The Sword in the Stone
Sir Kay has left his sword at home, and his young brother Arthur is determined to find him a worthy blade for the New Year’s Day joust.
before 1470
Sir Kay has left his sword at home, and his young brother Arthur is determined to find him a worthy blade for the New Year’s Day joust.
before 1470
Sir Kay has no sword for the New Year’s Day joust, but his younger brother Arthur knows that on Christmas Day, within the Great Church of London, a marvellous sword was found struck deep through an anvil into the stone beneath. He decides Kay must have it, unaware of the prophecy written in gold about the sword: Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.
SIR Arthur alit* and tied his horse to the stile, and so he went to the tent, and found no knights there, for they were at jousting; and so he handled the sword by the handles, and lightly and fiercely pulled it out of the stone, and took his horse and rode his way until he came to his brother Sir Kay, and delivered him the sword. And as soon as Sir Kay saw the sword, he wist* well it was the sword of the stone, and so he rode to his father Sir Ector, and said: “Sir, lo here is the sword of the stone, wherefore I must be king of this land.” When Sir Ector beheld the sword, he returned again and came to the church, and there they alit all three, and went into the church.* And anon he made Sir Kay to swear upon a book how he came to that sword.
“Sir,” said Sir Kay, “by my brother Arthur, for he brought it to me.”
“How gat* ye this sword?” said Sir Ector to Arthur.*
“Sir, I will tell you.
Alighted.
Knew.
Malory is impishly vague about which church this was, saying only that it happened “in the greatest church of London, whether it were Paul’s or not the French book maketh no mention”. St Paul’s was the Cathedral of the See of London, though the church as we know it today is not the church that Malory knew; that was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. Another candidate for ‘the greatest church in London’ might be the Collegiate Abbey of St Peter in Westminster, though not a cathedral in Malory’s time: Henry VIII created the See of Westminster in 1540 but the See was abolished ten years later, and the Abbey reverted to the See of London; its cathedral status was revoked in 1556. At the time of its reversion, Abbey lands were transferred to fund repairs to St Paul’s, and it was said that the Church was ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’.
Got, obtained.
‘This sword’ is Excalibur. According to Roger of Hoveden (?-?1202), Richard I ‘the Lionheart’ (r. 1189-1199) possessed a sword which he claimed was Excalibur itself, but he gave it to Tancred, King of Sicily, in an exchange of gifts during the Crusades. “On the other hand,” says Roger “the king of England gave to king Tancred that most excellent sword which the Britons called ‘Caliburn’, and which had been the sword of Arthur, once the valiant king of England.”
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
There was a joust on New Year’s Day. Sir Kay needed a sword for it. His brother Arthur went to get one.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IBring. IITake part. IIIWithout.