The Sword in the Anvil and the Sword in the Floating Stone or How a Lot of Silliness Goes into the Making of a Great Story

[For my older pieces on Arthur's sword, found in my book THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON, see

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/07/king-arthurs-sword-excalibur-lightning.html and https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-casting-of-excalibur-into-lake.html.]

The King offering the sword on the altar. The Coronation Book of Charles V, King of France. 1365-1380. Source: Cotton Tiberius B. VIII, f.49

For quite a few years now, on and off, I've fooled around with tracing the possible influences that went into the forging of the Sword in the Stone story.  I always come up against one indisputable fact: the sword is never in a stone.  At the beginning of Arthur's rule, it is in an anvil.  The anvil is atop a stone.  Near the end of his life, it is merely a coronation sword placed atop an altar for purposes of consecration.  I will treat of the second example first.

In THE QUEST FOR THE HOLY GRAIL, the sword is supposedly stuck into a red marble slab which miraculously float on the river.  This one is simple.  We have several floating altars in medieval saints' lives.  One occurs in the Life of St. Carantoc/Carranog, where we are told Arthur tries to commandeer it as a table.  We also know that in medieval coronation ceremonies, the king's sword was often laid upon the altar to bless it (see https://books.google.com/books?id=m6nsnzLRPlIC&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=in+a+medieval+coronation+ceremony,+a+sword+was+placed+upon+the+altar+to+be+consecrated&source=bl&ots=Pc5Wv8hA4u&sig=ACfU3U0UUf03LD9OEFMP4wG2oRIzB1bqyA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4hcOJsdjkAhUKr54KHbdMCgUQ6AEwDnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=in%20a%20medieval%20coronation%20ceremony%2C%20a%20sword%20was%20placed%20upon%20the%20altar%20to%20be%20consecrated&f=false).  So there is no mystery about the floating stone and sword in the context of Galahad's selection as the purest knight and the chosen winner of the Holy Grail.  He is thus marked out as the sacred king, whereas Arthur belonged to the profane.

In Robert de Boron's MERLIN, we are told the following:

"They led him [Arthur] to the altar, and he laid the sword [that he had drawn from the anvil on several occasions] upon it."

Needless to say, none of that has anything whatsoever to do with ancient rituals attached to various Roman or pre-Roman period peoples from Central Asia.  Herodotus has the Scythians set up a sword atop a vast pile of brushwood.  Ammianus tells us the Alans put a sword in the ground.  And that is all.  There is no mention of an anvil or a stone.  The parallel simply is not there. [1] The author of the QUEST was merely making use of materials and practices well-known to him from his own historical period. As any good story-teller would do!

And we must always remember that the Old French romance author probably was reading from a Latin source.  In Latin, the word "in" means not only 'in' or 'within', but 'on' or 'upon.'  So it would have been a very easy matter, either intentionally or accidentally, to read Latin "in" as meaning the sword was in/within the stone, rather than merely on/upon the stone.  The latter, of course, was actually the case.  

As for the sword in the anvil, well, that's a bit trickier to untangle.  The episode originates with Robert de Boron, who put it down in his MERLIN romance.  

Robert says that Uther was ill, carried in a litter, defeated the Saxons, etc., then was returned to 'Logres' (England).  This fits the account found in Geoffrey of Monmouth, where Uther fights the Saxons in the territory of Loth of Lodonesia (the kingdom of the Votadini) and then returns to St. Albans.  We can ignore that fact that 'Albans' here is most likely an error for Albany or Scotland.  The important thing to consider is that, so far as Robert de Boron is concerned, Uther had returned to St. Albans.

More importantly, however, is the involvement of Dubricius (Welsh Dyfrig) in the crowning of Arthur.  This is found in Geoffrey of Monmouth.  In Robert de Boron, Dubricius is merely referred to as the Archbishop.

Dubricius was supposedly the archbishop of the City of the Legions.  However, his roots, and all his legitimate associations, are with the small Welsh kingdom of Ergyng (see the entry for Dyfrig at https://www.library.wales/fileadmin/fileadmin/docs_gwefan/casgliadau/Drych_Digidol/Deunydd_print/Welsh_Classical_Dictionary/05_D-E-F.pdf).  Why is this significant?

Ergyng is named for the Romano-British town of Ariconium, a place known as one of the most important iron-producing centers in all of Britain.

