A．his queenB．the person who gave it to himC．Merlin, his……
TEXT D
Legends about King Arthur
have existed since the 6th century. Stories of the man and his doings have grown
far beyond anything that could be regarded as factual history. Here are some of
the highlights.
Arthur was born as a result of the wizardry of
Merlin, who arranged all adulterous liaison between Arthur’s father, King Uther
Pendragon, and his lover, a married duchess. Merlin agreed to do this only if
the lovers allowed him to bring up the child born of the affair. When Uther
Pendragon died some years later, there was confusion in the kingdom about who
should inherit the throne. Merlin arranged a pageant where many knights came to
try their luck at pulling a sword out of a stone. Whoever successfully extracted
the blade was the rightful king. After many a brave knight had tried and failed,
Merlin presented the young Arthur who, to everyone’s surprise, easily pulled out
the sword.
As king, Arthur established the knightly fellowship
of the Round table at his castle of Camelot, So appear all the other chivalrous
knights associated with the king. The knights of the Round Table spent much of
their time on the quest for the Holy Grail. The Grail is the cup used by Jesus
at the Last Supper, which was allegedly brought to Britain, then somehow lost.
It is notoriously hard to get hold of, as finding it requires an almost
superhuman degree of moral purity. At last it was the true gentleman Sir Galahad
who eventually found it and set off to return it to its rightful place in the
Holy Land.
Arthur’s death is a matter of some debate. According
to legend, one of Arthur’s less intelligent moves was his decision to marry the
Lady Guinevere, who fell in love with Sir Lancelot, and their adultery Led to
war among the knights of the Round Table, culminating in the Battle of Catalan
and Arthur’s mortal word. After the Battle of Camlan the wounded king was taken
to the mysterious isle of Avalon ruled by his sinister Morgan Le Faye. She,
being skilled in the arts of witchcraft and healing, was apparently meant to
cure him. But evidently Arthur thought he had little chance, because he gave his
sword, Excalibur, to Sir Bedivere to return to the Lady of the Lake, an
enigmatic character from whom Arthur had originally received the blade. Bedivere
hurled the sword over the water, where a spooky hand appeared from the lake to
catch it, waved it around for a while and then carried it down to the murky
depths where, who knows, perhaps it still lies. As for Arthur, we can only
conclude that his sister wasn’t such a good doctor.
Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, was returned to ______.
A．his queen
B．the person who gave it to him
C．Merlin, his adopted father
D．his sister
