1
ARTHUR’S BLADE
Quite often legendary stories or tales are a figment of someone’s imagination, but some how they tend to get passed on and passed down through time and start to get believed as being true. Quite often bits get missed out or bits added on till no one can tell whether all the facts are correct or even true.
But there are times when a situation has been totally misunderstood because things were beyond the understanding of people at those far off times. Even time itself was probably misunderstood or the use of time.
But it is also very possible that some legends where in fact very real and once again could not be explained in a feasible way by people living in those times.
The land of Annwn was thought of being a mystical land or place, a world of delights and eternal youth where disease was absent and food is ever abundant, often thought of as a place not of this world, well not the outer world as we understand it.
Annwn was a place from the inner world, a place far below the surface of this planet, a place where few mortals ever got to visit or see.
But those who ruled Annwn were very concerned of the happenings of the outer world and from time to time sent messengers to try and help the people of the outer world.
Merlin was a young messenger who was sent onto the outer world to try and help to ease the conflicts between tribes or nations of people, he travelled all over the outer world gaining knowledge of the people and their problems. Because of his knowledge and his strange abilities he was very often thought as being a magician or as some would call him a wizard.
One of the problems of coming onto the outer world was that time was so very different and Merlin aged quite not the same as the outer world people, even though he no longer obtained his youthful stature as he would have done in Annwn.
Merlin travelled extensively throughout the outer world until he came to the land of the Britons who were in continual conflict with the Anglo-Saxon’s. Merlin saw that the people were in great need of ruler who would have not only strength but also great understanding and wisdom.
Merlin was forbidden by the underworld to take part in any actual conflict but he assisted the people by giving them a weapon that resembled a sword, this weapon had powers never before seen on the outer world, for this weapon could strike a man down without touching him.
But Merlin had this sword embedded into rock and only the person who was worthy of its use would be able to withdraw it from its place in the rock. It was a young man by the name of Arthur who was able to withdraw this sword and in time came to be the king.
Soon word got around that Arthur had a sword with magical powers and through this Arthur was able to win all his battles and brought about peace throughout the land, even though Arthur used this sword it had more power beyond what Arthur would ever be able to understand, for all Merlin had ever told Arthur that it was a weapon that had once belonged to a great warrior of another world, this peace had to be worked upon throughout Arthur’s life.
As Arthur was mortal his time grew very near to the end, there were many who would willingly step in and take Arthur’s place. Although there was a kind of peace in the land Arthur still had many enemies who would fight for all his lands.
To make sure that none of his enemies could gain use of Arthur’s so called magical sword it was taken to the edge of a lake and thrown in so none could find it.
Merlin was annoyed at this for this weapon should have been taken back to the underworld to the land of Annwn where it rightly belonged, but Merlin was absent at
the time of this deed, none could tell him of the right location of where the sword had been thrown.
But in actual fact the deed of throwing the sword into the lake had been seen by a woodsman’s son, he never realised or understood why a sword had been thrown into the lake, he only took it as was common for people to give offerings to their god.
To him it was such a waste to see such a fine sword thrown away for some misguided belief. When it was clear he entered the lake and retrieved the sword and hid it away in a cave only known to him.
Time passed as did Arthur from this world but he had left a legacy of peace, peace did reign in the lands of Arthur even though there were minor upsets, with the passing of time Arthur became more legend than fact for the castle where Arthur had ruled from fell into ruin, the stories whether fact or fiction were never really wrote down they became stories passed down by word of mouth. But before Arthur was lost in the realms of history some did write about the deeds of Arthur and the story of Arthur’s sword.
As the years had passed that woodman’s son had gone into the church and was trained to be a monk, the story of Arthur’s sword reached the ears of this now monk and he had wrote the facts down in an ancient manuscript that had been locked away in the under ground vault of an ancient monastery.
In the passages of this book it gave the location of where Arthur’s sword now lay, although not in straight forward words, the words were wrote down in such a way that very few would understand them.
These clues had also been formed onto six keys and had been spread far and wide so that it would be difficult for one person to become the holder of all six keys; it was never thought that the six keys would ever come together. For who ever held the secret of all six keys and obtain Arthur’s blade would have the power to rule the world.
But slowly through time these keys had been brought together one by one by those who would rule this outer world through evil, that is all except one key, it remained hidden perhaps it was lost forever, for at the moment they had no knowledge of where this key was, they had been very close to obtaining this key but some how it had slipped through their grasp again.
This story is the forerunner to “Old Angus (The sixth key)
Which can be found in the longer story section