Greetings,

I thought I'd chime in on this one. I think Dennis said it best when he said "You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
Sorry, I couldn't help it. I am just suprised that the thread made this far without a Python reference.
I think that the story is probably like mostly every other magical or mythical story; perhaps it has some basis of truth, meaning that it might have been based on some one who might have actually lived and the story expanded when the bard got bored with the original. Just my opinion.

morrisonicus

[Sephynos]

What a crazy story! I guest we'll never know the truth.

[Vladimir Lenin]

Arturus was the son of a local Client King. Arturus eventually got claim over the kingdom of his Father.


His most famous battle, Battle of Mons Badonicus, which occured in 516 A.D. it is one of his greatest victories, if not the greatest, and hurt the power of the Saxons in Britain.

The Battle of Camlann, was the end of Arturus' reign, and the end of Arturus' life. It is dated at 537 A.D.

He is said to be buried in Avalon.

My sources are some 10th Century texts written by Welsh Monks.

[Eric]

Maybe the English general/king/whatever who became the basis for the Arthurian myth did have a sword called Excalibur. Obviously wasn't magic, but perhaps it was exceptionally high-quality. And naming swords in those times really wasn't all that uncommon, so there probably was an Excalibur. Just a well-forged steel blade though, nuttin' magic about it.