About Arthur's birth and how he became king

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Arthur's birth and how he became king is a fragment of an Arthurian tale from Welsh mythology .

origin

The work has come down to us in the manuscript Llanstephan Ms. 201 from the 15th century and is one of the most recent Welsh tales about King Arthur . An even shorter fragment is in the manuscript Llanstephan Ms. 4, fol. 505, which dates from the 14th century. Both texts come from a "Morte d'Arthur" , but not from the well-known work of Sir Thomas Malory , but a prose story from the Vulgate cycle (around 1215 to 1230) that was translated into Cymric by an unknown author . Source is possibly a Merlin novel by Robert de Boron , which has also only survived in fragments.

content

After his victory over Gwrleis, King Uther Pendragon gives his daughter Gwyar to his follower Lot of Orkney as a wife and marries Gwrleis' wife Eygyr himself . The sons Gwalchmei and Medrawt and the daughters Gracia, Graeria and Dioneta come from the union of Gwyar and Lot . Gwyar's sister, who is also called Dioneta, is brought to the island of Afallach by Uther . When Eygyr becomes pregnant, he decides to have the child raised by his henchman Kynyr, fearing that it might not be recognized as legitimate by the nobles of his realm. Kynyr names the child Arthur and lets them grow up with their son Kei until they are 14 years old.

After Uther's death, the nobles discussed his successor under the direction of Archbishop Dyffric (Dubricius), but could not come to an agreement. The Myrddin (Merlin) brought to their aid advises them to pray for enlightenment until Christmas. On Christmas Eve, when everyone is gathered in the church, a marble-colored stone block with a sword in it appears in the cloister courtyard in front of the church. The stone bears the following inscription:

HOC GLADII SIGNUM MONSTRAT REGẼ DEO DIGNUM.
NULLUS TOLLAT ILLUM SIC NISI SIT PER DOMINUM.
The meaning of the verses is this: That sword is a mark of the king who is worthy in the eyes of God. No one should pull out this sword except with the help of God.

In order to settle the dispute over who should be the first to pull out the sword, Dyffric appoints 250 noblemen and invites them to try one by one according to their age. When no one succeeds, everyone else tries it too, but the sword gets stuck in the stone. A tournament is scheduled for the next day and Kei, who is taking part in it, having already been knighted, breaks his sword near the cross- guard in close combat . He sends his younger foster brother Arthur to fetch another one from the inn. When he gets there, he can't get in, and when he walks back across the monastery courtyard, he sees the cube with the sword. He decides to take it straight away, pulls it effortlessly out of the stone, hides it under his tunic and brings it to Kei.

And as soon as Kei saw the sword, he recognized it, showed it to his father and shouted: “I am king! I am king! I pulled the sword out of the stone! "

Kynyr can quickly convince him of the lie and lets Arthur put the sword back into the stone. Then all the nobles try again to pull it out, but only Arthur succeeds again. Now Kynyr tells Arthur about his origins and tells him, if he becomes king, to always remain loyal to his foster brother Kei.

“So I ask of you,” said Kynyr, “that you make Kei, my son, seneschal over your whole empire, and that he not lose this position, whatever his speech and whatever act he does, because, if he is of a lower mind, the fault is not with him, but with you, for you were suckled with the milk from his mother's breasts, but he with the milk of a foreign, lowly woman - for your sake. "

The noble ones decide to wait until Easter Eve to see if someone else might be found who could pull out the sword, and meanwhile try in many ways to test Arthur and tempt him to see whether he is worthy. When he resists all of their lists and no one else can move the sword, Dyffric proclaims him king on Easter Vigil. Arthur is knighted on Whit Saturday and crowned king on Sunday.

And when the [coronation] mass was over, they went to look at the stone, but from then on it was no longer seen. […] And that sword Arthur kept as long as he lived, and it was called Caledvwlch. And so this story ends.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. P. 149.
  2. in later traditions, as with Thomas Malory , he forgets the sword in the inn - a reference to the increasingly negative kei image
  3. Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. P. 153.
  4. Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. P. 154.
  5. Caledvwlch = "Hart-Scharte", later Caliburnus (by Geoffrey von Monmouth , from which Excalibur is created)
  6. Helmut Birkhan: Celtic stories from the emperor Arthur. P. 1547.