HareBrain, If you can get your hands on a copy of The Forge and the Crucible, by Mircea Eliade, it might have some information useful to your project,. I'm not sure of that, since I read it a long time ago, but I do remember something about sacrifices being made to the forge or during smelting, though can't recall whether swords were involved. Anyway, it's an awesome book (which in fact you may already have read at some point) whcih combines shamanism, alchemy, and blacksmithing. New copies are expensive, but you might find it at the public library and see if it's of sufficient interest—not just for what you were writing about above, but for stories you might write in the future—to buy your own copy. (Assuming you don't already have one.)
As for fantasy that combines magic and metallurgy, in particular sword-making, have you read Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World Trilogy? It's been OP for a long time, but recently available in digital. I was so impressed by it when I scored ancient paperbacks many years ago, that when I found out there was a sequel trilogy, not available in this country, I went to great lengths to score used editions from yours. It turns out they were a bit disappointing, so I'm not recommending those, but the first three books The Anvil of Ice, The Forge in the Forest, and The Hammer of the Sun, you might like those as much as I did. The digital editions are quite reasonably priced. Like all books scanned in from older copies, I can't vouch for the formatting etc. But I think you would find the stories of great interest. (Again, if I'm not telling you about books you have already read.)
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Back to Excalibur after that digression:
Ambriel, in the old Welsh stories, such as those compiled in the Mabinogion, nothing is said about how Arthur acquired his sword, he just has it already in these stories. Sometimes it's named (Caledfwlch), sometimes not named at all We have an idea of when the stories were compiled in Middle Welsh (12th or 13th century) but the stories appear to be parts of a much older oral tradition, and show influences from pre-Christian Irish mythology.
In some of the medieval French Romances, it's not even Arthur's sword, as I mentioned a few posts past. Chretien de Troyes late 12th century Perceval, gives it to Gawain. It's called "Escalibor" but obviously just another version of the more familiar name. But speaking of French writers, it was apparently Robert de Boron who first mentioned the sword in the stone, in his Merlin, at roughly the same time that Chretien was writing.
So as to which sword was which and how Arthur came by it (them), and how many sword smight have the same name (or variations on that name), it depends on which sources one has been reading, and which ones, I think, resonate the most strongly with our own imaginations.
As for fantasy that combines magic and metallurgy, in particular sword-making, have you read Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World Trilogy? It's been OP for a long time, but recently available in digital. I was so impressed by it when I scored ancient paperbacks many years ago, that when I found out there was a sequel trilogy, not available in this country, I went to great lengths to score used editions from yours. It turns out they were a bit disappointing, so I'm not recommending those, but the first three books The Anvil of Ice, The Forge in the Forest, and The Hammer of the Sun, you might like those as much as I did. The digital editions are quite reasonably priced. Like all books scanned in from older copies, I can't vouch for the formatting etc. But I think you would find the stories of great interest. (Again, if I'm not telling you about books you have already read.)
______
Back to Excalibur after that digression:
Ambriel, in the old Welsh stories, such as those compiled in the Mabinogion, nothing is said about how Arthur acquired his sword, he just has it already in these stories. Sometimes it's named (Caledfwlch), sometimes not named at all We have an idea of when the stories were compiled in Middle Welsh (12th or 13th century) but the stories appear to be parts of a much older oral tradition, and show influences from pre-Christian Irish mythology.
In some of the medieval French Romances, it's not even Arthur's sword, as I mentioned a few posts past. Chretien de Troyes late 12th century Perceval, gives it to Gawain. It's called "Escalibor" but obviously just another version of the more familiar name. But speaking of French writers, it was apparently Robert de Boron who first mentioned the sword in the stone, in his Merlin, at roughly the same time that Chretien was writing.
So as to which sword was which and how Arthur came by it (them), and how many sword smight have the same name (or variations on that name), it depends on which sources one has been reading, and which ones, I think, resonate the most strongly with our own imaginations.
