Scary Disney: The Sword in the Stone: The Beginning, The Wolf, The Pike, The Hawk and Madam Mim

The Sword in the Stone. The classic tale of a young boy pulling a sword from a stone and becoming King of England. A boy named Arthur, or called Wart by the people around him, is out hunting with his older brother Kay one day. Kay’s arrow lands in the forest so he makes Arthur go and get it. Arthur comes across a wizard’s house where he embarks on a journey of madness. On the day of his brother’s tournament, Arthur realises he has left Kay’s sword at an inn, which is closed. He panics and sees the sword in a stone in a church courtyard, so he takes it without any trouble. He runs back to the tournament where some of the knights recognise the sword and Arthur is crowned King of England. Walt made this a great movie and left a few horror elements frightening its younger viewers.

1. The Beginning

2. The Wolf

3. The Pike

4. The Hawk

5. Madam Mim

1. The Beginning

The beginning of the movie tells us the backstory of the Sword in the Stone. The King of England dies, leaves no heir to the throne and England is threatened to be torn apart by war. The Sword in the Stone magically appears inside an anvil in London with an inscription, “Whoso pulleth out this sword on this stone and anvil is rightwise King born of England” Many attempt but no one succeeds in doing so leaving England in the dark ages. This is when things start to get dark. The camera pans into a dark forest showing an angry wolf and a hawk attempts to scoop up a squirrel into its claws. “This was a dark age, without law and without order. Men lived in fear of one another, for the strong preyed upon the weak” inserts a slight element of horror into the movie. A little creepy start to a children’s movie.

2. The Wolf

At the start of the movie when Arthur goes into the forest to get Kay's arrow back, this attracts the attention of a wolf. He starts to follow Arthur and immediately has a branch snapped into his face. Arthur climbs into a tree for the arrow and the wolf snaps at his heels. It’s quite scary how close he comes to actually trying to kill Arthur. He stands under the tree in hopes of Arthur falling, but Arthur instead falls into Merlin’s house. This is one starved wolf.

After Arthur and Merlin leave the house the wolf runs after Arthur. Merlin stops abruptly to which the wolf jumps back into a bush almost scared of Merlin. The wolf has a good sniff of Arthurs leg, ready to clamp his teeth onto him but Arthur sets off quickly leaving the wolf disappointed. If the wolf was clever enough he would have snatched Arthur up while he could, but then we would be left without a story. What a missed opportunity.

The wolf sets chase once again. Arthur jumps across a small valley with the wolf closely behind. The wolf jumps after Arthur coming close once again to nearly killing Arthur. The wolf is unfortunately left hanging in the tree.

Next the wolf falls down into the river not even coming close to Arthur and injures himself in quite a humorous way. He quickly recovers and runs up the hill, he sees Arthur and Merlin now running in the opposite direction. Exhausted from all the running around, he drops down to the ground defeated.

Later on in the movie Merlin transforms Arthur into a squirrel to teach him about gravity and to understand to think before acting. This is where we meet the wolf again. Arthur comes across a girl squirrel who takes a great liking towards him. He runs away from her several times and takes a big leap from one tree to another and he starts to fall. We then see a shot of the wolf standing under the tree. Arthur at one-point falls and lands on a branch which is snapping, the wolf loiters underneath and opens his mouth ready to eat him. The girl squirrel immediately jumps into action to save Arthur but they both fall to the ground and the branch hits the wolf on the head. Arthur becomes stuck in the branch so the wolf sees this as his moment to kill, he unfortunately takes too long and the girl squirrel jumps on him diverting his attention towards her. He chases after her and lands in a river becoming trapped in a log. The wolf is finally defeated, we never see him again after this. Arthur escaped death by millimetres, the wolf certainly brings a comedy element to the film. Unlike other Disney villains the wolf is not animated to look scary, just a little stupid and comical. Quite an unforgettable character.

3. The Pike

Merlin transforms Arthur into a fish to learn about physics. He helps him do this with a catchy song, “Left and right, like day and night, that’s what makes the world go round, in and out, thin and stout, that’s what makes the world go round” Arthur meets a frog who keeps teasing him by following him around, he sees the large creepy pike coming up behind, jumps over Arthur and hides in a wall, Arthur follows but the frog kicks him away attracting the pikes attention. Then things take a dramatic turn. The pike is set out to kill. The second character of the film trying to kill Arthur. The pike comes close several times to nearly swallowing Arthur whole, but every time Arthur manages to outsmart him. The fast-paced music and dark colours set the mood of the scene quite well.

At one-point Arthur lurches out of the water with the pike following very closely behind. This catches the attention of Archimedes, Merlin’s owl who snaps into action quickly. He throws himself onto the pike and saves Arthur from death. Arthur makes it out and Merlin turns him back into a human. The pike in this scene certainly does look evil and menacing with his yellow red eye and sharp teeth.

4. The Hawk

Lastly, Merlin transforms Arthur into a sparrow to teach him how to fly. Archimedes takes Arthur to the sky to teach him. Whilst flying Archimedes sees a hawk soaring above them, he yells out for Arthur and a chase commences. The hawk about to dig his claws into Arthur but is stopped by Archimedes who pulls out a feather from his body. This doesn’t stop the hawk from trying to have a go.

Arthur dives into a forest to escape and lands on a chimney to catch his breath back. He only has seconds until the hawk soars down narrowingly missing him. Arthur jumps down the chimney and escapes death once again. Like the pike, the Hawk has the same eyes, yellow and red, the colours of evil. The hawk, the third character to try and kill Arthur.

5. Madam Mim

Right after Arthur escapes from the hawk he falls into the home of Madam Mim. When she hears Arthur cough, she says, “Sounds like someone’s sick, how lovely, I do hope it’s serious, something dreadful” this sets up the scene showing what kind of character she is. Cruel, evil and uncaring. Archimedes sees this and races off to alert Merlin. Madam Mim tells Arthur, “I’m the greatest, I’m truly marvellous!” she also says, “I’m the magnificent, marvellous mad Madam Mim!” with the colours that she is wearing, pink and purple, she certainly reminds us of the Cheshire Cat in Alice and Wonderland, weird and scary.

She goes around her home transforming her body into different shapes and sizes and tries to make Arthur think she is greater than Merlin. Arthur doesn’t agree so Madam Mim turns into a cat and threatens to kill him. Merlin comes in on time to save Arthur. Madam Mim then challenges Merlin to a wizard's duel, where things turn really ugly.

The wizards duel. Merlin and Madam Mim turn themselves into different animals to fly and defeat one another. It is quite funny to begin with with them taking several knocks in quite a comical way. Madam Mim at one-point falls into a river where she turns into a dragon and makes the scene quite fiery. This scene is nowhere near as scary as the dragon scene in Sleeping Beauty. The dragon scene in Sleeping Beauty is enough to give anyone nightmares, this in Sword of the Stone, does quite the opposite, it makes you laugh. The only real scary part is when Madam Mim shoots out fire making Merlin fear for his life. Merlin then turns into a mouse in Madam Mim’s hands and outsmarts her by turning himself into a disease making Madam Mim sick. He then tucks her into bed and sheds sunlight on her face which she hates. Madam Mim plays the role of the villain in the film perfectly. Though most Disney villains die, Madam Mim got off lightly here by surviving, she was lucky that Merlin was nice to her.

Walt Disney did a great version of this movie making it an absolute classic. This movie was the final Disney animated released before Walt's death. Walt Disney certainly has a great legacy.