This Lady of the Lake is a central part of the sword’s legend. She appears as a supernatural woman of great power, inhabiting waters that seem to mark the boundary between the mortal world and the magical one. When Arthur receives Excalibur from her hand, he becomes bound not only to the throne of Britain but also to forces far beyond his understanding. The sword itself is described in glowing terms. Its edge never dulls, and it shines with a brilliance that can blind Arthur’s enemies. Along with the sword, Arthur also receives a scabbard, and this sheath is said to be even more valuable than the blade itself. As long as Arthur wears it, he cannot bleed to death, no matter how grievous his wounds. Together, the sword and its sheath make him nearly invincible in battle, and his possession of them becomes one of the foundations of his reign.

The sword was carried into countless struggles during Arthur’s life, against rival kings and foreign invaders, against treacherous knights and enemies who sought to tear down the unity he created. Excalibur symbolized more than just martial power. To Arthur’s followers, it represented legitimacy, proof that their king had been singled out by fate. The brilliance of the sword in battle matched the brilliance of his kingship, an age of chivalry and order that later writers idealized as a golden time for Britain. Yet the sword also foreshadowed tragedy, for it was always bound to Arthur’s fate.

In the end, Arthur’s story came to ruin at the Battle of Camlann, where he fought against Mordred, the usurper who was often portrayed as his illegitimate son or nephew. Struck down and mortally wounded, Arthur knew his time as king was over. He commanded one of his knights, Bedivere, to return Excalibur to the lake from which it had come. Twice Bedivere hesitated, unable to part with such a magnificent sword, but finally he obeyed. When he cast the sword into the water, a hand rose from the depths, caught it by the hilt, and drew it beneath the surface once more. With that, Arthur was carried away to Avalon, and Excalibur passed back into the realm of mystery, never seen again.

Many generations later, the sword returned to prominence in the age of heroes. Perseus, the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Danaë, found himself thrust into a quest that no man could have faced alone. His mother had been locked away in a bronze tower by her father, King Acrisius of Argos, who feared a prophecy that Danaë’s son would one day bring about his death. Zeus entered the tower in the form of golden rain, and Perseus was born. Acrisius, still afraid, cast mother and child into the sea in a chest, but they survived and came to the island of Seriphos, where Perseus grew to manhood.

In time, King Polydectes of Seriphos desired Danaë but saw Perseus as an obstacle. To rid himself of the young man, he set Perseus an impossible task: to bring back the head of Medusa, the mortal Gorgon. Medusa and her sisters dwelled at the edge of the world, and her terrible power turned anyone who looked at her face into stone. Polydectes must have believed he was sending Perseus to certain death. Yet Perseus, like many heroes, found favor with the gods.

Athena, who despised Medusa, guided Perseus and sent him to the Graeae, three ancient sisters who shared one eye and one tooth among them. By seizing their eye, Perseus forced them to reveal the way to the Gorgons. Hermes aided him with his winged sandals, allowing him to fly across the seas. Hades lent him the Helm of Invisibility, so he might vanish from both gods and monsters alike. Athena herself gave him a polished bronze shield, bright as a mirror, so he would never need to look directly upon Medusa. To complete his arms, Hermes placed the Harpe in his hand. This curved blade had once served Kronos in his struggle against Uranus, and now it was given to Perseus as the weapon strong enough to pierce the monstrous body of a Gorgon.

With these gifts, Perseus traveled to the ends of the earth. He found Medusa asleep among her immortal sisters, who could not be harmed. Carefully, he approached, keeping his gaze fixed on her reflection in the shield. Holding his breath, Perseus raised the Harpe and struck with one swift, powerful blow. The blade cut true, and Medusa’s head was severed from her body in an instant. From her blood sprang two beings: Pegasus, the winged horse who would later become the steed of heroes, and Chrysaor, a warrior or giant depending on the version of the tale.

