Fatima and Harry find out about the difference between 'fact' and 'fiction' and that not all stories from the past are true.
Fatima: I've heard of a famous story that isn't here in the museum anywhere: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Have you seen them, Harry?
Harry: No. I wonder where they are?
Sally: No one actually knows if King Arthur ever really existed. Stories have been told about him for over a thousand years, but we don't know if he ever really lived, or if there really were any Knights of the Round Table. Maybe they're just made up stories.
Harry: Oh, they sound exciting though!
Sally: Don't worry, we have lots of information about King Arthur and the knights - just in a special room that has all the things that we think might not be definitely real. Let's go and check it out. Here he is, he's pulling his sword from a stone. Let's put our virtual reality headsets on and go and find out more.
Harry: Why is the sword stuck in the stone?
Fatima: Seems like a silly place to leave it.
Sally: Well, the story is that the sword could only be pulled free from the stone by the true king.
Harry: Did that really happen?
Fatima: Doesn't seem very likely.
Sally: Exactly. So this is what we call a legend. Stories passed down from person to person , with no good evidence for them being real.
Harry: So how do we know anything from the past is real?
Fatima: Yeah, how do we know the dinosaurs are real? No one has ever seen a real one.
Sally: The job of historians is a bit like being a detective. We have to look at evidence - things like letters, books and other objects - to understand what is real and what isn't.
Harry: Are dragon's real?
Sally: Good question. Dinosaurs and dragons are like each other in many ways, but only one is real and we know which is real because we have evidence of dinosaurs, but no evidence of dragons. We have dinosaur bones and fossils, so we know they are real. But King Arthur is still a very exciting story. Shall we find out more?
Harry: Absolutely!
Fatima: Let's!
Sally: Arthur was born the heir to the throne, meaning he would be the next king. But Arthur's father had lots of enemies. So the wizard, Merlin, told him to hide Arthur until he was fully grown, to make sure nothing bad happened to him. So Arthur was taken far away where no one could find him to keep him safe. Merlin then took a sword and placed it inside a stone and cast a spell on it so that only the true King of England could remove it from the stone.
Arthur grew up and when he was a young man, he returned. He saw that lots of knights were trying to pull the sword from the stone, as they all wanted to be king. But each time they tried to pull the sword out, they couldn't - no matter how hard they tried! So Arthur thought he would try to pull the sword from the stone and he did. That meant that he was the real King of England.
To make sure that he could really do it and there wasn't a trick, everyone asked him to put the sword back and do it again. After he pulled the sword free again, they all agreed that he was the true king.
Harry: Wow, how cool!
Sally: Once he became king, some of the finest knights in the land came to join Arthur in his castle. According to the stories, they built a special round table, for all the knights to sit at. So they became known as the Knights of the Round Table.
Fatima: Wow, that's cool!
Sally: Arthur and his knights had many, many other adventures together - full of magical creatures like dragons, evil knights, witches and wizards. They fought many battles together. There are loads of stories to listen to. Go and find out more!
Fatima: We will.
The Legend of King Arthur
In this animation Fatima and Harry learn about the difference between 'fact' and 'fiction' - thus the difference between history and myth.
Pupils may have encountered knights in fairy tales and myths and this video begins to unpick the difference between the fictional depictions and ‘real’ history.
The animation starts with Sally, the museum guide, using the example of dragons and dinosaurs to explain the difference to the two children: we know dinosaurs are real because we have the physical evidence - fossils - to prove they existed.
Sally then introduces Fatima and Harry to some of the best-known stories from the myth of King Arthur.
Further resources
Teacher's Notes. document
Download / print the Notes including illustrations, photos and worksheets (pdf)
Which of these is real? How do we know? image
Click to display the image full-size
Arthur pulls the sword from the stone. image
Click to display the image full-size
Teacher's Notes
Before the video
The teacher could use the ‘Telephone Game’ to demonstrate to pupils how things can get ‘distorted’ as they are passed down through the generations.
The teacher could whisper a sentence into the ear of one pupil who then passes this on to the next.
The class can then compare the sentence at the end of the chain compared with how it started!
The teacher could use this as the starting point for a discussion - why do some things which didn’t happen become stories?
This links to the NC objective of participating in 'discussions…and debates'.
The teacher could then move on to asking pupils if they have ever heard of the stories of King Arthur?
During the video
The teacher can pause and ask questions, or the teacher could use the snippets of the King Arthur myths as a teaser forreading.
After the Video
The teacher could use this video to do a ‘detective’ lesson: how can pupils gather evidence to find out if something really happened?
This can be based on something in the modern world but will help to develop their historical skills of understanding and evaluating evidence.
This could also be quite an active task pupils could literally be sent to hunt to find clues of an event happening!
The video could also be used as a good stimulus for reading some of the King Arthur myths.
This film is relevant for teaching History at KS1 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and 1st Level in Scotland.
More from this series
Famous Sieges. video
Fatima and Harry learn how castles defended against attack by hearing the stories of two famous sieges.
The Real Life of a Knight. video
Fatima and Harry learn some more of the many ways life in medieval times is different from today.
William the Conqueror. video
Fatima and Harry learn about William the Conqueror’s invasion of England and the Battle of Hastings.
See also...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. collection
The Arthurian story 'Gawain and the Green Knight' told in six animated episodes.
