The name Excalibur ultimately comes from the ancestor

of Welsh Caledfwlch (and Breton Kaledvoulc'h, Middle Cornish Calesvol) which is

a compound of caled "hard" and bwlch "breach, cleft".[1] Caledfwlch appears in several early
Welsh works, including the poem Preiddeu Annwfn (though it is not directly named - but only
alluded to - here) 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 Bruts (chronicles), which were based on Geoffrey of
Monmouth. 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 Caladbolghas 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.[1][2]
Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain, c.
1136), Latinised the name of Arthur's sword as Caliburnus (potentially influenced by the Medieval
Latin spelling calibs of Classical Latin chalybs, from Greek chlyps [] "steel") and states
that it was forged in the Isle of Avalon. Most Celticists consider Geoffrey's Caliburnus to be
derivative of a lost Old Welsh text in which bwlch had not yet been lenited to fwlch.[3][4][1] In Old
French sources this then became Escalibor, Excaliborand finally the familiar Excalibur.
Geoffrey Gaimar, in his Old French L'Estoire des Engles (1134-1140), mentions Arthur and his
sword: "this Constantine was the nephew of Arthur, who had the sword Caliburc" ("Cil Costentin li
nis Artur, Ki out l'espe Caliburc").[5][6]
In Wace's Roman de Brut (c. 1150-1155), an Old French translation and versification of Geoffrey
of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, the sword is called Calabrum,Callibourc, Chalabrun,
and Calabrun (with alternate spellings such
as Chalabrum, Calibore, Callibor, Caliborne, Calliborc, and Escaliborc, found in various
manuscripts of theBrut).[7]
In Chrtien de Troyes' late 12th century Old French Perceval, Gawain carries the
sword Escalibor and it is stated, "for at his belt hung Excalibor, the finest sword that there was,
which sliced through iron as through wood"[8] ("Qu'il avoit cainte Escalibor, la meillor espee qui
fust, qu'ele trenche fer come fust"[9]). This statement was probably picked up by the author of
the Estoire Merlin, or Vulgate Merlin, where the author (who was fond of fanciful folk
etymologies) asserts that Escalibor "is a Hebrew name which means in French 'cuts iron, steel,
and wood'"[10] ("c'est non Ebrieu qui dist en franchois trenche fer & achier et fust"; note that the
word for "steel" here, achier, also means "blade" or "sword" and comes from medieval
Latin aciarium, a derivative of acies "sharp", so there is no direct connection with Latin chalybs in
this etymology). It is from this fanciful etymological musing that Thomas Malory got the notion

that Excalibur meant "cut steel"[11] ("'the name of it,' said the lady, 'is Excalibur, that is as moche to
say, as Cut stele'").