Episode 1 of the series. Young Arthur only wanted a spare sword for his brother, Sir Kay. So he pulls one from a stone in a churchyard, a sword that every lord in the land had failed to budge. When his foster father, Sir Ector, kneels before him, Arthur learns the truth about his family and must decide for himself whether to step toward the crown.
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The myth behind this episode
The best-known English telling of this legend is Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which William Caxton printed in 1485. It opens with King Uther Pendragon at war with the Duke of Tintagel, a powerful lord in Cornwall. Uther falls in love with the duke's wife, Igraine, whom Malory describes as beautiful and very wise. She sees what the king wants, warns her husband, and the two of them slip away from court. Uther falls sick with longing.
Uther's knight Sir Ulfius then meets Merlin, the wizard, who comes to him dressed as a beggar. Merlin offers a bargain. He will help the king, but the child conceived on the first night must be handed over to him to raise. Uther agrees. Merlin's magic gives the king the duke's face, and Uther spends the night with Igraine at Tintagel Castle. But the duke had already been killed in battle more than three hours earlier. Uther later marries Igraine. When she confesses that a man who looked like her husband came to her after her husband was dead, Uther comforts her by revealing that the man was him.
When the baby is born, he is wrapped in cloth of gold and handed to Merlin at a back gate. Merlin gives him to Sir Ector, a loyal knight with wide lands, whose wife nurses the child. He is baptized and named Arthur. About two years later Uther lies dying. Before his lords, he gives Arthur his blessing as heir. Yet almost nobody knows who or where this heir is, and for years the kingdom is torn apart by lords who each hope to take the throne.
On Merlin's advice, the Archbishop of Canterbury calls the lords and knights to London at Christmas, hoping for a miracle that will show the rightful king. After early Mass at the greatest church in London (Malory admits his French source does not say whether it was St Paul's), a great square stone appears in the churchyard. A steel anvil sits on top of it, and a bare sword is stuck point-down through the anvil. Letters of gold announce that whoever draws the sword out of the stone and anvil is the true-born king of all England.
Every ambitious man tries, and nobody can move it. The archbishop sets ten knights to guard the stone and announces a tournament for New Year's Day. On that day Sir Ector rides out with his son Sir Kay, newly made a knight, and young Arthur, who grew up as Kay's foster brother. Kay realizes he has left his sword at their lodging and sends Arthur back for it. The house is empty, because everyone has gone to watch the jousting. Arthur will not leave his brother without a sword, so he rides to the churchyard. The guards are gone as well, and Arthur pulls the sword out lightly and easily.
Kay recognizes the sword at once and tells his father that he must be the king. Ector takes both young men back to the church and makes Kay swear on a holy book how he got it. Kay admits that Arthur brought it to him. Arthur puts the sword back. Ector and Kay cannot pull it out, but Arthur draws it again without effort. Ector and Kay kneel, and a confused Arthur asks why. Ector tells him that he is not his real father, and Arthur grieves deeply. Ector asks for one favor: that Kay be made seneschal, the steward of the realm. Arthur promises.
The great lords are angry that a youth of no known high birth should rule them, and they keep putting off a decision. The test is repeated at Twelfth Night, at Candlemas and at Easter, and every time only Arthur can draw the sword. Meanwhile, trusted knights who once served Uther, among them Sir Ulfius, Sir Brastias and Sir Baudwin of Britain, guard Arthur day and night.
At Pentecost the common people finally cry out that Arthur is God's choice and that they will accept no other king. They ask his pardon for the delay, and he forgives them. Arthur offers the sword at the altar, is made a knight, and is crowned. He swears to rule justly, gives back lands that had been unfairly seized since Uther's death, and keeps his word to Ector by making Kay seneschal.
The sword in the stone was not Malory's invention. The episode first appears in French romance, in Robert de Boron's Merlin from around 1200, and Malory built his English book largely from French prose sources. He wrote during the Wars of the Roses, a period of civil war in England, and some readers see that background in his picture of a kingdom with no accepted ruler.
The test brings two kinds of right together. Arthur really is Uther's son, but the lords will not accept that on their own word. What settles it is a sign from heaven, followed by the voice of ordinary people. Character matters too: Arthur does not go to the stone looking for a crown. He goes because his brother needs a sword. A popular confusion is worth clearing up as well. Many retellings say the sword from the stone is Excalibur. In Malory, Arthur gets Excalibur later from the Lady of the Lake, although his text is not perfectly consistent on this point.
Malory says almost nothing about how anyone looks, so the characters' ages, faces, clothes and voices are the manga's own design. The same is true of the moment the sword comes free. Malory says only that Arthur pulled it lightly and fiercely, so any light, sound or dramatic staging was created for the manga. Arthur's feelings at the empty lodging, his ride to the churchyard and the scene around the tent are also invented.
Uther and Igraine's story is shortened into a brief opening flashback, and the marriages of Igraine's daughters (including Morgan, later known as Morgan le Fay) may be left out. Malory never says who placed the stone, so any hint that Merlin did it is the manga's interpretation. Ector's exact words in his confession, and any particular line Arthur speaks in his grief, are original to the manga, since Malory only says that Arthur mourned. The manga's focus on Arthur deciding for himself whether to step toward the crown is also an added emphasis. In Malory he quickly agrees to Ector's request. The repeated feast-day trials are compressed into a montage, the person who first shouts for Arthur in the crowd is invented, and presenting Kay's appointment as a dramatic promise kept, even as Arthur's 'first command', is the manga's own arrangement.
If you want to see this famous moment told as a story rather than a summary, Episode 1 of KING ARTHUR: Twilight of the Round Table, 'The Errand Boy Who Pulled the Sword', is on this page. Like every episode on Manga Portal, it is free to read with no sign-up. It is an easy way into the Arthurian legend, and the episodes that follow continue Arthur's story from here.
Arthur, the son of King Uther Pendragon. He was raised by Sir Ector and did not know his real parents. In Malory's version he pulls it out by chance, on an errand to fetch a sword for his foster brother, Sir Kay.
Many modern retellings say so, but in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Arthur receives Excalibur later from the Lady of the Lake. Malory's text is not fully consistent on this, which helps explain the confusion.
Malory never says. The stone simply appears in a London churchyard after Christmas Mass, as an answer to the archbishop's prayer for a sign. Because Merlin set up the gathering, many readers suspect he was involved, but the text does not confirm it.
They saw him as a youth of no known high birth and felt it was shameful to be ruled by him. They demanded the test be repeated at several feasts until Pentecost, when the common people insisted on Arthur as king.
Sir Ector, a loyal knight Merlin chose for the task. Ector's wife nursed the baby, so Arthur grew up as the brother of Ector's son, Sir Kay.
