Reading Notes Week 11: King Arthur, Part A

(King Arthur  --  Balog Janos)
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I loved tales about King Arthur growing up, so hopefully these are either pretty similar to ones I've heard or they are new and exiting! Either way, it should be a win win to read.

Introducing the tale about King Arthur, the story "The Drawing of the Sword" reminds me a lot of the cartoon movie, The Sword in the Stone. Whoever pulls the sword out is the ruler and Merlin was even in that too. I have a feeling King Arthur may be just the person for the job. It is almost exactly like that movie. The only difference is that in the movie, the boy is a servant to the man he is bringing the sword unlike in this tale where he is the foster brother. I am glad that Sir Ector and Sir Kay were kind to Arthur when they realized what he had done with the sword. I was expecting them to be jealous and try to take the sword for themselves.

I am a little confused as to why King Arthur needed a new sword? I know he lost his other one, but I figured that sword was excalibur, since he pulled it from the stone. I guess he had two magical swords then.

Plot twist with Merlin being trapped under a rock by his own student, Vivian. She was very cunning, but I am also surprised that Merlin was not more weary to go under the rock. He told King Arthur about the prophecy, so I would have thought he could better guard against it. It must have been his destiny or something of the sorts.

I think the moral of the story about the quest for the Holy Graal (is this a typo? I'm not sure if it was supposed to be "Grail") is a good one. The knights of the round table are so focused on something that they can't reach, they end up losing sight of what responsibilities they need to take care of. The different lengths of each story makes them more interesting to read. I am used to most stories sticking with a consistent length, but this style sort of mixes things up.

Bibliography: King Arthur, by Andrew Lang