Legends Library

Arthurian Legends

Excalibur: The Legendary Sword of King Arthur

Excalibur was the magical sword of King Arthur, given to him by the Lady of the Lake — a symbol of rightful kingship, divine favor, and the doom of Britain.

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Of all the magical objects of the Arthurian legend, none is more famous, more symbolic, or more deeply woven into the story than Excalibur — the great sword of King Arthur, the weapon of a thousand battles, the symbol of rightful kingship, and the focus of one of the most memorable scenes in all of medieval romance. Yet Excalibur is also one of the most complex objects in the legend, for it is in fact two swords, or perhaps three, joined together by a long tradition of medieval storytelling.

The Two Swords of Arthur

The earliest Welsh sources preserve the memory of a magical sword associated with Arthur. The Welsh poem Pa Gur yv y Porthaur? mentions Arthur’s sword Caledfwlch. The Welsh Triads mention a sword of Arthur called Caledvwlch and a spear called Rhon that is one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (c. 1138), the sword is called Caliburnus in Latin, a Latinization of the Welsh Caledfwlch.

In the older Welsh and Geoffreyian tradition, the sword has a single origin: it is the sword that proves Arthur’s right to be king, drawn from a stone or from a smith’s anvil. The drawing of the sword is a test set by Merlin to mark the rightful king. The sword is not received from a lady of the lake in the early tradition. The Lady of the Lake is a later addition.

The transformation of the single sword into two — the Sword in the Stone and Excalibur proper — is the work of the later French and English traditions. By the time of the Vulgate Cycle (the early thirteenth century), the two swords are clearly distinct. The first is the sword drawn from the stone, the test of Arthur’s kingship, the symbol of his rightful rule. The second is the sword given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake, the magical weapon that lights the way in battle and that can never be broken.

The two swords are conflated in the later English tradition, especially in Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. In Malory, the sword drawn from the stone and the sword given by the Lady of the Lake are presented as the same weapon. The result is the famous image of the modern legend: the young Arthur, drawing the sword from the stone, drawing Excalibur. Yet the older distinction survives in the best texts. The Vulgate Cycle, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, and many of the medieval Welsh poems preserve the two swords as separate objects.

Excalibur in Geoffrey of Monmouth

In Geoffrey’s Historia, the sword is the great weapon of Arthur’s war against the Romans. Geoffrey describes the sword as having a blade “of the finest steel” and a hilt “adorned with the most precious stones.” The sword, he says, was forged on the Isle of Avalon, the mystical island of the Otherworld, and was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake. Geoffrey is the first author to name the sword in a form close to the modern “Excalibur.”

In Geoffrey, the sword is also closely associated with the scabbard. The scabbard, Geoffrey says, was a thing of great splendor — covered in a rich cloth of red, embroidered with pearls and gold. The scabbard had a magical property: as long as Arthur wore it, no wound could harm him. The scabbard was the true source of Arthur’s power, and the loss of the scabbard would lead to his death.

The Lady of the Lake

The Lady of the Lake — known in the Vulgate Cycle as Viviane, in Malory as Nymue, and in the later English tradition as Vivien — is one of the most important figures of the medieval legend. She is the mistress of the underwater realm, the guardian of the magical sword, and (in some versions) the lover of Merlin.

In the Vulgate Lancelot, the Lady of the Lake is the foster-mother of Lancelot du Lac. She raises the boy in her underwater palace, teaches him the arts of chivalry, and presents him to the court of Arthur. She is the great donor of the sword — a kind of fairy godmother, a queen of the Otherworld, a figure of immense magical power.

In the same cycle, she is also the lover of Merlin. She has learned the magical arts from him, and she uses her knowledge to imprison him in a cave or under a great tree, where he sleeps, prophesying, until the end of the world. The story of the Lady of the Lake and Merlin is one of the great love stories of the medieval legend — a story of love and betrayal, of magical power and human weakness.

In some versions, the Lady of the Lake is conflated with Morgan le Fay. The conflation is a feature of the later medieval and the early modern tradition. The result is a single figure — the queen of Avalon, the mistress of the Otherworld, the keeper of the sword, the lover of Merlin. The two figures, Morgan and Viviane, are often difficult to distinguish in the later texts.

The Magical Properties of Excalibur

The sword has a number of magical properties in the medieval tradition:

  • It was forged on the Isle of Avalon, in the Otherworld, by a smith of great skill. The blade was the finest steel ever made.

  • It was unbreakable. The sword could not be broken by any normal means, and it could be used to defeat any opponent.

  • It was given to Arthur by the Lady of the Lake, in recognition of his right to be king. The gift was a sign of the divine favor that was on Arthur.

  • Its scabbard was the true source of Arthur’s power. As long as Arthur wore the scabbard, no wound could harm him. He would never bleed to death in battle. The loss of the scabbard would lead to his doom.

