Do we know Merlin enchanted the sword/stone thing?

Question

In Malory's *Le Morte d'Arthur* it's very heavily implied that Merlin enchanted the stone and the sword in it so it only could be pulled out by the true king of Britain/Arthur:> the day came when the Archbishop of Canterbury, **on the advice of Merlin**, summoned the nobility to London for Christmas morning. In his message the Archbishop promised that the true succession to the British throne would be miraculously revealed. (pg 5, Keith Baines version, bolding my own)Then after the church service, all the nobles file out to the courtyard and see the sword/stone with the inscription.However, nowhere that I can find in Malory does he come right out and say that Merlin enchanted the stone so only Arthur/the true king could pull it out. Do we know Merlin did this for sure?

Answer 1

Hi there! In literature from this genre and time period, it is common for authors to imply something, but never explicitly tell you if it happened or not. What we have to do is examine the evidence in front of us. We know Arthur is supposed to be the true king, and we also know what only the true king is supposed to be able to pull the sword out. We can see how Merlin "guides" or watches over Arthur throughout the different stories that involve Camelot/Arthur/Merlin. We also know that Merlin is the only one who seems to know about the power and sword, and thus has to tell others about it, and what to look out for. We can infer that Merlin did place magic on the sword from these details with a great level of certainty, although nothing in literature is ever really certain.

-Cory