To quote from Pastscape (https://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=111914):

"The whole area has traces of iron workings. Vague discolorations visible from the air indicate ground disturbed by occupation or iron-working but there has been no hint so far of substantial buildings, streets or defences (4). Excavations in 1922 (2) on Cinder Hill (trial trenching 'A' - 'F' on illustration card) revealed an oblong building (SO 6465 2403 'G'- sited from map) with the remains of a second nearby. In 1963 a Romano British iron working site was excavated (SO 6444244 'H' - sited from plan) to the north of the area."

In my opinion, Robert de Boron or his source(s) had knowledge of Archbishop Dubricius's connection with iron-rich Ergyng.  This naturally led to the placement of the sword there.  Furthermore, the presence of the anvil tells us in no uncertain terms that the author was proclaiming that the sword had made made in the location specified, i.e. in Ergyng. In late Welsh tradition, Arthur and his family are strongly linked to Ergyng.  He has sons placed there (in reality personified place-names), and his mother Eigr is made a daughter of Anblaud, King of Ergyng.  There is even a Constantine found in Ergyng who could be brought into connection with Arthur's pedigree, as it is designed by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Now, granted, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth the actual coronation of Arthur took place at Silchester (which, as I've shown before, he confused with the Welsh Kelliwig; Silchester's/Calleva Atrebatum's Bishop Mauganius = St. Mawgan, whose Cornish place-names are near Castle Killibury and Callywith hard by Castle Canyke).  But the Archbishop who proceeds over the coronation ceremony is still Dubricius of Ergyng.

Still, we would left with trying to account for where the actual sword in the anvil motif came from.  Claiming it belonged to the iron-producing region of Ercyng seems insufficient.

One corollary with Geoffrey of Monmouth's story is missing: the burial of Uther Pendragon.  Robert de Boron simply says that he died, leaving the land without an heir. But Geoffrey concludes by saying that Uther's body was taken to the monastery of Ambrius, where it was buried inside the Giants' Ring.

This is a vitally important distinction that has been overlooked by everyone - the present author included.  

Long ago I proposed a connection between the Sword in the Stone motif and Geoffrey of Monmouth's claim that the Saxons had drawn their knives from their heels.  Here is a selection from my article on that topic:

***

In the HISTORIA BRITTONUM (Chapters 45-46), we are told of the treachery the Saxons committed against the Britons during  a peace meeting.  The Saxons hide their daggers, i.e. saxes, under their feet in their shoes.  When Hengist tells his men to draw their "saxas", they do so, setting upon their unsuspecting victims.  

The version in the HB is written thusly:

And here is Geoffrey of Monmouth's rendition:

We notice immediately that Geoffrey of Monmouth has caligas for shoes/boots, a word related to the Latin word for heel:

calx, calcis  N  C     3 1  C   [XXXBO]  

heel; spur; pad (dog); forefeet; kick (Roman toe was unprotected); butt (beam);

calceus, calcei  N  M     2 1  M   [XXXCO]  

shoe; soft shoe, slipper; [~ mullei/patricii => red shoe of ex-curule senator];

In addition, he locates the "Treachery of the Long-Knives" at the site of the future STONEHENGE.  

At this point I would call attention to the so-called Heel Stone at Stonehenge.  From Aubrey Burl's "John Aubrey & Stone Circles: Britain's First Archaeologist From Avebury to Stonehenge":

The following diagram shows the location of Stone 14:

Gerald Hawkins and others describe the folktale associated with Stone 14.

Stone 14 (photo courtesy http://www.stonesofstonehenge.org.uk/2014/05/stone-14.html)

Heel Mark in Stone 14

As it is readily available online, I will allow my readers to search for it themselves, should they care to do so.  Some theorists have tried to make the case of Stone 14 being named the Heel Stone only after the real name for the current Heel Stone was misunderstood.  The current Heel Stone, which marks the entrance to the Avenue and upon which the Summer Solstice sunrise aligns itself to the center of the circle, could owe its name to the Welsh (or, perhaps, Cornish) word for the sun. 

Here is the GPC listing for the word haul, 'sun':

haul 

[H. Grn. heuul, gl. sol, Crn. C. houl, H. Lyd. houl, Llyd. Diw. heol: < Brth. *sāu̯l-; Llad. sōl] 

eg.b. (un. bach. heulyn, b. heulen) ll. heuliau, -oedd.

