And we’re halfway through my 30 days of writing.
Copyright
J.B. Norman
“Get back here, you!” Dunstana cries, stumbling after the bad guys as she drags her new sword behind her. “I want to sword you!”
As the bad guys beat a hasty retreat and flee out of reach, Dunstana stands watching them go, furiously shaking her fist at them.
“When they come back,” she declares. “I am going to sword them so hard! And — woah!”
She sways precariously, the weight and momentum of her sword bringing her in almost a complete circle.
“So, uh,” Kat offers, “you sure you don’t think it’s better that somebody bigger uses that thing? It’s bigger than you are!”
Dunstana puffs herself up imperiously.
“Hey! I’m the one the lake-lady tossed this sword to,” she insists. “So that means I’m the one who gets to sword people with it! This one’s mine! If you want a sword, find your own magic lake-lady.”
“You can barely lift the thing,” Kat notes.
“Pfft,” Dunstana scoffs, tottering precariously as she struggles to heft the sword over her shoulder. “You’re just jealous of my cool Magic Lake Sword!”
She looks thoughtfully up at her sister.
“And I don’t get why you’re even jealous,” she continues. “You’re the one who got chosen to be a goddess’, um, chosen hero. You even got your own nymph sidekick!”
Dunstana points over to where the nymph Voitheia is standing a short distance away, brandishing her poking-stick in one hand and making that ‘I’m watching you’ gesture with the other, pointing at her eyes and then at Kat.
“Don’t remind me,” Kat groans.
“I heard that!” Voitheia calls. “Don’t make me come over there and start poking you again. I’ll have you know Lady Pherais has even me absolute discretion in how to get you to fulfil your mandate as her chosen hero.”
“Ugh,” Kat groans.
“So, leave some crazy magical stuff for the rest of us, huh?” Dunstana concludes. “Besides, you don’t even fight with a sword! You shoot them, or you’ve got daggers, or you just punch people in the face. You probably don’t even need it!”
She jealously hugs the sword to herself.
“Okay, but if you fall over, it’s your own fault,” Kat says.
“Yeah, whatever,” Dunstana says.
She promptly trips and falls over.
“Ow,” Dunstana groans from the ground. “Kat, help!”
“Ugh.”
“Okay,” Dunstana says after a long, thoughtful moment. “This clearly isn’t working.”
Kat stares down at her.
“You think?”
“Luckily, I have an idea,” Dunstana says. “I’ll go up on your shoulders and, like, drive you around and reach down and whack the bad guys with my sword.”
“That’s a terrible—” Kat begins, but Dunstana has already clambered up onto her shoulders.
“Awesome,” Dunstana says, grinning broadly. “I have a magic sword and I’m tall! Those jerks don’t stand a chance.”
“Ugh.”
“Kat, look! Look, look, look!” Dunstana says eagerly. “Kat, look! They’re coming back.”
“Ugh.”
“Go, Kat, go!” Dunstana urges, putting her heels to Kat like she were a horse. “Get me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!”
Now, there’s a “Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government” joke here, but I’m not going to make it, because literally the only time that joke has ever been funny is when Monty Python originally made it.
At this point, it’s not even a joke. It’s a “Hey, I saw a movie once! Remember that movie I saw once?” thing…
Ahem.
FYI: Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone aren’t usually the same sword. Except when they are…
Folklore’s weird like that.
Worth noting, of course, that the idea of King Arthur being associated with a sword in a stone at all was possibly inspired by St. Galgano Guidotti’s sword, said to have miraculously been shoved into solid stone when St. Galgano renounced the world.
Incidentally, I’ve read a pretty cool theory that Excalibur is supposed to be a cultural memory of swords of being cast from moulds — a process rendered obsolete long before even King Arthur is reputed to have existed, due to iron and steel replacing bronze as the preferred material for weapons.
Basically, “Excalibur” is corruption of Latin along the lines of “ex calcem liberatus”, meaning “freed from stone”.
Unfortunately, I can’t find a source to back that up and I remember hearing that on a TV documentary years ago, so grain of salt, and all. Though the following video does address the “garbled memory of casting weapons” thing:
Also, the whole “freed from stone” angle does sort of suggest that Excalibur is supposed to be the Sword in the Stone.
Though, in general, the etymology is usually understood to be — much like Arthur himself — Welsh. Via Latin. Via French…
And, finally, Dunstana wanting to hit them with her sword is a reference to a popular Warhammer 40K meme basically pointing out the incongruity of the guy commanding his troops from a tank waving around a sword. In the year 41,000…
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