Arthur and Accolon’s Duel

Arthur and Accolon’s Duel turns a contest between knights into the exposure of a private conspiracy against the king. Morgan le Fay arranges for Accolon to wield Excalibur against Arthur, while Arthur is given a counterfeit sword; their unequal weapons make the fight appear to be a test of prowess until Arthur recovers his own blade. The outcome reveals that the danger came not only from an armed opponent but from treason within Arthur’s family and court.

Causes and Deception

The duel grows out of a dispute between Sir Damas and his brother Sir Ontzlake. Damas requires a knight to fight for him, while Ontzlake is already wounded and unable to take the field. Accolon volunteers to serve as Ontzlake’s champion. His decision is bound up with a larger plot: Morgan le Fay has sent him Arthur’s sword and scabbard so that he can kill the king, and she has promised a kingdom to the woman who brings her Arthur’s head.

Morgan equips the two opponents differently. Accolon receives Excalibur and its scabbard, and agrees to fight without mercy; Arthur, by contrast, accepts a sword and scabbard sent in Morgan’s name, believing them to be his own. They are counterfeit and brittle. The deception means that Arthur enters a formally arranged combat without knowing either that his opponent is Accolon or that the weapons have been exchanged. Accolon knows the sword’s intended purpose, but does not recognize the man he is to fight as Arthur.

The Combat and Reversal

Before the fight, Arthur hears mass. At the field, a damsel from Morgan brings him the false sword and scabbard, presenting them as a gift from his sister. The two knights then charge, their horses and riders falling after their spears meet; they rise and continue with swords. Arthur’s blade fails to match the weapon in Accolon’s hand. Accolon’s blows repeatedly overcome Arthur’s defenses, and Arthur loses strength as the fight continues, while Accolon appears to have the advantage.

Arthur nevertheless continues to fight. When he pauses, Accolon refuses him time to rest and presses the attack. Arthur strikes back, but his counterfeit sword breaks at the cross, leaving him with only its hilt and pommel. Accolon urges him to yield. Arthur refuses: he has promised to fight to the uttermost and would rather die with honour than surrender. Even without a serviceable weapon, he holds his ground and strikes Accolon with the pommel.

The reversal comes through the intervention of the Damsel of the Lake, who enters the field because she knows Morgan has arranged Arthur’s death. By her enchantment, Excalibur falls from Accolon’s hand. Arthur seizes it, recognizes his sword, and takes back the scabbard as well. The weapons that had made the fight appear hopeless are restored to their rightful owner; Arthur then overcomes Accolon. The turn changes the meaning of the combat from an apparent defeat of the king to the defeat of the plot against him.

Recognition and Disclosure

After Arthur has beaten him, Accolon acknowledges Arthur as the better knight and says that he will not yield verbally, since he promised to fight to the uttermost. Arthur asks who he is. Accolon explains that Morgan sent him Excalibur in order to kill Arthur, whom she hates for his prowess and standing. He also discloses their relationship as lovers and Morgan’s intended political outcome: she planned to have Accolon become king and herself his queen, after arranging for Arthur’s death and, later, the death of her husband, King Uriens.

Only after Accolon has confessed does Arthur disclose his identity. Accolon asks for mercy, saying that he did not know whom he was fighting. Arthur grants it because Accolon did not know his person, though he still recognizes that Accolon consented to a treasonous attempt on his life. Arthur places some blame on Morgan’s arts and influence, but does not treat the confession as erasing the danger or the betrayal. He tells the gathered witnesses that neither knight knew the other’s identity and that, had they known, no battle would have taken place.

Judgment and Aftermath

Arthur’s judgment reaches beyond the duel to the quarrel between the brothers. He gives the manor to Ontzlake, requiring him to provide Damas a palfrey each year. He condemns Damas for his arrogance and orders him to stop distressing knights who travel on adventure. He also commands Damas to release the twenty knights he has held prisoner, with their equipment, and threatens death if any of them later brings a complaint against him. Ontzlake, whom Arthur recognizes as a worthy knight, is invited to join the king’s court and is promised the prospect of support there.

Arthur and Accolon are both taken to a nearby abbey, three miles away, where physicians attend to them. Arthur recovers, but Accolon dies four days later from the blood he has lost. Arthur sends his body to Camelot on a horse-bier borne by six knights, with a message to Morgan that he is returning her the man she sent against him and that he has recovered Excalibur and its scabbard.

Narrative Significance

The duel brings several kinds of authority into conflict: a private arrangement between brothers, a champion’s obligation, the king’s vulnerability, and the obligations of loyalty. Arthur does not simply win by strength. He persists after his weapon breaks, refuses to accept dishonour as the price of survival, and then, once the deception is exposed, separates mercy toward the defeated knight from judgment of the larger treason. His decision to reform the local dispute and free Damas’s prisoners makes the outcome a royal settlement as well as a victory in combat.

Recognition arrives only after the decisive blows. Accolon’s confession explains the weapon exchange and identifies Morgan’s intended political future, while Arthur’s disclosure transforms a seemingly anonymous encounter into an attack by a member of his own household. Yet the immediate triumph does not restore the earlier trust: Arthur explicitly says he had honoured and trusted Morgan more than his other kin. The episode therefore ends with the king alive and Excalibur recovered, but with familial loyalty revealed as a source of danger rather than security.