Excalibur and the Invention of the King
I’m amazed that the great historian scholar of mythology Jorge Luis Borges never wrote a known essay or story devoted to Excalibur, the legendary sword of King Arthur. Yet the myth seems almost designed for his imagination. Borges’ mother was from England and so he was deeply educated in the literature and oral traditions of Britannica mythology - repeatedly incorporating enchanted objects, contradictory histories, secret destinies, heroic violence and the uneasy boundary between myth and reality into his stories. Excalibur and the legend of King Arthur belongs naturally among such subjects.
There are, famously, two principal accounts of Excalibur. In one tradition, Arthur proves his royal blood by drawing a sword from a stone. In another, he receives Excalibur from the mysterious Lady of the Lake. The two stories are often treated as separate episodes or later variations. Borges, who delighted in rival versions of the same event, might have regarded their contradiction as the true heart of the legend.
The stone belongs to the fixed world. It suggests permanence, law, ancestry and the unalterable order of history. The lake belongs to uncertainty. Its depths conceal another realm, and its surface offers only reflections. One sword emerges from what cannot move; the other from what never stops moving. Between stone and water stands Arthur, a mortal man given authority by two opposing forms of eternity.
The usual interpretation is that Excalibur confirms Arthur’s legitimate claim to the throne. But perhaps the sword does something more unsettling. Before the miracle, Arthur is merely a boy among other boys. After it, every detail of his earlier life is revised. His obscurity becomes concealment, his ignorance becomes innocence, and his survival becomes evidence of providence. The sword does not uncover a destiny that has always existed. It imposes a pattern upon the past.
Literature often works in the same way. A final sentence can change the meaning of an entire story. A death can transform failure into sacrifice. A revelation can turn coincidence into design. Excalibur performs this literary operation upon Arthur. It edits him into kingship.
This interpretation also changes the relationship between the king and the weapon. Arthur appears to possess Excalibur, but he may instead be possessed by the story the sword creates. Once chosen, he must become the ruler the miracle has promised. He must build Camelot, establish justice and gather the Round Table because the symbol in his hand demands a kingdom worthy of it. His freedom ends at the precise moment his destiny begins.
The legend contains an even stranger object: Excalibur’s scabbard. The sword wins battles, but the scabbard prevents its wearer from bleeding. Arthur prizes the brilliant weapon and loses the quieter source of protection. Borges might have recognised in this detail a parable of human vanity. We admire the object that grants glory and neglect the object that preserves life.
At the end of the Arthurian story, Excalibur is returned to the lake. A hand rises from the water, receives the sword and disappears beneath the surface. Camelot falls, the knights die, and Arthur is carried away toward an uncertain fate. The kingdom proves temporary, but the sword escapes history.
Perhaps this is the final paradox of Excalibur. It creates the king, governs his life and survives his ruin. Arthur is remembered because he carried the sword, yet the sword requires Arthur in order to enter human memory. Each gives reality to the other. The man becomes a myth through the weapon, and the weapon becomes eternal through the man.
For Borges, this mutual invention might have been the deepest meaning of the legend. Excalibur is not merely the sword of the rightful king. It is the story that persuades the king, the kingdom and every later reader that destiny had been waiting all along.
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