The Dark Rider part 19 & one or two things about swords

“I don’t understand,” Warren said. His skin was slick and his upper lip tasted of salt. He swiped his forearm across his stinging eyes and stuck the spade upright in the soil. “Don’t the nymphs – or whatever they are – mind us digging around like this?”

“Yes,” Merlyn said. He looked a little less like O’Hare and more like himself the further they walked into the forest, and now he was completely the Merlyn Warren knew: small, graceful, beardless, with stern blue eyes. “However, I made a pact with the forest’s inhabitants that we would remove a piece of magical pollution from their territory if they promised not to attack us.”

“Pollution?”

“Ihesu’s folly. There is something about the object which elemental spirits and other such creatures detest. I’m not sure what that quality is. Have you found it yet?”

Warren scowled. “No. Can’t you find it using a spell or something?”

“It has to be you who finds it. This is not directly to do with me.”

“Says who?”

“Says wisdom. Do you have your star with you?”

Something slowed to treacle inside Warren’s torso. “How did you know…?”

“The Lady of the Lake gave it to you for your protection and edification, is that correct?”

“Have you been spying on us?”

“No. Not deliberately. This is the curse – or blessing – of Foresight, you see. I can’t help knowing everything. Well… almost everything.”

Warren blew into his fringe and picked up the spade. Blisters raged on his palms and his wrists ached. The muscles on his back had become a spine of pain and not a lot else. He decided to try a patch of ground a little further away.

“That was a hint, by the by.”

“Sorry?”

“Your star. Use it.”

Suddenly shy, Warren dodged behind one of the giant redwoods and pulled the star from his pocket. It remained inert, a lump of carbon, black on his raw palm. He was about to call out, to tell Merlyn that it wasn’t doing anything but as he turned his body, the rock glowed a cool blue then faded to black again. Confused, he moved until it glowed again and set off in the direction in which his arm was pointing. Like a water-divining rod, the star led him this way and that, winding around the tree-trunks and over mouldering logs, his feet sinking soundlessly in deep moss. Digging through the moss had been difficult. All he wanted to do was lie down and rest.

At last, the star glowed so bright it turned red and burned. He yelped and dropped it. The star became a black rock at his feet but he was careful to pick it up in the material of his T-shirt before shoving it into his pocket.

The star had taken him to a clearing, a little hollow similar to the one where Gwynvus ap Nudd had been staying, though there was no house or well or signs of anyone living in it. Nervous now, he dug into the moss, first having to tug it out of the way with stiff fingers, then cut into the dirt. He wondered what the folly would be. A diamond? Some kind of amulet, like an Egyptian ankh?

There was a ringing like a wet fingertip circling a wineglass. He knelt and brushed the mud from something metallic.

A cup.

An ordinary tin cup with no handle. An empty mount gaped on the side of it, maybe where a jewel had fallen out, Warren supposed. He tried placing the star in it. It fitted without a crack.

He stood up slowly, staring at it. He glanced around and began to panic. All the trees looked the same.”

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Getting To The Point of Legendary Swords

King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, is one of the best known legendary swords, being featured in many books, TV shows, and films. It is usually the sword he either pulls from a stone to prove he is the true High King of Britain, or the one bestowed upon him by the Lady of the Lake.

Most early Arthurian legends said that King Arthur actually possessed two different swords, and that the sword from the Lake (Excalibur) was a different one to the blade from the stone.

Originally, the sword was named Caladfwlch, a Welsh word from “Calad-Bolg” or “Hard Lightning.” Geoffrey of Monmouth named it “Caliburn” claiming it was made in the mystical Isle of Avalon. (The 12th-century poet Chretien de Troyes changed its name to Escalibor, where “Excalibur” comes from.)

Arthur needed a new sword after breaking the one from the stone in battle, so Merlin took him to the enchanted Lake where a fey woman’s arm extended from under the waters and handed him Excalibur.

When Arthur lay dying after the battle of Camlann, he entrusted Excalibur to Sir Bedevere with instructions to go and throw it into the Lake, then return to tell Arthur what he saw. At first, the knight thought it a pity to throw such a weapon away, kept it and tried to lie to the King. But Arthur knew he was lying and insisted that he do as he bid, so eventually the knight threw the sword into the Lake. To his astonishment, a noble-looking woman’s arm reached out of the water and caught the sword at the last minute, then withdrew. Bedevere returned to Arthur and marvelled at what he had seen, and the King smiled before he died, knowing his promise to give the sword back to Avalon had been fulfilled.

There are other similar legendary swords in folktales and myths, including the Irish hero Cu Chulainn’s sword, Calad Bolg. Saturn, the god of Time, forged this sword which was then used by Achilles and Hector in the Trojan War before passing on to Julius Caesar. Fergus Mac Roich owned the sword during the Ulster Cycle of stories and, because of the weapon’s enormous size, had to swing it around in circles like a rainbow, cutting down his enemies and some hills. Stories say it was handed to Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland.

Gramr, the Dragon Slaying sword from the Norse Volsunga saga, was brought to the hero Sigmund indirectly by the Viking All-father Odin. Odin arrived at a wedding banquet with Gramr in his hand, announcing that the sword was unlike any other. The god thrust Gramr into the trunk of a tree, and nobody could extricate it except for Sigmund, who went on to achieve many battles and adventures before the blade shattered. A dwarf named Regin repaired it, and Sigmund then used it to slay the dragon Fefnir.

It so happens that there is a legendary sword in “A Dark Heritage – The Nighthunter“, which was derived from old tales concerning the first blacksmith, Wylan (or Wayland) in Germanic mythology. This sword ends up in The Nighthunter’s possession, though he cannot remember how or why…