Y corff nefol y teithia’r ddaear o’i gwmpas, gan dderbyn gwres a goleuni oddi wrtho, y cyfryw wres a goleuni, huan, heulwen, hefyd yn ffig.:

sun, sunlight, also fig. 

10g. DGVB 141, di houl, gl. in aduerso.

13g. C 296-8, Dydav yr heul, or duyrein ir goglet.

id. 3810-11, Aun[a]eth tuim ac oer. a. heul a lloere.

14g. T 3719-20, Owres heul. Ac oeruel lloer.

id. 4026, heul haf ae rywres.

1346 LlA 20, Gloewach oed seithweith nor heul.

id. 91.

14g. GDG 340, Yno ’dd oedd, haul Wynedd yw.

id. 416, Hoywliw ddeurudd haul ddwyrain.

c. 1400 R 11557-8, a syr asygneu aheul a luna.

id. 14186-7, Pony welwch chwir heul yn hwylaw r awyr.

c. 1400 RB ii. 337, ac y bu diffyc ar yr heul.

Another possible Welsh origin for the name 'Heel' in this context is heol, hewl, "street, road, way, path, passage".  If this is the correct etymology, then clearly the word refers to the Avenue of Stonehenge.  

In either case, what matters to us right now is the word "heel."  What I am proposing, ever so tentatively, is that the story of the Saxons hiding their knives or saxes under their feet, i.e. under their heels, is a misinterpretation of the Heel Stone.  Further confusion enters the picture when we remember that the name Saxon derives from the name of their knife, the seax, and in Latin the word for stone is saxum, saxi!  In fact, both seax and saxum are generally derived from the same Indo-European root meaning 'to cut (see https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/lex/master/1671).' So what we have in this story is warriors drawing their long knives from the Heel Stone at Stonehenge.  

Arthur draws the sword from the stone - and all except for the last time, puts it back (!) - on four special Christian holy days:

Christmas Eve (near midwinter)

Candlemas (a substitute for the Celtic Imbolc; note that the star Arcturus or "bear-guard" rising in the east at this time marks the beginning of Spring, according to The Book of the Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays by famed archaeoastronomer, Anthony F. Aveni)

Easter (a substitute for Beltine or the Spring Equinox)

Pentecost (near midsummer)

"Arcturus, an orange-giant star about 37 light-years away in Boötes, the Herdsman, is the fourth brightest in the night sky. We can usually start to spot it in the east in mid-February, when it lags a bit behind Regulus, one of the other corners of the Spring Triangle. That bright, red-orange color is gorgeous and striking against the still bare late-winter branches. Arcturus culminates, reaching its highest point for the night, at 9:00 p.m. local time in mid-June, not long before the summer solstice. It disappears from nights in October." - https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/all-season-triangle-lights-late-spring-nights/

Thus the pulling out and replacing of the sword at the four times of the sacred year clearly marks solar stations.  And this kind of calculation could only happen at a place like Stonehenge.  That Arthur kept the sword after extracting it at Penecost heralds him as the Midsummer King.

Could Arthur's foster-father in Robert de Boron - Antor, an otherwise unidentifiable figure - represent the star Antares?  On this star from https://earthsky.org/sky-archive/moon-and-star-antares/:

"In our Northern Hemisphere, Antares is considered a summertime star, because it’s during the summer months that this star shines in the evening sky. By October, this star appears only briefly after sunset, and follows the sun beneath the horizon shortly thereafter. By November, Antares has disappeared from the nighttime sky.

Every year, the sun and Antares are in conjunction on or near December 1. In other words, that’s when Antares is most directly behind the sun each year, as seen from our earthly vantage point. Then, the sun and Antares rise and set pretty much in unison, so that Antares is lost in the light of the sun throughout late November and early December. However, by mid to late January, the sun drifts far enough east of Antares so that this star appears above the southeast horizon before sunrise. What’s really happening, of course, is that Earth has moved far enough along in its orbit so that Antares appears to the west of the sun, instead of behind it."

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the long knives were drawn from the heels of the Saxons on the first day of May, i.e. on Celtic Beltaine.  

We can observe the solar alignments on the following diagram (courtesy http://www.wwu.edu/planetarium/a101/stonehenge.shtml):

So what exactly is happening with the Sword in the Anvil/Stone story?  Well, it is obvious that the anvil and/or stone is a sighting stone at Stonehenge.  Quite possibly the Heel Stone.  As for the sword itself, we must ask ourselves what, on a seasonal basis, was seen to pierce the stone, be drawn out and then replaced.  In other words, in the context of Stonehenge, what did Arthur's sword symbolize?

