Storytelling: Of All Things (Week 11)

Illustration by Howard Pyle

Arthur watched as his foster brother prepared for the tournament.  His foster father was fussing with his armor.  Arthur shook his head and continued to saddle up the horses.  This was the second tournament this year, and the year was only three months in.  It was tiring work, but he enjoyed it.  He never actually participated himself, but he helped Kay practice some times.  He wasn’t particularly good yet, but he was slowly getting better at it. 

“Arthur!”  His head snapped up from his work and looked toward the voice that had called him.

“Do you need help with something Kay?”  His foster brother walked towards him quickly.  With all the armor in place, he was a bit clumsy as well.  When he finally stopped in front of him, he struggled to stand up straight under the weight of the armor. 

“I need a sword.”

“A sword?”

“A sword.”

“Okay, but why?  Didn’t you just have one?”

“Well, yes.  But it broke.  Don’t we have a back-up?”

“That was the back-up.  You lost the other on the way here.”

“What?  What kind of squire only has one back-up sword?”

“That’s all your father told me to bring.  Can we go buy one quickly?  Surely one of the vendors have something sufficient.”

“No, none of the vendors here will do.  They charge outrageous prices for shoddy craftsmanship.  From what I saw this morning, the vendor next to the inn we are staying at has a decent select.  Can you run down there before the tournament starts?”

Arthur looked at Kay incredulously.  The inn was nearly a thirty minute trek from the tournament.  They didn’t have that kind of time.  The tournament was meant to start soon.  Kay looked at him impatiently.

“Well?”  Arthur shook his head at his foster brother.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

With that Arthur took off in the direction of the inn.  Ten minutes into the trip, he came across the church.  It wasn’t much of a church really.  It was a small building with a caved in roof.  There was a small cemetery situated next to it.  Most of the grave stones were crumbling.  Only a few stones were still fully standing.  In fact, one of them was an actual stone rather than a grave marker.  Of all the things that could have possibly caught his attention, it was this little, dilapidated church. 

He stopped for a second before moving closer.  It wasn’t until he stood right in front of the church that he really took notice of the stone.  Though there was not much sunlight, a few small beams caught on something and cast a glint his way.  He walked towards it until he was standing right next to it.  With his right hand, he reached out towards it.  Once his hand was wrapped around whatever was sticking out of the stone, he realized what it was.  It was dirty, but it was unmistakably the hilt of a sword.  Of all things, he had found a sword stuck inside of a stone. 

Author's Note:

I chose to write about this particular story of King Arthur because it is one of the ones that I am the least familiar with and I wanted to explore it some.  I took a class on Arthurian legends, so this was a unit I was really eager to read and work on.  I didn't change much, but I did go farther in depth with the story.  I also left off with Arthur finding the stone because I felt like everyone knows the rest of the story, and I felt like it would make an interesting cliffhanger.

The Drawing of the Sword

King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table by Andrew Lang, illustrated by H. J. Ford (1902).