Excalibur
The great sword of King Arthur, given to him by the Lady of the Lake after he broke his first blade, and returned to her waters by Sir Bedivere when Arthur died at Camlann. In Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) the scabbard, not the blade, is the true treasure, since it protects the wearer from wounding in battle. The name, from the Latin Caliburnus and the Welsh Caledfwlch, also attaches in later romance to the sword Arthur drew from the stone, though the oldest sources keep the two blades separate. The weapon already appears in Welsh tradition in Culhwch ac Olwen, where Arthur's sword