I have a few questions for you!
I've always loved the Arthurian tales (actually ended up studying them briefly when I was still at uni, though that was a while ago now and I'm not knowledgable enough to be certain on a few points, and I want to be accurate!)... but anyway, long story short I am looking at getting a tattoo based around the tales (focusing on Excalibur for reasons I won't get into, possibly incorporating the round table into the hilt somehow?? But like I said, I want it to be quite accurate, so I thought I'd just come check my info with people who know more than I do before I start designing it!
I have just a few questions!
What kind of sword is Excalibur? I had a quick flick through my copy of Malory's 'Le Morte D'Arthur' but couldn't spot anything concrete.. I'm thinking probably a spatha or a claymore?
Also, does someone know how many seats were at the round table (and, IIRC, wasn't each one to represent a virtue - like 'courage', 'honour', etc? Or have I made that up?)..
And, last question, can someone confirm that (in most versions, anyway) the writing on Excalibur is 'take me up' and 'cast me away'?
Thanks in advance for your help guys, I appreciate it!
The Arthurian stories have been retold and recycled for centuries (if not over a thousand years - it depends on how we date the Welsh Arthurian stories). Thus they have amalgamated into a mish-mash of features. Any tatoo or image of Excalibur will not be historical but only representative of one particular tradition or one particular story (Le Morte Darthur is by no means archetypal in its treatment of the Arthurian story).
Ultimately you might want to ask yourself what kind of Arthur you want depicted. The Post-Roman Arthur, the knightly Arthur, a modern Arthur. They're all equally valid and equally flawed. Accuracy is an illusion in this kind of endeavour.
I had a look at Kenneth Hodges's Forging Chivalric Communities because I remembered he noted something odd about Excalibur. Apparently there are two of them in Le Morte. The first is taken from the stone, the second is bartered away from the Lady of the Lake:
The first Excalibur, the sword in the stone, appears after a consultation of Merlin and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but it appears outside of the church instead of on the high altar and Arthur draws it one his own, alone, without receiving it from the bishops. After it breaks, he receives a new one, not by purchasing it from the church, but by bartering for it with the Lady of the Lake. Finally, after Morgan steals the sword, he reclaims it in combat with the assistance of Nyneve.The multiple providers of the sword reflect the multiple sources of authority: personal prowess, supernatural worthiness,women’s good will.
Hodges, K., Forging Chivalric Communities in Malory's Le Morte Darthur, (Basingstoke, 2005), p.36.
Of the second Excalibur, the scabbard is more important than the sword in Malory's Le Morte Darthur:
Sir, said Merlin, look ye keep well the scabbard of Excalibur, for ye shall lose no blood while ye have the scabbard upon you, though ye have as many wounds upon you as ye may have. So after, for great trust, Arthur betook the scabbard to Morgan le Fay his sister, and she loved another knight better than her husband King Uriens or King Arthur, and she would have had Arthur her brother slain, and therefore she let make another scabbard like it by enchantment, and gave the scabbard Excalibur to her love; and the knight's name was called Accolon, that after had near slain King Arthur.
Source, Ch. XI.
No, they are not. You may be mixing this up with the 'Perilous Seat' which would only be sat by the most virtuous and worshipful of Arthur's knights. This was, of course, Galahad.
I haven't investigated (and honestly have no desire to!) how many knights constituted the Round Table, so I offer this with the warning that it might be wrong. At any rate, there are a few too many to fit on a hilt.
Like I've said, it doesn't really matter. Find one, pick one, and be happy with it. Neither of those phrases appear in Malory's Le Morte Darthur verbatim but if you scrawl through the source I've provided you might be able to find one.