Swords and stones, and wishing the past

France may have a new king! Not really, but someone took a sword from a stone in the historic town of Rocamadour.

And not just any sword. According to lore, it was the magical sword “Durandal”, that the mythical knight Roland threw, 1300 years ago, and buried itself in the rock.

Roland did live in the eighth century and was one of Charlemagne’s military leaders. But his real life (of which evidence is skimpy), became embroidered into lengthy legend. His tale is part of the medieval stories known as the “Matter of France” (the Arthurian legends are the “Matter of England”).

Via oral culture and traveling minstrels, the legend of Roland spread, and became part of well-known folklore in Western Europe. His brave horse gained a name, Veillantif. His adventures were shaded in, and his tragic death - in battle with the Saracens in Spain - is recounted with his fiancee’s grief.

But Roland came to mean more than a character in a story of heroic knights. In Germany people came to quite like him for other reasons. Independent city states put up statues to him, representing their autonomy outside the control of the nobility. From being a French soldier he came to mean something to people in other parts of Europe, as part of shared cultural identity.

The Roland statue in Bremen, the oldest still standing.

But the mysterious sword in the stone and the signs of the chosen one echo through European folklore. The obvious cognate is King Arthur and his sword, Excalibur. According to some accounts, this sword was retrieved from Arthur’s tomb at Glastonbury in the twelfth century by Richard the Lionheart, and given to a crusading ally, Tancred of Sicily. (As diplomatic gifts go, that’s a pretty fancy one). Nobody knows what happened to it after that.

As for the missing sword in France, there are varying theories about its origins. It’s obviously been in the rock for a while, but scholars believe it hasn’t actually been there 1300 years. There are suggestions that multiple replacement swords have been put in over the years.

One theory is that it was first put there to bump up tourism, in the late 1700s (the age of the Grand Tour). But the sword’s existence, whoever put it there, demonstrates the persistence of the Roland story, and its widespread familiarity, that it could be used to entice visitors to a French village. That it is probably much younger than its legend is also not surprising.

Many things are not as old as we think. The mists of history drop very quickly. Something can be created and within decades acquire a legend of longevity and permanence.

Like the ritual use of Stonehenge. The rocks themselves are very old - yet their use by Druids (who have permission to access the site on the solstice), is quite recent. The “Ancient Order of Druids” dates back to the 1780s - a product of the age of fraternal organizations rather than direct link to Ancient Britons and their practices.

Stonehenge itself spent centuries largely forgotten, the landowner ignoring it, sheep meandering through it. The era of romanticism - and the beginnings of tourism - brought it to prominence.

While henges likewise are a phenomenon across Britain and France, some are not old at all. Like this stone circle in Ham Hill, Somerset. Not an ancient monument, but created around 2000.

It is however on the site of an ancient hill fort, captured by the Romans. The likelihood that visitors will come to see it as likewise ancient is high (regardless of what a plaque might say).

As for Roland’s missing sword, the search continues.

Where else I have been:

This week I wrote about cold cream for jstor daily, and also the history of teflon. I also reviewed John Ganz’s When the Clock Broke for Law and Liberty, discussing everything early 90s, from John Gotti to Ruby Ridge.