60 Fun Facts About King Arthur

Which wizard and prophet serves as King Arthur's magical adviser?

He was created in the 12th century by fusing two earlier Welsh prophets into one figure.

What is the name of King Arthur's legendary sword?

Its 12th-century Latin name was Caliburnus, apparently borrowed from the Welsh Caledfwlch.

Who is King Arthur's wife?

In the romances her affair with Arthur's greatest knight helps bring down the kingdom.

Who is King Arthur's father?

His epithet Pendragon is a Middle Welsh title meaning roughly 'chief of warriors'.

Which knight's affair with Arthur's queen was introduced in The Knight of the Cart?

That same poem also contains the first passing mention of Arthur's most famous court.

Against whom does Arthur fight his final battle?

In Geoffrey he is Arthur's treacherous nephew; later romances make him Arthur's own son.

Arthur's final battle is fought at which place?

The Welsh annals date it to 537-539 and say both Arthur and Medraut fell there.

To which isle is the mortally wounded Arthur carried?

The name is generally taken to come from the Welsh word for an apple tree.

Arthur is conceived at which Cornish castle?

Digs there in 2016-17 uncovered a 5th or 6th-century palace, so someone important really did live on the headland.

What is the name of Gorlois's wife, with whom Arthur's disguised father conceives him?

Later versions insist Gorlois was already dead that night, which lets Arthur be legitimised by his parents' marriage.

Which 12th-century cleric wrote the Historia Regum Britanniae, the first full narrative of Arthur's life?

Over 200 manuscript copies survive; a contemporary accused him of an 'inordinate love of lying'.

Who wrote Le Morte d'Arthur, the great 15th-century English retelling of the whole legend?

He describes himself in the text as a 'knight prisoner', and probably wrote much of it in jail.

Le Morte d'Arthur was first printed in 1485 by which pioneering English printer?

It was among the earliest printed books in England, and the 1485 edition was the earliest known text until a manuscript surfaced in 1934.

Which Arthurian object first appears in Wace's 1155 Roman de Brut, made so no baron sat lower than another?

Wace himself credited the idea to the Bretons; some scholars think he borrowed it from biographies of Charlemagne.

Which king ordered the repainting of the Round Table hanging in Winchester Castle?

Tree-ring dating puts the timber at 1250-1280, in the reign of Edward I.

Which Welsh town was Arthur's chief court in Geoffrey's Historia and in the early French romances?

Only in the 13th-century French prose romances does the more famous court begin to supersede it.

Which sorceress, Arthur's half-sister, rules the isle to which he is carried after his last battle?

In her earliest appearance she is a great healer leading nine magical sisters, and not related to Arthur at all.

In the French romances and Malory, Arthur's treacherous son is born of incest with which half-sister?

The wizard prophesies the boy will destroy the kingdom, which is why in some tellings Arthur tries to drown all babies born that May Day.

Arthur's wizard is traditionally said to be the son of a mortal woman and what?

That demonic parentage is where his powers come from, and it makes him a 'cambion'.

The wizard's name was Latinised in the 12th century from which legendary Welsh bard?

One theory says Geoffrey softened the name because 'Merdinus' would have sounded like a French vulgarity.

In Disney's The Sword in the Stone (1963), what is the wizard's talking pet Archimedes?

Archimedes is grumpy and highly educated, and ends up teaching Wart to read and write.

In Disney's The Sword in the Stone, what is young Arthur's nickname?

He is a twelve-year-old orphan working as squire to his foster brother Kay.

In Disney's film, the sword is lodged in what object sitting on top of the stone?

The inscription promises that whoever pulls it out will be the future king.

In Disney's The Sword in the Stone, the wizard fights a shape-shifting duel with which witch?

He wins by turning into a germ and infecting her.

Disney's The Sword in the Stone adapts the first part of which 1958 novel by T. H. White?

The book was assembled from shorter novels published between 1938 and 1940.

In T. H. White's novel, the wizard tutoring young Arthur has what unusual condition?

It lets him remember the future and complain about the present.

Who wrote the 1889 satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court?

Twain's engineer uses an eclipse and gunpowder to overawe the sixth century.

Alfred Tennyson's Arthurian cycle, first published in 1859, is titled what?

It sold 10,000 copies in its first week and made Arthur a symbol of Victorian ideal manhood.

Which 1832 poem was Tennyson's first on an Arthurian subject?

The lady is doomed to see the world only in a mirror until a knight rides by.

Who plays the title role in the 2004 film King Arthur, directed by Antoine Fuqua?

Keira Knightley co-starred as a woad-painted warrior queen.

The 2004 film King Arthur portrays Arthur's knights as belonging to which steppe people serving Rome?

