Sir Ector

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Howard Pyle (1903) Sir Kay shows his father Sir Ector the "Magic Sword".

Sir Ector [ ˈɛktɵr ] (sometimes Hector , Antor or Bedwere ) is a legend in the medieval Arthurian novels . He is the father of Sir Kay and the foster father of King Arthur .

background

Ector appears in the works of Robert de Boron and in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur . In these versions, it is Merlin who takes Arthur away from his birth parents, King Uther Pendragon and Lady Igraine, and puts him in the care of Sir Ector. Merlin hides the boy's true identity from him. Sir Ector takes him in and raises him with his own son Kay.

In an episode of Morte d'Arthur , Sir Ector and his two sons Kay and Artus are going to a tournament when Sir Kay suddenly realizes that he has forgotten his sword in his father's house. Kay therefore asks young Arthur to get it for him quickly. He rides off immediately, but when he reaches the house nobody is there and so he does not find the sword. Without further ado he decides to take the sword that is stuck in a boulder in the churchyard. He pulls it out without difficulty and brings it to Sir Kay. He immediately recognizes that it is the magic sword Excalibur .

He now brings this sword to his father Sir Ector and claims the crown of the kingdom for himself. His father has him testify under oath in church how he got this sword. Kay then truthfully says that it was Arthur who brought it to him. So Ector asks Arthur and he notices that this boy should be the future king according to the will of God. To check the truth, they let Arthur stick the sword back into the rock and Sir Ectors' attempt to pull it out again fails.

In the Welsh stories, Sir Kay's father is instead called Cynyr or Ceinfarfog .

literature

  • Alan Lupack: The Oxford guide to Arthurian literature and legend . OUP, Oxford 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-280287-3 .
  • Thomas Malory: Le Morte Darthur. Online book on sacred-texts.com . (English)
  • Thomas Malory: The Last Battle of King Arthur. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54811-6 . (German edition of Le Morte Darthur. )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sir Ector, Kay, Arthur and the Magic Sword in Le Morte Darthur, Book I, Chapter V.