did, he got a "holy man" to baptize Arthur. Merlin then turned infant Arthur over to Ector. Sir Ector kicked his own son (Kay) off to a wet-nurse, freeing up his wife, whose milk was aristocrat milk and therefore better I guess, to nurse Arthur.
Malory declines to address how Igraine reacted to Uther stealing her newborn son and giving him to Merlin. A reasonable guess is that everyone assumed Arthur was stillborn, what with it being the Dark Ages and all. I like to imagine Uther's solution to this issue was to laugh and tell Igraine that she was never pregnant, because at this point I actively dislike Uther. He's just a jackass. Fortunately, he's about to die.
(Vocabulary word of the chapter: fianuce, which Google thinks is a misspelled fiance, but is in fact a synonym for promise or oath, as in, "Ector made fianuce to Uther for to raise Arthur as his own." See also fiancé.)
Uther's death comes next! As promised! It's actually pretty sad.
Time goes by, a year or two, and before things had really gotten properly settled Uther contracted an unnamed lingering disease, which could be anything from tuberculosis to stomach cancer to cerebral calcification (cerebral calcification killed Lenin). While he lay around London slowly dying, all kinds of jerks (mostly Scots) started ravaging the land, because Uther was too weak to defend it.
Merlin came to Uther. "Listen, you need to kill these damn Scots; they're tearing up the landscape."
Uther responded, pretty reasonably, that he was dying.
"Tough shit," said Merlin. "New prophecy. If you meet them in battle you'll defeat them. Otherwise they'll rampage and roar and level Tokyo. Get Ulfius and your boys to build you a litter so they can carry you into battle."
Whether Uther thought this is a good idea or not, no idea, on account of it was at about this point that he pretty well lost the ability to speak.
So the dying guy got loaded into a horse litter, and carried out to the battle, where he lay quietly while his men rallied around him and drove back the Northern barbarians. Sir Ulfius and Sir Brastias both kicked a lot of Northern ass.
Afterwards they carried Uther back to London, where he lay motionless, too ill to talk. Now, I don't like Uther. I've made no secret of that. Thus far in the story, and we're at the very beginning, he's the best-defined character and he's defined as a petulant brat whose only positive feature is his willingness to do as Merlin advises. By modern standards, if not the standards of the time, he raped Igraine.
That said, his slow and lingering death is a real bummer. Uther's court could tell he was on his way out, so they asked Merlin what to do. Merlin confirmed Uther's fast-approaching death, but volunteered to whip up some magic which would render him able to speak, if only for a few minutes.
The next morning, Merlin stood by Uther's bedside, in front of the assembled lords, and did his magic. It may or may not have been ventriloquism, which is just a first-level spell according to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. It may have been actual ventriloquism. Either way, 'Uther' gave a short speech about how he had a secret son who would be King Arthur, and then he died.
Also we're told Igraine wailed and mourned him, so, that's sad too.
In which Arthur pulls a sword out of something
Once Uther has died, the story picks up a little, as we come to a good bit. It's a bit that every Arthur story I can think of off the top of my head has. You know what's coming. Here's a hint: there's a stone involved, but not just any stone. This stone has a prize inside.
An indeterminate period of time passed, more than a decade, probably less than two. Without a king, England-Logris- Britain was just falling apart. You'd have loads of warlords and their thugs and blood and fire and it was a bad situation that got steadily worse as time went on.
One day Merlin and the Archbishop of Canterbury were hanging out, not unlike Gandalf and Saruman in the film version of Fellowship of the Ring, although instead of Saruman trying to get Gandalf to serve Sauron it's the Archbishop trying to get Merlin to agree to appoint someone king and end the strife. Why Merlin's go-ahead was needed on this project I don't know. Merlin's whole deal is weird. He was Uther's advisor just prior to Uther's death, he seems to have known everyone, and he did magic.
Merlin had a plan. Step one, get as many warlords and knights together as possible for a Christmas party at a cathedral in London. Here Malory reminds us he isn't really a primary source, since he breaks kayfabe and admits that "the French book" (Chrétien de Troyes I guess? It's been a long, long time since my freshman literature survey course) doesn't specify which cathedral it was. Regardless, going to church for a party sounds like loads of fun.