On his journey home after defeating Medusa, Perseus encountered Andromeda, chained to a rock as a sacrifice to the sea serpent Cetus. With the aid of his winged sandals, he descended upon the monster, darting between its thrashing coils and snapping jaws. At the height of the struggle, Perseus raised the Harpe and, with a decisive stroke, severed the head of Cetus, killing the beast and freeing Andromeda, whom he took as his wife. He later returned to Seriphos and used Medusa’s head to turn King Polydectes and his court to stone, but by then the Harpe had already secured its legacy as the blade that enabled him to triumph over two of the most fearsome creatures in Greek myth.

From that point, the sword fades from the tales, yet its legacy remained clear. It was first the weapon that allowed Kronos to overthrow Uranus, and later the weapon that enabled Perseus to slay both Medusa and Cetus. Few weapons in mythology spanned both the age of the Titans and the age of mortal heroes, and fewer still can claim to have been wielded in such decisive acts. In the hands of Kronos it toppled the old order of the gods, and in the hands of Perseus it ended terrors that even the gods feared.

Susanoo ordered eight vats of sake to be prepared, placing each behind a fence with a gate. When Orochi appeared, it found the wine and drank deeply from each vat. The creature soon became sluggish and fell into a stupor. Susanoo then attacked with his sword, cutting off the heads one by one and finally moving to the tails. It was inside the fourth tail that his blade struck something hard. Splitting it open, Susanoo discovered a sword of extraordinary quality hidden within the monster’s body. He named it Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, the Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven. As a gesture of reconciliation with his sister, the sun goddess Amaterasu, with whom he had long been at odds, Susanoo presented the sword to her. From that point, it passed into the keeping of the gods and became one of the most treasured relics in Japanese tradition.

The sword remained in the heavenly realm until the time when Amaterasu sent her grandson Ninigi-no-Mikoto down to earth to establish rule over the land. To mark his divine authority, she entrusted him with the Three Sacred Treasures: the mirror, the jewel, and the sword. From Ninigi, the treasures passed down through the imperial line, and in this way, the blade came into the possession of the legendary prince Yamato Takeru, a warrior whose campaigns carried him across the Japanese islands. On one expedition, he was lured into a field of tall grass by enemies who set the plain ablaze, hoping to trap him in the fire. Takeru used the sword to cut down the burning grass before it could consume him. In some versions, the blade gave him power over the wind, so that the flames turned back upon those who had plotted against him. From this event, the sword acquired its new name, Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword. It became the emblem of his victories and a mark of divine favor upon him.

In later centuries, Kusanagi’s place among the Three Sacred Treasures came to embody the virtues expected of the Japanese emperor. The mirror represented wisdom, the jewel represented benevolence, and the sword represented valor. Together, they linked the imperial house back to the gods themselves. Kusanagi was said to be kept in the imperial palace until the late seventh century, when it was moved to Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya, where it remains associated to this day.

Legends about its fate vary. The medieval epic known as the Tale of the Heike tells that during the Battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185, the sword was lost when the Taira clan was defeated at sea and their emperor drowned. Later accounts insist that the sacred blade was recovered, or that another divine copy was returned to the shrine. The truth has never been made public, for the sword is considered too sacred to be seen by ordinary eyes. Whether or not the physical blade exists, its place in myth and tradition has endured. From its discovery in the body of the Orochi to its use by Yamato Takeru and its role as part of the regalia, Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi has always been remembered as a weapon of both heroism and divine authority, tied forever to the story of Japan itself.

But fate turned against him. In the battle against King Lyngvi and his allies, Odin himself appeared once more. As Sigmund fought, Odin raised his spear against him, and at that moment, Gram shattered into fragments. Defenseless, Sigmund fell, but before he died, he passed the pieces of the sword to his wife, who was carrying his child. She hid them away until their son, Sigurd, was born.

