THE ANVIL STONE OF SIR KAY DISCOVERED

Andle ("Anvil") Stone

Proximity of Anvil Stone to the Nine Ladies Stone Circle

Often etiological stories are created to fancifully account for place-names or geological features.  When I set out to see if I could find something like that to account for Robert de Boron's tale of the Sword in the anvil atop the stone, I knew that Sir Kay was the primary clue.  Why, in other words, is it Sir Kay who is the one brought into the motif?  

I began my search, therefore, by concentrating on all known traditions relating to Sir Kay up to the time of Robert (even going so far as to painstakingly investigate the nebulous St. Kea, who is sometimes brought into connection with the Arthurian hero; see https://www.jstor.org/stable/1260322).  Over and over I kept drawing a blank - until I went to the very early Welsh poem, the PA GUR.  I had worked on this poem years ago, and one of the sites listed there had turned out to be Stanton Moor in Derbyshire.  Here is the relevant section on that place-name:

"The upland of (Y)stawingun, where nine witches are slain by Cei, is quite possibly Stanton Moor in Derbyshire, where we find the stone circle called the Nine Ladies. The ‘lord of Emrys’ mentioned in the poem just prior to (Y)stawingun is a known periphrasis for Gwynedd, as Ambrosius/Emrys was the traditional lord of that land. Emrys in this context may actually be a reference to the Amber river, which lies just east of Stanton Moor.

The –gun, if from an earlier –cun, could have come about by mistaking in MS. an original t for c. The middle –w- may represent a u, such as is found in Staunton, a known variant of Stanton.

Much later story substitutes the hero Peredur and transplants the witches to Gloucester, presumably because of the presence in Gloucestershire of towns named Stanton and Staunton."

When I looked at the monuments on Stanton Moor in the vicinity of Cei's Nine Ladies Stone Circle, I noted the Andle or "Anvil" Stone.  The derivation of the name was not in doubt:

From http://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/browse/id/53284ccfb47fc4095c00134e-Andle+Stone:

Andle Stone

Other OS name in the Parish of Stanton

Etymology

( 6 ″ ) , 1840 O ; dial . andle ' anvil ' ; it is so named from the shape.

The Andle/Anvil Stone appears to have been of ancient importance, as its top is carved with cup and ring marks (http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/stantonmoor.htm).  Certainly, it was part of the sacred complex of Stanton Moor. 

This "anvil" at a Cei site could, of course, merely be happy coincidence.  But it is also true that Robert de Boron may have had in his possession a strand of folklore that associated Cei or Sir Kay with the monoliths on Stanton Moor, and in particular a giant stone shaped like an anvil.  He could have used this feature to help concoct the tale of the Sword in the Anvil/Stone, drawing as well on the "Vita Sancti Edwardi" of Aelred of Rievaulx for additional details (https://www.jstor.org/stable/27870843).  Yet other sources of influence could have been the 'sword in the stone' of St. Galgano, as well as the lead cross in the stone of Arthur's grave at Glastonbury/Avalon

(see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/07/king-arthurs-sword-excalibur-lightning.html). 

Doll Tor Stone Circle Near the Anvil Stone

Nine Ladies Stone Circle

For a piece on Sir Kay's father Antor, please see:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/10/antor-foster-father-of-kay-and.html

NOTE ON THE SCYTHIANS AND THE SWORD OF MARS

Dr. Linda Malcor has long sought to associate the Scythian Sword of Ares 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.