As I interpret this, there are just three possibilities.  One, the sword could be, essentially, the gnomon of a sundial (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomon).  Inserted into the stone at certain times of the year, it would show where the sun was at those times.  Once removed, the special day thus marked out would be past.  

Second, the sword represented the rays of the sun on each of the holy days when the sightings were taken.  These rays metaphorically "pierced" the stone until the sun's annual motion carried them to a different position relative to the stone and whatever alignment was being honored.  

I think given how common sacred sun-kings were to the ancient world, it makes the most sense to see Arthur here as the solar hero whose rays were envisioned as a magical sword.  As he and he alone was identified with the sun god, no one else could wield the weapon.  

However, I've mentioned above how the words for Saxon and their long knife the sax could easily have been confused for the Latin word for stone.  What if the Sword in the Stone IS the Heel Stone?  In other words, the stone (saxum) and the sword (seax) that is drawn from it are one and the same?  Nothing is actually being inserted and withdrawn to mark holy days on the Stonehenge astronomical calculator.  Instead, the sun marks those days on the stone that was mistakenly identified as a sword.  

The whole story began with Geoffrey of Monmouth, who associated the saxes of the Saxons with the Heel Stone of Stonehenge doubtless precisely because he had wrongly linked the name of the Saxon weapon with the Latin word for stone.  From there it was a simple matter to confuse the Heel Stone and the sword and create the Sword in the Anvil/Stone that marked out the sacred solar year. 

In going with the idea of a sword in a stone, might we fancifully identify the heel mark in Stone 14 as the place where the sword was thought to have been inserted and then drawn forth?

I think this is the most logical conclusion I can arrive at concerning the Sword in the Stone story.

   

***

[1]

SCYTHIANS AND THE SWORD OF MARS

Dr. Linda Malcor has long sought to associate the Scythian Sword of Area of Herodotus 4:62 with Arthur's sword.  Unfortunately, there is no relationship between a sword stuck in variously a pile of sticks or the ground and the taking of Arthur's sword from an anvil on a stone.  In the story of Attila and the sword, the great king of the Huns is gien the sword by a shepherd; he does not draw it forth from the cow pasture himself.  

Here is the account of Herodotus:

Such is their way of sacrificing to all other gods and such are the beasts offered; but their sacrifices to Ares are on this wise. Every district in each of the governments has in it a building sacred to Ares, to wit, a pile of fagots of sticks three furlongs broad and long, but of a less height, on the top of which there is a flattened four-sided surface; three of its sides are sheer, but the fourth can be ascended. In every year an hundred and fifty wagon-loads of sticks are heaped upon this; for the storms of winter ever make it sink down. On this pile there is set for each people an ancient scimitar of iron, which is their image of Ares; to this scimitar they bring yearly sacrifice of sheep and goats and horses, offering to these symbols even more than they do to the other gods. Of all their enemies that they take alive, they sacrifice one man in every hundred, not according to their fashion of sacrificing sheep and goats, but differently. They pour wine on the men's heads and cut their throats over a vessel; then they carry the blood up on to the pile of sticks and pour it on the scimitar. So they carry the blood aloft, but below by the sacred building they cut off the slain men's right arms and hands and throw these into the air, and presently depart when they have sacrificed the rest of the victims; the arm lies where it has fallen, and the body apart from it.

Ammianus condenses the account considerably in Book 31:2 -

No temple or shrine is to be found among them, not so much as a hut thatched with straw, but their savage custom is to stick a naked sword in the earth and worship it as the god of war, the presiding deity of the regions over which they range

A still later account is found in Jordanes, where we are told of Attila the Hun finding the weapon:

And though his temper was such that he always had great self-confidence, yet his assurance was increased by finding the sword of Mars, always esteemed sacred among the kings of the Scythians. The historian Priscus says it was discovered under the following circumstances: "When a certain shepherd beheld one heifer of his flock limping and could find no cause for this wound, he anxiously followed the trail of blood and at length came to a sword it had unwittingly trampled while nibbling the grass. He dug it up and took it straight to Attila. He rejoiced at this gift and, being ambitious, thought he had been appointed ruler of the whole world, and that through the sword of Mars supremacy in all wars was assured to him.