Did the Sword in the Stone from the king Arthur legend ever exist ?

[astr0144]

Did the Sword in the Stone from the king Arthur legend ever exist ?

This may suggest where the legend came from .

On a TV series "Ancient X Files"

Sword in the Stone & Orpheus Amulet



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_X-Files

The Program showed of a discovery of a believed to be a real Sword in a Stone that was found in Italy from the 1100s

The sword in the stone can be seen at the Rotonda at Montesiepi, near the ruins of the Abbey of San Galgano. The handle of a sword protrudes from a stone, and is said to be the sword of Galgano.
For centuries, the sword was assumed to be a fake. But after examining the composition of the metal in 2001,[11] researcher Luigi Garlaschelli confirmed that the "composition of the metal and the style are compatible with the era of the legend". The analysis also confirmed that the upper piece and the invisible lower one are authentic and belong to one and the same artifact.[12] Ground-penetrating radar analysis also revealed that beneath the sword there is a cavity, about two meters by one meter, which is thought to be a burial recess, possibly containing the knight's body.
It has been argued that the legend of Saint Galgano formed the inspiration for the medieval legends about King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone.
"A story like that of Saint Galgano could travel all over Europe, and it is interesting to note that the first story about Arthur pulling a sword from a stone (or more exactly an anvil on top of the stone) appears in the decades following Saint Galgano's canonization in one of the poems by the Burgundian poet Robert de Boron," says Björn Hellqvist, one of the researchers.

Sword In The Stone

Dr. Raluca Radulescu of Bangor University is a world expert on Arthurian legends. She is on the trail of a mysterious mediaeval sword lodged in a stone in a remote church in Italy, to discover if it could it have some connection to the story of King Arthur. Her quest takes her on a voyage of discovery that reveals there is more to the origins of this Arthurian legend than there first appears.

The Sword in the Stone at Montesiepi Chapel
Chiusdino, Italy

THE SWORD KING ARTHUR PULLED from the stone in legend was likely just that–legendary. This sword, with a story equally as unbelievable, actually exists in Tuscany's Montesiepi Chapel.

Galgano Guidotti was born in 1148 near Chiusdino. After spending his youth as a wealthy knight, in 1180 Giudotti decided to follow the words of Jesus and retired as a hermit near his hometown. He began to experience visions of the Archangel Michael, leading him to God and the twelve apostles on the hill of Monte Siepi. In one vision, Michael told Guidotti to renounce all of his earthly possessions. He responded that this would be as difficult as splitting a stone, and to prove his point, thrust his sword into a rock. To his surprise, the sword went through the impenetrable surface as though it was water. Shortly after, an errant horse led Guidotti to the very hilltop that had appeared in his visions, where he was moved to plant a cross. Not having any wood handy, he plunged his sword into a rock, just as he had in the vision, where it was embedded for all time. One year later Guidotti died, and in 1185 Pope Lucius the 3rd declared him a saint, and the Montesiepi Chapel was built up around it.

Allegedly countless people have tried to steal the sword. On display at the chapel are the mummified hands of a thief who tried to remove the sword and was suddenly slaughtered by wild wolves. Why only the hands survived is unexplained, but they serve as a warning to would-be sword snatchers. These days the sword is protected by a Perspex shield as well as the disembodied hands.

While the sword was considered a fake for years, recent studies examined the sword and the hands, and the dating results, as well as the metal and style of the sword, all are consistent with the late 1100s–early 1200s. While it's impossible to verify the sword's legendary history, it does match up with Saint Galgano Giudotti's timeline.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-sword-in-the-stone-at-montesiepi-chapel-chiusdino-italy









https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galgano_Guidotti#:~:text=Galgano%27s%20%22sword%20in%20the%20stone%22%20story%20was%20featured,Italy%2C%20and%20believed%20to%20have%20belonged%20to%20Galgano.