That’s not a stone, it’s an anvil. Strangely an anvil is a completely different thing to a stone. But not apparently in Disneyland.
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Or Malory himself may have been confused by the first one’s being called Calibur.
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The anvil’s on top of a stone; the sword goes through the anvil into the stone.
And when matins and the first mass was done, there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone four square, like unto a marble stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that said thus:—Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England.
— Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur, book I, chapter V.
But I guess “the sword in the stone and anvil” is a bit too much of a mouthful.
Excalibur, Calibur, Caliburc, Escalibor, etc. are all derivatives of Caliburnus, the name of Arthur’s sword in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, which features neither swords in stones nor ladies in lakes: it may be related to Latin chalybs, “steel”, or to Caledfwlch, the name of Arthur’s sword in the Welsh tales, or both.
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Also: This attraction is based on Disney’s The Sword in the Stone (1961) wich in turn was based on T. H. Whites The Once And Future King, wich is one of those early post modern “re-imaginings” of the Arthur tales. One of the central themes in White’s novels is that nothing really is what it seems:
Suddenly his attention was caught by a huge stone monument on his left, with an anvil on top and sticking out of the anvil was an enormous sword. He could not believe his eyes. Was this real? He approached carefully, and yes, sure enough it was a very a handsome sword. The young man glanced around, no-one about. Perhaps it would be all right for him just to borrow it for his brother, who would not be able to take part in the festivities if he had no sword.
He approached closer, noticed some inscription which he did not bother to read, and quickly laid both hands upon the sword and tugged hard. The sword did not move. He tugged again even harder. The sword did not move.
“I must do it, for my brother, he needs me to do it. Perhaps I am pulling wrongly. How would I take a sword like this out of a scabbard?”
Once again he approached, gently laid his hand upon the hilt and firmly but evenly started to draw and slowly but smoothly the glistening sword slid from the anvil as if it being drawn from a bed of sand. His eyes shone as he held the beautiful weapon high.
“Oh, Kay will fight well with this,” he cried aloud.
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Anyway, I’m off to the mall to get some new rags.
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Note though, Rolls-Royce named most of their piston aircraft engines after birds of prey.
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Hmm, seems to me that he broke the sword, as opposed to removing it. Not sure that counts. I refuse to acknowledge him as king.
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Maybe Excalibur is the ancient word for sword, so they call them all Excalibur.
For those who’ve never visited Disneyland (Fantasyland in particular) the sword is rigged to pull partly out of the base during a street show that has been performed for decades. They rewrite the particulars of the show every couple years to keep it fresh, but basically a dotty comedic Merlin (usually accompanied by musicians) approach the stone and read a proclamation declaring that they are to find The King (“OR QUEEN,” the musicians note loudly) Of The Morning/Afternoon and whosoever shall pull out the sword blah blah blah.
As someone else here has noted, the moment is set up by having a couple big brawny adults unsuccessfully try to remove the sword, and then a little kid is called up and magically pulls the sword out (but not really “out’” it just releases up a few inches, it never leaves the stone fully for obvs reasons). Much fuss is made and the kid gets a little crown or pin or a souvenir copy of the declaration, no big deal, but I’ve watched the show many times just for the moment when the kid realizes they are going to be King (OR QUEEN) Of The Afternoon because it’s fun to see a youngster get punked in a nice way for once and share in their excitement and delight.
It’s really an analog immersion experience; it’s the kind of live-character interaction thing Disney has always done as part of their park experience, and which they have amplified with the live characters in the Galaxy’s End areas at both U.S. parks.
Granted: the Disneyland “Sword in the Stone” show is formulaic and filled with all the hoke and punny groanery and lazzi the Disney team can muster, but if you’ve ever seen the thrill in that little kid’s eyes when they manage to pull up the sword, you know why this silly little skit and its hokey sword are beloved by many. To encourage someone to destroy the main prop, I’m guessing for vlog footage, is prime bro-ey assholism.
Sigh. This is why we can’t have nice things.
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The engines were so good that after the war they even found their way into Heinkel HE-111s and Messerschmitt ME-109s produced under license in Spain. You can see them in the movie Dunkirk.
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Yeah, in addition to being “a buff dude” if this person’s friend really heaved at it with a lot of force, then he’s also rather a dick.
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So if we go for maximum benefit-of-the-doubt:
Person A has seen the show, and thinks it’ll be funny to see their buff friend try and fail to remove the sword, and tells them a limited version of the setup.
Person B goes to remove the sword and finds it won’t move. Due to the limited version they’ve heard, they assume it’s just stuck and really go to town on it, breaking it due to its age.
(As shown elsewhere in the comments, there are plenty of interpretations where A, B, or both are just being assholes.)
I came here to say the same. At this point, this literally cannot be a worse method for choosing a leader than the UK (or the US) has.
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They made a whole movie about it…
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Who would want to have weekly meetings with Boris Johnson?
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