The Sword in the Stone

T.H.White (author)

HarperCollins, UK: 1938, 2008

ISBN: 9780007263493

Genres: classic, fantasy, mythology 

Issues: friendship, identity, values

extension vocabulary

Probably only the magician, Merlyn, knows the true parentage of his pupil, Wart, who was left as a baby at the door to Sir Ector's court.

Raised side by side with the knight's own son, Kay, who will also one day be knighted, Wart has no aspirations of his own other than to be Kay's squire. The arrival of Merlyn and the special lessons he gives Wart arouse different feelings. He begins to wonder whether he will spend the rest of his life doing such routine and unimportant things as cleaning Kay's armour and grooming his horse, or whether there is something more in store for him.

Then the Pendragon dies and King Pellinore arrives with a mysterious tale of a sword stuck in an anvil, stuck to a stone outside a church in London. And gradually it becomes apparent that it isn't Kay who is destined to release it. After all, it is Wart whom Merlyn has been training all these years. This has become a classic piece of children's literature because of the tremendous imagination that brings to life the characters of Merlyn and the young Arthur before he became the mythical king of the Golden Age.

Puzzling at times and often funny, The Sword in the Stone is a good introduction to the Arthurian legends, the first book in a trilogy.