Hi Bernard, while reading the comments/questions from Nick Lepperd I noticed he asked where the “mumbo jumbo” of the sword in the stone came from and you didn’t try to offer any explanation. In my research which is now getting to be very vast, filling several tomes, the same theory seems to keep cropping up; swords were often made in stone moulds very early on (before they were bashed out with hammers etc.), and hence the idea of the sword in the stone as the sword, when cooled was in fact drawn from the stone. Admittedly, these swords were crude affairs and would not hold any semblance of a keen edge and certainly would not withstand any blows from the latter swords as we know them today. But the myths that rose from these early swords are certainly still with us in one form or another. Hope this is of interest to you and my fellow readers. Looking forward to the next Saxon novel. By the way, did you know we have recently had St Derfels Day? I think it was April 4th. Andrew Moore