Sigurd was fostered in the household of King Hjalprek and raised by the dwarven blacksmith Regin, a man of cunning skill. Regin urged Sigurd to seek glory and vengeance, and when the boy was grown, he took the fragments of Gram to the forge. There, he reforged the sword, hammering it back to life. When Sigurd tested it, the blade split the anvil on which it rested, and when he lowered it into a stream, a tuft of wool drifting in the current was sliced clean in two. Gram had returned, brighter and sharper than before, a sword worthy of a hero.

Regin then told Sigurd of Fafnir, his brother, who had once been a man but was twisted by greed into a dragon. Fafnir had slain their father, Hreiomarr, to hoard a vast treasure of gold, and now he lay upon it in a desolate place, feared by all. At Regin’s urging, Sigurd set out to slay the monster. Following his mentor’s plan, he dug a pit along the path where Fafnir crawled to drink. When the dragon passed overhead, Sigurd thrust Gram upward with all his strength, piercing its belly. The blow was mortal, and Fafnir’s venomous blood poured down into the pit. As the beast lay dying, he warned Sigurd that the hoard was cursed and would bring about his ruin.

Ignoring the warning, Sigurd roasted the dragon’s heart, and when he tasted it, he found he could understand the language of birds. They whispered that Regin planned to betray him and take the treasure for himself. Acting first, Sigurd slew Regin with Gram, cutting short his treachery. He then claimed the hoard for himself and became the most celebrated hero of his age.

But the curse upon the treasure could not be escaped. Sigurd’s fame and wealth drew him into the affairs of kings, and he became entangled with the Burgundians. He met and won the love of Brynhild, a valkyrie, but through trickery and betrayal, he was forced into a marriage with Gudrun, the sister of Gunnar, king of the Burgundians. Deceived into helping Gunnar win Brynhild’s hand, Sigurd incurred her wrath, and her grief and anger at the betrayal led to his downfall. Eventually, he was murdered in his sleep at the instigation of those who envied and feared him.

Gram, the sword that had won him his greatest victories, was placed with him at his death. In some versions, Brynhild, stricken with sorrow, threw herself upon the blade and died with him, so that they would be joined in death as they had been denied in life. In this way, Gram’s story ends not in triumph but in tragedy, bound up with both the glory and the doom of the Volsungs.

In the German Nibelungenlied, the story was reshaped, and there the sword is most often called Balmung. The names change, but the role remains the same. Like the Harpe and Kusanagi, Gram was more than a weapon of war. It was tied to destiny, to the rise and fall of men touched by the gods, and it remains remembered as one of the greatest blades in all of myth.

Charlemagne, king of the Franks and later crowned emperor by the pope, wielded Joyeuse in his wars to expand and defend his realm. It was carried into battle against the Saxons, the Lombards, and the Saracens, and it was present in the most celebrated conflict of the Charlemagne cycle: the war against the Saracens in Spain. In the Song of Roland, the most famous of these epics, Joyeuse is carried by the emperor while his nephew Roland bears Durandal. Roland’s death at Roncevaux Pass becomes the tragic climax of the story, but Joyeuse remains with Charlemagne, a steady symbol of his enduring power and the strength of his rule.

In time, the stories of Joyeuse became tied to an actual sword preserved in France. By the twelfth century, it was said that Charlemagne’s own blade had been kept and passed down through the monarchy. This weapon was brought out for coronations, carried in the royal procession, and laid upon the altar before being given to the new king as a sign of his authority. For centuries, it served this ceremonial role, linking each ruler of France to the memory of Charlemagne. The sword itself did not remain unchanged through that long span of history. It was repaired and modified across the centuries, and today scholars recognize that its pommel dates to the tenth or eleventh century, its guard to the twelfth, and its blade to later medieval times.

Between myth and history, Joyeuse remained the joyful sword, the shining companion of Charlemagne, and a symbol of the power and legitimacy of the French crown. It was carried in coronations until 1825, when Charles X became the last French king crowned with it. The sword survived the turmoil of the French Revolution and remains preserved as a national treasure. Today, Joyeuse is housed in the Louvre in Paris, where it is still remembered as the sword of Charlemagne.