King Arthur and Merlin

The story

They say the story began in the dark, with a baby carried out through a back door.

The King of Britain, Uther Pendragon, had a newborn son, and a great enemy in every valley. Merlin the wizard knew it, Merlin who saw things before they happened. One night he knocked at the back gate of the castle, took the little one wrapped in a cloth, and vanished into the mist. The baby was given to a knight called Ector, who raised him as a second son, alongside his own boy, Kay. No one knew who the child really was. He knew least of all. His name was Arthur.

The years went by. Uther died, and Britain was left without a king. The lords quarrelled, the castles shut their gates, the roads filled with thieves. Nobody had enough strength, or enough right, to rule over the others.

And so, one Christmas, whether by Merlin's doing or by a miracle (the tales disagree), something strange happened.

In front of the greatest church in London there appeared a block of marble, and on the marble an iron anvil, and in the anvil a sword, driven in halfway. On the marble, in golden letters, were the words: “Whoever pulls this sword from this stone is by right of birth King of Britain.”

The greatest lords came to try. They took off their gloves, gripped the hilt and pulled with both hands, feet braced against the stone, faces red and necks straining. The sword did not move a finger's breadth. One after another they went away grumbling that it was a joke, a spell, a trap. A New Year tournament was arranged especially, to see who might manage it in the meantime.

Ector, Kay and Arthur went to the tournament too. Arthur was a young man by now, and served as his brother's squire. When they reached the city, Kay realised he had left his sword at their lodgings.

“Run and fetch it for me,” he told Arthur.

Arthur ran. But the lodgings were locked, the landlady was at church, and the door would not open. He stood in the middle of the street, out of breath. Then he remembered the sword at the church, the one everyone stared at and nobody could touch. Surely, he thought, no one would notice if he borrowed it for his brother.

The square was empty. The cold bit at his fingers. Arthur climbed onto the marble, took hold of the hilt and pulled.

The sword came out as if from a sheath. No grinding, no effort. It was as light as a reed.

He took it to Kay, who recognised it at once, and who for a moment longed to say that he had pulled it out himself. Their father, Ector, looked Arthur in the face. “Where did you get this?” “From the stone,” said Arthur. Ector said nothing. Then, in front of the church, he put the sword back into the stone and asked the boy to draw it out again. Arthur drew it out. Kay tried; Ector tried. It would not move.

Ector knelt down. “Why are you doing this?” asked Arthur, frightened. “Because you are not my son. You are the son of the king.”

But one voice was not enough for the lords. A boy with no name, they said, could not be king. The test was repeated at Epiphany, then at Easter, then at Pentecost, in front of a crowd that grew bigger every time. Every time, the sword stayed put for the great men and slid out for the boy. In the end it was the people who shouted. They wanted a true king, one they had seen come from the stone and not from wars. The lords bowed.

Arthur was crowned. And at his side there was always Merlin, speaking quietly, telling him what to do, and often what not to do.

Now, one day, the sword from the stone broke in battle. Arthur was left with a shattered blade and an enemy in front of him. Merlin led him to a lake, silent and grey. From the middle of the water rose an arm, clothed in white silk, and in its hand was a sword. The Lady of the Lake gave it to him. Its name was Excalibur, and it shone like thirty torches. Even more precious than the blade, Malory says, was its scabbard: whoever wore it lost no blood, even when wounded.

Then Arthur did something no other king had ever done. He gathered the finest knights in Britain and seated them at a round table. It had no head and no foot. No one sat higher than anyone else, not even the king. Whoever came in came in as an equal. That was how the Knights of the Round Table began: Lancelot, Gawain, Percival, Galahad, and many more. They rode out from Camelot into the forest, into the mists, and came back with tales of dragons, of fairies, of castles that appeared and disappeared. One day, in the great hall, an object appeared covered in a white cloth, and every knight had a vision of the cup that had held the wine of the Last Supper. It was the Grail. Many of them rode off in search of it, and few came back.

Meanwhile, the kingdom began to crack. Not because of enemies outside, but because of enemies within: jealousy, suspicion, betrayal. War came from Mordred, the son born of a wrongdoing. It was fought at Camlann, by the river. Almost all the knights died. Arthur, wounded, asked Sir Bedivere to throw Excalibur into the lake. Twice Bedivere hesitated: it seemed such a waste. The third time he obeyed. An arm rose from the water, caught the sword, brandished it three times and vanished.

A black boat appeared at the shore. On board were women dressed in dark clothes, their faces veiled. Arthur was laid in it, and the women carried him away towards the island of Avalon, where wounds are healed.

No one ever saw his body. In Cornwall, in Wales, in Brittany, there are people even today who swear he is sleeping beneath a hill, and will return when Britain needs him.

On a tomb, Malory says, there are words in Latin: Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.

Here lies Arthur, the once and future king.

He had started out on an empty street in London, a boy sent to fetch a sword for his brother.