[DanaC]

right. This isnt my fault. Talking about this stuff has put me in a camelot mood and that's just the way it is...so I am officially hijacking this thread for a brief Camelot interlude...

In the episode The Lady of the Lake, the programme gives a very different telling of this famous part of the legend. There are two clips. One shows what happens, and the second shows how it is told.

First clip: Merlin has travelled to a great sword maker to ask him to make a sword for the new king. He arrives just as the swordmaker is completing his most perfect sword, the zenith of his craft. But Merlin has a vision that shows the swordmaker killing Arthur with the sword, and so is adamant that the he will not go anywhere near his king. They argue and it turns into a fight, and Merlin, who tries to avoid using magic because of the cost it exacts loses control and kills the swordmaker.

But the swordmaker has a daughter, called Excalibur, who witnesses her father's death:



Merlin leaves the scene, guiltridden. Later in the episode he returns to Camelot, and presents Arthur with his new sword, and tells the following story: (overlaid on the death scene in this clip)