Excalibur- Celtic ArtifactArtifact · Weapon

Caliburnus

The sword appears first under the Welsh name Caledfwlch in Culhwch ac Olwen, listed among Arthur's possessions alongside his spear and shield. Arthur carries it into the hunt for the great boar Twrch Trwyth. No origin story is given. It is simply his.

Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136, gave the sword a history. He called it Caliburnus and said it was forged on the Isle of Avalon. With it Arthur killed 470 Saxons in a single battle at the siege of Bath, cutting through them personally until the field was cleared. Geoffrey's Caliburnus had no stone and no Lady of the Lake. It was the best sword ever made, forged in a place beyond the mortal world, and that was enough. The French forms Escalibor and Excalibor descended from Geoffrey's Latin and eventually produced the name Excalibur.

The Sword in the Stone

Robert de Boron's Merlin, composed around 1200, added the origin Arthur's sword had lacked. After Uther Pendragon died and left Britain without a recognized heir, a sword appeared embedded in a stone in a London churchyard. An inscription declared that whoever drew it was the rightful king.

Knights from across the realm tried. None moved it. The young Arthur, raised by Sir Ector and unaware of his parentage, came looking for a replacement sword for his foster-brother Kay. He found the churchyard empty, pulled the blade from the stone without effort, and became king.

Later tradition, particularly the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, separated this sword from Excalibur. In those tellings, the Sword in the Stone breaks in combat against King Pellinore, and Arthur receives the true Excalibur afterward from the Lady of the Lake.

The Lady and the Scabbard

Merlin led Arthur to an enchanted lake. An arm clothed in white samite rose from the surface, holding a sword in its scabbard. The Lady of the Lake appeared and offered the weapon in exchange for a future favor. Arthur rowed out in a barge, took the sword from the hand, and carried it back to shore.

The Lady told Arthur that the scabbard was worth ten of the sword. While he wore it, he could not lose blood from any wound. The blade itself shone bright enough to blind enemies and cut through steel as through cloth. But the scabbard was the true gift.

Morgan le Fay understood this. She stole the scabbard, had a counterfeit made, and threw the genuine one into a deep lake. It sank beyond recovery. Without it, Arthur became mortal again. The wound Mordred would inflict at Camlann could now kill him.

The Return

Mortally wounded at Camlann, Arthur ordered Sir Bedivere to return Excalibur to the lake. Twice Bedivere could not bring himself to throw away such a weapon. He hid it and came back empty-handed, telling Arthur it was done. Each time Arthur knew he was lying: nothing remarkable had happened when the sword struck the water.

On the third attempt, Bedivere threw it. A hand rose from the lake, caught the blade, brandished it three times, and drew it under. The Lady had taken back her gift. Arthur was carried to Avalon in a barge attended by queens, Morgan le Fay among them, to heal or to sleep until Britain needs him again.