Party invitations were sent out, and a bunch of knights, the ones who were interested in going to a church party, met up at the cathedral. In the churchyard there someone (Merlin) had set up a big rock with an anvil on it. Skewering the anvil was, of course, a sword, with Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England engraved on it. What a shocking twist!
This reminds me of something I've wondered about. As we soon see, Arthur keeps this sword and carries it around with him for a good long while, right? It isn't the one he gets from the Lady of the Lake later in Book I, but it's a functional/useful/magical/+1 to hit and damage sword, right? While he had it, it still had this engraving on it, I assume. Did he use it as a conversation piece? Like, he held it up in such a way as to show off the engraving, and when someone inevitably asked about it, he would say "oh, that's a funny story," and then he recount this story, the one that I was in the middle of telling you before I digressed?
But I digress. The knights got all excited about the Sword in the Stone, but the Archbishop rebuked them. "Leave it alone until after Mass!" Mass happened, because that is what a church party is. Then the knights went in peace to serve the Lord, which is to say, they all tried to pull the sword out from the stone. Of course, no one could.
"No big deal," said the Archbishop. "The rightful king can and will pull the stone out; none of y'all are worthy to be him. So, okay, what we'll do is, we'll get all the knights together, not just you guys. Y'all are kind of lame it turns out. We get everyone together at, say, New Year's, and we have a big tournament, and surely the rightful king, who is able to pull out the sword, shall make himself known at that point."
The knights grumbled a bit.
"Now I'm not saying that the whole sword thing is just an elaborate pretext me and Merlin came up with, and that the winner of the tournament will become king," said the Archbishop, "but I am winking a lot."
He winked, and the knights settled down.
New Year's! All the knights came out to the tournament. There was jousting! (JOUSTING TOURNAMENT 1!) It was a grand old time. Sir Ector showed up, along with his son Sir Kay, and also his other son Arthur, who wasn't a knight yet. Sir Kay was just barely a knight at this point; this was his first time to the jousting tournament. Of course he pulled a boner and left his sword at the hotel. Oh, Sir Kay!
Arthur ran back to the hotel to fetch it, and of course the place was all dark and locked up with a sign that said GONE JOUSTIN'. No luck there! What's a young Arthur to do?
As we all knew was going to happen, Arthur remembered seeing a sword in a stone at church that morning. He hurried over to the church to see if it was still there. It is! He grabbed it, slid it out of the stone, and carried it back to Kay.
Kay took it and recognized it. He immediately ran off to Ector. "Check it out, Dad, I'm the king of England!"
Kay's ruse lasted all of about thirty seconds. Kay was not terribly committed to the bit. Once Ector and Arthur and Kay had gone back to the church and Ector saw that yeah, the sword in the stone was no longer in the stone, he asked Kay where he got it.
Kay said, "look, it's the sword that used to be in the stone, see?"
And Ector was all, "yeah. Did you pull it from the stone?"
"It used to be in the stone, and now I have have it!"
"Son. Do you pinky-swear you pulled it out of the stone?"
/>
Kay sighed and admitted that no, he couldn't pinky-swear such testimony. Arthur fetched it for him.
Arthur didn't know what the hell is going on, because no one bothered to tell him about the whole sword in the stone deal, since he wasn't a knight. Also either he was illiterate, or else he had been in too much of a rush to read the engraving. He was getting more than a little perturbed at this bizarre conversation between his father and his brother.
Ector turned to Arthur. "Did anyone see you pull out the sword?" asked Ector.
"No," said Arthur. "What the hell is this about, Dad?"
"Well, see, son, you're the king," said Ector.
"The hell?" Malory phrases it "Wherefore I and for what cause?" but clearly Arthur found the notion ludicrous.
"It's a magic sword," Ector explained, with I think admirable patience. He had Arthur stick the sword back in the stone so Ector could demonstrate how neither he nor Kay could pull it out, though Arthur could easily.
Ector kneeled before him, and got Kay too also, and this freaked Arthur out. Ector, since he was just piling on the revelations, decided this was as good a time as any to tell Arthur he was adopted.
Ector wasn't his father! His father was in fact Uther the dead rapist-king! Arthur got pretty severely bummed. He did not know how to process this, and asked Ector for advice, but the only oar Ector would stick in was a