  • The sword was returned to the lake at Arthur’s death. The famous scene in Malory — Arthur, dying, commanding Sir Bedwere to throw the sword back into the lake, and the hand rising from the water to catch it — is one of the great moments of medieval literature.

The Scabbard of Excalibur

The scabbard is, in some ways, more important than the sword itself. In the Vulgate Cycle and in Malory, the scabbard is the true source of Arthur’s power. The sword is a great weapon, but the scabbard is the magical protection that makes Arthur invincible in battle.

In the Vulgate tradition, Morgan le Fay is the one who steals the scabbard. She had been a student of Merlin, and she knew enough of the magical arts to take the scabbard from Arthur’s chamber. She gave it to her lover, in some versions, and the loss of the scabbard meant that Arthur, in the final battle of Camlann, bled to death from a wound he would have survived.

In Malory, the story is similar. Morgan steals the scabbard and gives it to her lover. Arthur, deprived of the scabbard, is mortally wounded at Camlann. The scabbard, in some versions, is thrown into a deep lake, in others it is taken to Avalon.

The symbolism of the scabbard is rich. The scabbard is the protection, the covering, the sheath. It is the source of life. The loss of the scabbard is the loss of life itself. The stealing of the scabbard by Morgan is a kind of betrayal of kinship — the sister stealing the source of her brother’s life.

The Return of the Sword

The most famous scene of the Arthurian legend is the return of Excalibur to the lake. In Malory’s telling, after the Battle of Camlann, the wounded Arthur is carried to a black barge by the three queens — Morgan, the Queen of the North Galés, and the Queen of the Waste Lands. Arthur, sensing that he is dying, commands Sir Bedwere to take Excalibur and throw it back into the nearest lake.

Bedwere, not recognizing the king at first, refuses. Arthur explains who he is, and the knight, terrified, takes the sword. He rides to the lake, but he cannot bring himself to throw the sword into the water. He returns, and Arthur, in anger, demands to know what happened. Bedwere tells him of his failure. Arthur commands him to go back and try again.

Bedwere goes back, and this time he throws the sword. The sword spins through the air and lands in the water. But as Bedwere watches, a hand rises from the water — a hand of a woman, beautiful and white — catches the sword, brandishes it in the air, and draws it under. The water closes over the hand, and the sword is gone.

Bedwere returns to Arthur, and tells him what he has seen. Arthur, in the famous closing line, says: “I have been given the help of the Lady of the Lake, and I shall go to her in the ship. I have no more to say.”

The scene is one of the most beautiful in medieval literature. The sword returns to the water, the hand of the Lady of the Lake receives it, and Arthur, the wounded king, is borne away to Avalon. The sword is restored to its source. The king is restored to the Otherworld. The legend is completed.

The Symbolism of Excalibur

The symbolism of Excalibur is rich and multi-layered. The sword is a symbol of power, of rightful kingship, of divine favor. It is the weapon of a great warrior, the tool of a great king. It is also a symbol of the Otherworld — forged in Avalon, given by a fairy, returned to the water at the end of the king’s life.

The sword in the legend belongs to a wider family of magical weapons in world mythology. The Greek Perseus had his harpe, the curved sword of the gods, given to him by Hermes. The Norse Thor had Mjölnir, the hammer that never missed its target. The Japanese Susanoo had the sword Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, drawn from the tail of the eight-headed serpent. The Egyptian Horus had the spear that destroyed the serpent of chaos. The Celtic Cú Chulainn had the Gáe Bolga, the spear of mortal wound. Excalibur belongs to this great family of magical weapons — the gift of the gods, the tool of the hero, the symbol of the right order of the world.

The Modern Retellings

The modern era has produced a long series of retellings of the legend of Excalibur. The 1963 Disney animated film The Sword in the Stone retold the young Arthur story for a new generation. The 1981 John Boorman film Excalibur, one of the great Arthurian films of the twentieth century, presented the entire legend in a single film, with the sword as a central image. The 2017 film King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, directed by Guy Ritchie, returned to the sword as the central symbol of the legend. The BBC television series Merlin (2008-2012) and the Netflix series Cursed (2020) have also returned to the sword.

The Victorian medievalism, in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and the Pre-Raphaelite paintings, made Excalibur a central image. The sword, gleaming in the moonlight, was a symbol of the divine right of kings and the moral order of the world. The 1981 Boorman film drew on this visual tradition, and the modern fantasy tradition has continued to make Excalibur a central symbol of the legend.

The sword of Arthur, in all of its many forms, has remained one of the great symbols of Western literature. It is the weapon of the king, the gift of the Lady of the Lake, the symbol of rightful rule, and the focus of one of the great scenes of medieval romance. From the moment a hand draws it in a churchyard in London to the moment another hand receives it back from the water, the sword traces the entire arc of Arthur’s reign: the recognition of the rightful king, his victories, his sins, and the silent promise that one day, when Britain needs him most, the king will return to claim it.

Last reviewed: June 2026.