Arthur and Excalibur

A legend is sung, of when England was young, and knights were brave and bold. The good king had died, and no one could decide who was rightful heir to the throne. It seemed that the land would be torn by war, or saved by a miracle alone. And that miracle appeared in London town: The Sword in the Stone. 

-from The Sword in the Stone, Walt Disney Studios, 1963

Excalibur is the name of the sword that most people associate with King Arthur, but it is not the same sword which gave him the power to be king. That sword does not have a name, but it is the most important sword of the legend. 

In 1963, Disney created a cartoon about King Arthur as a young man. They didn't pay a lot of attention to the legend, though because they made the sword in the stone a sword in an anvil, and then they called it Excalibur. Here is a moment from that film:




In 1981, the film Excalibur came out, and it told the story as it appears in the written stories. The film focused a lot on Merlin more than Arthur, but it also focuses on the power of the sword Excalibur. Here is the preview of that film:




In reality, it's the scabbard that has the real power. In the reading King Arthur and His Knights, she says: "For if you should lose the scabbard, you lose the protection of the sword as well, and then the sword is no different than any other sword on the battlefield."

When Arthur dies, he asks sir Bedevere to throw the sword into the lake where it came from. Bedivere keeps the sword, and when Arthur asks him what happened, he knows he lied to him because Bedivere said that it just splashed into the lake. Arthur tells him he must throw it away into the lake. When Bedivere does this, he then tells Arthur that an arm came out of the lake and caught the sword, then took it to the bottom. Arthur then tells Bedevere that he can die in piece.