rnament has been proclaimed for New Year's Day so that men from all over England can come to try to pull out the sword. Kay convinces Sir Ector, Sir Grummore, and King Pellinore that they should go to the tournament. While they are talking, the Wart and Merlyn enter and Merlyn announces that he is leaving. He and Archimedes dematerialize before their eyes. The day of the tournament, Kay is so excited that he makes the group get up early and go to the jousting area an hour before the jousts begin. He realizes when he arrives that he has forgotten his sword at the hotel, so he sends the Wart to get it. The hotel is closed when the Wart gets there, but he sees a sword stuck in a stone in front of a nearby church. With some effort, he pulls the sword out of the stone and brings it back to Kay. Kay recognizes it as the sword that will determine the next king of England, and he tries to claim falsely that he was the one that pulled it out of the stone. When Sir Ector presses him, he gives in and admits that Wart pulled it out. The Wart is accepted as King after repeatedly putting the sword into the anvil and drawing it back out again. He receives gifts from all over England. One day Merlyn appears magically before him. He tells the Wart that his father was Uther Pendragon, that Merlyn was the one who first brought him to Sir Ector's castle as an infant, and that from now on he will be known as King Arthur.Commentary In Chapter 21, the Wart's transformation into a badger gives him a chance to work out some of his resentment towards Kay and also to learn a couple of lessons about the use of power. The first lesson is learned in his interaction with the hedgehog. One way of viewing the interaction is as a metaphor for the interaction of knights and members of the aristocracy with the 'common man' of the English Middle Ages. The Wart, as a badger, has overwhelming strength in comparison to the hedgehog, but he cannot eat the hedgehog without har...
