Hello and welcome to Mysteries of Science.

My name's Dan and I'm the editor of Science and Nature, which is the monthly magazine from the team behind the Week Junior.

And I'm Michael, the features editor.

Science helps us to understand the universe, but there are some strange cases it still hasn't solved, including this one.

I don't know if you know this, Michael, but I'm a massive fan of King Arthur, that legendary

knight from medieval Britain. You know, the one who pulled the sword out of the stone and sat

with his knights at the round table and got help from his wizard Merlin, the magician.

I just love those stories.

It is a brilliant story, isn't it, Dan? But that's all it is, right? A story?

Well, Michael, maybe not, actually. What I'm hearing is that lots of academics and archaeologists

have been investigating whether there's any truth to these legends.

Huh. I mean, I guess the stories have to come from somewhere.

But where? Who was he? How can we find out the truth?

Well, I guess come sit down at our round table and join us as we go back in time to find out

whether or not King Arthur was a real person. Maybe, just maybe,

I can find the sword in the stone. This is mysteries of science.

So, King Arthur, I mean, where do I begin, Michael? We've got the knights of the round table,

Excalibur coming out of the lake, the lady in the lake, the sword and the stone, Merlin, Morgan Le Fay. You can tell I'm a big fan.

King Arthur's super fan here. All those stories you mentioned, but I wonder where they all began.

Hello there. My name is Professor Leia Tether. I'm a professor of medieval literature and publishing at the University of Bristol.

Hi, Leia. Tell us, please.

When did these stories of King Arthur first begin?

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