The Singing Sword is the primary weapon of the fictional character Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...

, a Knight of the Round Table in the service of King Arthur

King Arthur

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...

, in the long running comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...

. Hal Foster created Prince Valiant in 1937.

The Singing Sword's first appearance in Prince Valiant lore came in the "Ilene Abducted" story, first published in 1938. In this story, the original owner of the sword is Prince Arn of Ord, Valiant's rival for the beautiful maid Ilene. The two men put aside their differences when their beloved is kidnapped by Viking

Viking

The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

 raiders. Arn lends Valiant the charmed sword so that he can hold off their pursuers while Arn rides ahead to free Ilene. The pair's efforts prove futile; they discover she was killed in a shipwreck. Arn gives the Singing Sword to Valiant following this adventure, and the two part as friends. Later in the series, the Singing Sword is established as a sister to King Arthur's Excalibur

Excalibur

Excalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. Sometimes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are said to be the same weapon, but in most versions they are considered separate. The sword was...

.

Animation

On October 20, 1991, the animated television series The Legend of Prince Valiant

The Legend of Prince Valiant

The Legend of Prince Valiant is an American animated television series based on the Prince Valiant comic strip created by Hal Foster. Set in the time of King Arthur, it's a family-oriented adventure show about an exiled prince who goes on a quest to become one of the Knights of the Round Table. He...

offered its own telling of the Singing Sword's origins. In an episode entitled "The Singing Sword", Valiant follows his best friends Arn and Rowanne to Bridgeford, where he learns that they have been captured by the ruthless Baron Duncan Draconarius. They are sentenced to death as part of the Baron's plot to keep Camelot

Camelot

Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world...

a secret from his subjects. Rowanne's father Cedric loans Valiant the Singing Sword to aid him in overthrowing the Baron. According to Cedric, the sword was forged from the same metal as Excalibur and will be safeguarded by his family until its true owner appears. The sword "sings" during Valiant's duel with Draconarius, indicating that Valiant is a just, pure-hearted man and the sword's destined owner. It sings a second time when Arn wields it while liberating a monastery. Valiant sees this as a sign that Arn is ready for knighthood and uses the sword to dub his friend Sir Arn of Camelot.