When Merlin had made the bed and other marvels, which I cannot describe to you here, for they will be recalled to you at the appropriate time and place in the story, he took the sword that Balin had carried, removed the pommel, and put on another.

When he had put it on, he said to the knight who was beside him, “Now see if you can grip this pommel.”

He tried and failed, and Merlin began to laugh. The other asked him why he laughed.

“I laugh,” said Merlin, “because you thought you could seize it.”

‘Why?” he asked. ‘Would it have been such a wonder if I had seized it?”

‘Yes, indeed,” said Merlin, “for there is no knight now in the world who can grip it.”

‘Will he ever come to this island,” asked the knight, “the man who can grip it?”

‘Yes,” said Merlin, “one only, and he will be called Lancelot, and he will take this sword away with him, and with it he will kill the knight he has loved most in the world.”

Post-Vulgate Merlin