Girl, 7, finds 4ft SWORD in same lake where King Arthur was said to have hurled Excalibur

[Denzil_DC]

A seven-year-old girl stumbled across a 4ft sword in the same lake where King Arthur's Excalibur was said to have been thrown.

Matilda Jones was paddling waist-deep in Dozmary Pool in Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, when she came across the blade while on a family holiday.

The lake is said to be the spot where legendary medieval leader King Arthur is said to have returned Excalibur after being fatally wounded in the Battle of Camlann.

Ironically, dad Paul Jones, 51, had recounted the famous folklore of King Arthur to Matilda and her four-year-old sister Lois just before the recovery.



http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/girl-7-finds-4ft-sword-11106508

SPOILER: The dad reckons that the sword's probably only about 30 years old (if that, judging by the pics above).

It does give me an excuse to post an antidote to my other very depressing post about Twitter abuse by linking to these fun threads:

Link to tweet

TechnicallyRon ✔ @TechnicallyRon

OK this girl now rules Britain. Those are the rules. There are books about this. Send her to Number 10 immediately.

Link to tweet

Dan Lopez @4danlopez

Schoolgirl pulls 4ft sword from Cornish lake https://buff.ly/2iTTYUd

Includes the inevitable

[shenmue]

1. Long live Queen Matilda!

[whistler162]

15. Where is Stephen?

[Staph]

20. Thank you!

I love a history geek!!!!!

[GeoWilliam750]

24. It has been a while since the last Queen Matilda

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

29. Matilda was an arsehole.

She had an absolute talent for alienating people who might well have supported her.

Stephen finally offered her a deal. Let him have the throne for his lifetime, and he would name Matilda's son as his successor. Matilda wanted to turn it down, but her chief supporters told her that if she didn't agree, they would take their troops and their money and go home. She did live long enough to see her son crowned as Henry II.

[shenmue]

32. I meant the new one, this girl

[nycbos]

2. The Monty Python scene played in my head when I read this.

[NewJeffCT]

17. same here

help help, I'm being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!

[Ken Burch]

38. "Bloody Peasant!"

n/t.

[Not Ruth]

3. That looks like it was in the water for a week

She is messing with us

[Warpy]

5. Someone is.

I've seen Bronze Age swords pulled from boggy water and they're very much the worse for wear, corroded down to next to nothing and either bent or broken before they were tossed in, since they were meant to be expensive sacrifices.

Likely there's an amateur bronze worker in the area who was hoping one of his less than perfect efforts would be discovered only after it had been pickled for a while.

[Cirque du So-What]

11. The simplest explanation is the most likely

It's an Arthurian miracle. Jesus makes regular appearances on toast and prenatal ultrasounds, after all.

A wackaloon fundie 'preacher' once told me that the holy grail would never be found, as it was safely ensconced in heaven - along with the ark of the covenant. Physical items in a heavenly realm. Really.

[SCantiGOP]

22. The sword was kept in good shape

By the Loch Ness monster that lived in the lake.

[tymorial]

4. Pie Jesu Domine, Dona Rid Requiem...

[ChazInAz]

35. WHONK!

[longship]

6. Reminds me: John Boorman's "Excalibur"

Next on my NetFlix queue, as soon as I send back Marx Bros., A Day at the Races, which I watched last night and will watch again tonight.

So many fine actors in Excalibur. Nigel Terry, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Helen "fucking" Mirren, Nicole "Chew the scenery" Williamson.

A great flick.

Trailer:

Plus, it has a rather wonderful musical score. Most importantly, it is decidedly not Camelot, which is totally wretched cinema and richly deserved to be parodied by Monty Python.

[edbermac]

18. My first thought: a lost prop from that film.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

30. I loved the use of Siegfried's funeral music from Gotterdammerung here n/t

[longship]

7. Plus, she wears pink Crocs!!!

Excalibur, plus royal pink Crocs? Hell, forget No. 10, clear the pretenders out of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle! Send the pretenders to the Tower! Let their heads be displayed on Traitor's Gate!

[Pope George Ringo II]

8. Over the last few months

I've really had to reconsider the wisdom of strange women lying in ponds distributing swords. Farcical aquatic ceremonies are starting to look fairly reasonable as a means to derive supreme executive power.

[GeoWilliam750]

25. Hmmm....

I can see your point

[leftofcool]

9. All hail Queen Matilda and her pink Crocs

[JHan]

12. Hahahahaa

[CanonRay]

10. Long live Queen Matilda

[left-of-center2012]

13. Reminds me of Putin ...

He once found an 'ancient relic' while scuba diving mere feet from the shore.

Hmm.

[Sunlei]

14. very cool but isn't that probably loot/a stolen item from about 30 years ago?

[onecent]

16. Awesome...she must be thrilled!!!

[Wolf Frankula]

19. That's a two hander not a broadsword

It is meant for fighting in the front ranks of pike squares, between the pikemen and cutting off heads of pikes and people. It's not Excalibur, and it looks modern made.

Wolf

[pnwmom]

21. Can she please come here and be President? I'm sure she'd do a better job. n/t

[Squinch]

28. My first thought too.

[Chellee]

23. I'm so jaded.

What stuck out: "Ironically, dad Paul Jones, 51, had recounted the famous folklore of King Arthur to Matilda and her four-year-old sister Lois just before the recovery."

Or...Dad planted a $29.95 replica for Matilda to find.

Maybe he wanted to encourage her love of history or mythology or literature.

Alternatively, an overly enthusiastic cosplay reenactment. And Dad telling the story really was coincidental.

No matter what, if that sword has been underwater for 12 months, I'd be surprised. But still, it would have been a thrilling find for a 7 year old.

[Shoonra]

26. Exclaibur, the film, ...

There have been, as far as I can find, about two dozen movies dramatizing the King Arthur story, but I think that 1981's EXCALIBUR, the one featured in two clips above, was the best. It pretended, like a few others, to be based on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, written in 1469, based on legends very deliberately cultivated during the reign of Henry II (12th cent.), rather than admit any obligation to a copyrighted source.

Anyway, it featured Helen Mirren (as Morgana), Nicol Williamson (as Merlin), Nigel Terry as a heroic Arthur (only a few years earlier he had been a rodent-like Prince John in Lion in Winter). The music is all Wagner (the bit behind the tossing of the sword is Sigfried's Rhine Journey). A tad too steamy for small children. The spirit Lady of the Lake, who provided and repaired the sword earlier in the movie, was director John Boorman's teenage daughter.

My amateur opinion is the sword found by the little girl is not the style, material, corrosion, etc., appropriate to the 7th century or anything close (presumably the era of Arthur).

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

33. That's Siegfried's funeral music, not the Rhine journey

See

And the music is not all Wagner. For example, Carl Orff's "O, Fortuna" from Carmina Burana is used here

[gay texan]

27. Well to be quite honest,

At this point a 10 year old girl wearing pink crocs and holding a sword could do a better job that the present Admin....

[TheDebbieDee]

31. Monty Python and the legend of the watery tart! I love it!

[Doreen]

34. That is adorable.

In order for her to rule she would have to have pulled it out of a stone to prove her worth to rule.

[tclambert]

36. But does she have any dragons? These days, queens gotsa have dragons.

I saw it on the TeeVee, so it must be true.

[Angry Dragon]

37. I will be her Dragon

[FSogol]

39. Not so fast, little girl. You have to find the grail before your job is complete.