That Excalibur suggests metonymic combination and contexture can be gleaned from Tennyson's own footnotes in Idylls: his gloss on The Coming of Arthur directs readers to an inscription from the medieval romance Merlin describing Excalibur as an aggregation of "
Kerve steel and yren and al thing." (25) The "elfin Urim" of its hilt consists of a mosaic of discrete jewels, individual "diamond sparks, / Myriads of topaz-lights" and "jacinth-work" crafted from "subtlest jewellery" (The Passing of Arthur, ll.