King Arthur and Excalibur

The Beginning

Once upon a time in a land far away called Camelot there lived a young boy named Arthur. Now Arthur thought that he had a rather uneventful life because all he did was go to school and work on his family’s farm. All his life Arthur yearned for adventure and could be found by his parents and brother outside sword fighting with a scarecrow or a tree. This eventually consumed Arthur because he started to have dreams of himself being the ruler of Camelot. Unbeknownst to him his good Merlin was the one giving him these dreams. Merlin was a wizard who had served Arthur’s real father, Uther Pendragon, and swore to look out for this boy and protect him at all costs. Merlin had revealed that he was a wizard when Arthur was around ten and told him all about the journey he had been on as a young wizard.

Eventually as the years passed, Arthur grew into a great young man. One day when Merlin and Arthur were hanging out Merlin told Arthur who he really was and that his family had been killed by the evil King Ursher who ruled Camelot. Arthur wanted to get revenge right away, but Merlin told him of an ancient sword that the Lady of the Lake held that would defeat any opponent put in front of it. Merlin told Arthur, "If you can retrieve the sword held by the Lady of The Lake you will be the heir to the throne." After they were done discussing how Arthur could reclaim his throne, Arthur departed from Merlin and told him that he was going to get back his family castle and restore honor to Camelot.

Retrieving the Sword

After a few days of traveling Arthur finally arrived at the woods that held the lake. Once Arthur had come upon the lake that Merlin told him about, he started into the water but all of a sudden just stopped cold in his tracks. A shiver went down his back and he thought, “I don’t feel alone here,” and he was correct. Lurking in the trees and the lake were the minions of the Lady of the Lake. They were tall, lanky and blue and not human by any means. They had beady yellow eyes and razor-sharp teeth, and their talons looked like they could slice through human flesh with ease. Arthur instantly drew his sword, that Merlin had given him, and got into his battle stance. While he had never fought anyone except for trees and other people with wooden swords his mind felt sharp. As the creatures started to run at him, he got ready for the fight of his life and wondered if he was going to survive. As this was going through his mind, he sensed a creature behind him and turned around, and with one swipe of his sword killed one of the minions. After the minions had seen their friend die, they attacked with rage. Arthur was swinging his sword all around his body and the beasts were going down left and right. He was parrying and doing moves he had only heard about, but it felt so fluid, so Arthur went with it. Soon, Arthur realized that there were only a couple of these beasts left and yelled, “You are overmatched! Leave now and never return and I shall spare your life!” Somehow, they understood him and scattered never to be seen again. Arthur then turned around, put his sword back into its sheath, and proceeded to walk deeper into the water. Soon, he realized that the water was chest high. As he continued to walk into the lake, all of a sudden, a beam of light hit the water three feet front of him. Arthur quickly got his sword back out and wondered what was next, when all of a sudden, he saw a hand reach out of the water with a sword. A voice came from nowhere and said, “You are indeed worthy of Excalibur, brave Arthur. Go now, take the sword, and leave and no harm shall befall you.” Arthur reached out and grabbed the sword because he wanted to get back home as fast as possible. Arthur then started the long trek back to Camelot.

The Aftermath

Once Arthur made his way into Camelot with the sword, people on the streets stopped and stared at him. He felt all the eyes were on him and everything just seemed to go in slow motion as he made his way into the castle. As he entered the castle and was approaching the king, he took out Excalibur and yelled, “My name is Arthur Pendragon, the rightful heir to this kingdom. I hold in my right hand Excalibur. I retrieved it from the Lady of the Lake and her minions. Who dares to challenge my claim to the throne?!” The king at the time, Ursher, was known as a vile and antagonistic king who was cruel and unjust. The people of Camelot were not fond of him and had longed for a king like Uther Pendragon to take back the throne. Ursher instantly challenged Arthur’s claim to the throne and stated that they should have a fight in the center of town for all to see and the winner would get to be king. Arthur felt that this was not right but was not about to kill the king in cold blood, so agreed to the match. It seemed that all the people of Camelot had come out for this match; they were interested in seeing who this young man was who challenged Ursher. As Arthur and Ursher started to fight the crowd went wild, because they saw that a Pendragon had come back to restore peace to an unjust society. Anxiousness and dread flowed through the audience as they saw that Arthur might lose the match. Arthur and Ursher were very well matched but then, all of a sudden, Arthur found a renewed strength that he had not felt before. He started to fight like a man possessed and soon was able to injure Ursher enough that he was done with the fight. As Arthur looked at the helpless king, he was filled with rage and revenge for his murdered family. When Arthur went to finish off the vile king, he heard the voice of his father, Uther, saying that where was no need for more bloodshed. Arthur put his sword away and made Ursher promise to never come back or else he would die. Ursher agreed and proceeded to give the crown the Arthur to begin a new reign.

Author's note:

For this story I wanted to just jump right into when he was a teenage to a young adult because I felt that just talking about his childhood would have been rather boring. I took some of what I have from the bibliography I have listed. I also drew upon what I had read in the past or watched to come up with this story. I felt that the Lady of the Lake would not just have given him Excalibur so I wanted to add the part that she had some minions that would test him to make sure that he was truly worthy of getting the sword. Also, in most stories he has to take a boat out to get the sword but I found it better to have him walk into the water. It makes the story more grounded in reality. Furthermore he gets back to Camelot, it isn’t really explained about how he all of a sudden becomes king, so I wanted to make it more eventful and memorable. The name of Ursher I used did in fact come from Usher the R&B singer. Having Arthur fight the evil king and then showing mercy at such a young age would give the crowd and reader a good sense of the type of man that he would become. It also shows a different trait of a king to not kill a villain who killed his family.

Bibliography.

Clay, Beatrice. Stories From Le Morte D’ Arthur and the Mabinogion.

Avalon King Arthur Finding Excalibur,

The Lady of the Lake gives Excalibur to King Arthur. (1880)

Alfred Kappes. Source: Wikicommons