Kaledvoulc'h : diforc'h etre ar stummoù

Caledfwlch appears in several early Welsh works, including the poem ''[[Preiddeu Annwfn]]'' and the prose tale ''[[Culhwch and Olwen]]'', a work associated with the ''[[Mabinogion]]'' and written perhaps around 1100. The name was later used in Welsh adaptations of foreign material such as the ''[[Brut]]''s, which were based on Geoffrey. It is often considered to be related to the phonetically similar ''[[Caladbolg]]'', a sword borne by several figures from [[Irish mythology]], although a borrowing of ''Caledfwlch'' from Irish ''Caladbolg'' has been considered unlikely by [[Rachel Bromwich]] and D. Simon Evans. They suggest instead that both names "may have similarly arisen at a very early date as generic names for a sword"; this sword then became exclusively the property of Arthur in the British tradition.<ref>R. Bromwich and D. Simon Evans, ''Culhwch and Olwen. An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale'' (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992), p.65; see further T. Green, ''Concepts of Arthur'' (Stroud: Tempus, 2007), p.156</ref> Most Celticists consider Geoffrey's ''Caliburnus'' to be derivative of a lost Old Welsh text in which ''bwlch'' had not yet been [[Lenition|lenited]] to ''fwlch''.<ref>P. K. Ford, "On the Significance of some Arthurian Names in Welsh" in ''Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies'' 30 (1983), pp.268-73 at p.271; R. Bromwich and D. Simon Evans, ''Culhwch and Olwen. An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale'' (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992), p.64; James MacKillop, ''Dictionary of Celtic Mythology'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp.64-65, 174.</ref> In [[Old French]] sources this then became ''Escalibor'', ''Excalibor'' and finally the familiar ''Excalibur''.▼