The premise builds on the theory that Arthur was a real Roman officer with a similar name.

Who plays Arthur in Guy Ritchie's 2017 film King Arthur: Legend of the Sword?

It was meant to launch a six-film franchise; the flop cancelled the rest.

In the 2017 film, Jude Law plays which villain, Arthur's usurping uncle?

He sacrifices his own wife to sea creatures to become a demon knight.

In the 1960 Lerner and Loewe musical about Arthur's court, who played the king on Broadway?

Julie Andrews was his queen and Robert Goulet made his Broadway debut as the knight who steals her.

What nickname, taken from a musical, did Jackie Kennedy give JFK's presidency?

She said the president was fond of the show's closing lyrics about one brief shining moment.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's 1982 feminist retelling of the legend is titled what?

It tells the story through the women, above all Morgaine.

Mary Stewart's 1970 Arthurian novel narrated in the first person by the wizard is called what?

It began a series of five books; the first three make the wizard, not Arthur, the central character.

The 9th-century Historia Brittonum lists how many battles fought by Arthur?

They culminate in the Battle of Badon, where he supposedly killed 960 men on his own.

At which battle does the Historia Brittonum say Arthur single-handedly killed 960 men?

Gildas, writing within living memory of the fight, mentions the battle but never names Arthur.

The Historia Brittonum is attributed in some late manuscripts to which Welsh cleric?

Recent studies question how reliable his compilation is.

Which 10th-century Welsh annals date Arthur's death to 537-539?

Their Arthurian entries were probably added in the 10th century and may never have existed earlier.

Bede credits the Britons' great victory over the Saxons to which leader, never mentioning Arthur?

Bede says his parents perished 'in the storm' and that he was 'of the royal race'.

Which Roman officer who served in Britain in the 2nd or 3rd century has been proposed as the real Arthur?

No convincing evidence links him to the legend, but the 2004 film ran with the idea.

Rather than 'rex', the Historia Brittonum calls Arthur 'dux bellorum', meaning what?

It also calls him simply 'miles', a soldier; the early texts may not have thought of him as a king at all.

A minority theory derives the name Arthur from which star, the brightest in Boötes?

Its Greek name means 'guardian of the bear', which suits the name's bear associations.

Which chronicler first recorded, in 1125, the popular belief that Arthur would one day return?

He noted that Arthur's grave was 'nowhere seen', which fed the legend of the sleeping king.

In 1191, monks announced the discovery of Arthur's tomb at which abbey?

The 'discovery' conveniently killed off the politically awkward belief that Arthur would return.

The name of the isle where Arthur rests is generally derived from a Welsh word for which tree?

Geoffrey called it the Isle of Apples, and a Somerset tor is its most popular identification.

In English versions, which knight returns Arthur's sword to the Lady of the Lake after the last battle?

In Welsh sources he is Bedwyr, a one-handed warrior; the French romances gave the job to Griflet.

In Culhwch and Olwen, Arthur's men hunt the semi-divine Twrch Trwyth, which is what kind of animal?

It is one of a string of impossible tasks set by a giant as the price of his daughter's hand.

In the 18th century the most popular Arthurian tale was about which tiny comic hero?

Henry Fielding turned the story into political satire on stage.

In the 13th-century romances, Arthur's queen is the daughter of which king of Cameliard?

He had served Arthur's father and was keeper of the famous table until it passed to Arthur.

In Geoffrey's Historia, how old is Arthur when he succeeds his father as king?

He then conquers Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Gaul before turning on Rome itself.

Which stanza-collection of Welsh death-songs praises a warrior who slew 300 men but 'was no Arthur'?

It is attributed to the 6th-century poet Aneirin but survives only in a 13th-century manuscript.

Which 12th-century French poet wrote The Knight of the Cart and founded Arthurian romance?

He wrote five Arthurian romances between about 1170 and 1190, and left the last one unfinished.

Which comic strip set in Arthur's time has been running since 1937?

Hal Foster's strip is still syndicated on Sundays.

In the Middle Ages Arthur was counted among the Nine Worthies. How was that group of nine divided?

The Worthies were first listed in Jacques de Longuyon's Voeux du Paon in 1312.

The 13th-century Vulgate series of Arthurian prose romances is also known by what name?

Its five Middle French works made Mordred the child of incest and established Camelot as Arthur's chief court.

Which 1975 comedy is described as an Arthurian spoof drawing on the romance tradition?

The same tradition fed serious films such as Bresson's Lancelot du Lac and Boorman's Excalibur.

What Latin name did Geoffrey of Monmouth give Arthur's sword, adapted from the Welsh Caledfwlch?

Later romancers turned it into Excalibur; Geoffrey also borrowed Cei, Bedwyr and Gwenhwyfar from Welsh tradition.