Kay and his foster-brother (known as the Wart) are living in the glorious castle of Sir Ector amid the wild and beautiful Forest Sauvage. They are given a tutor − the magician Merlyn − and so begins one of the most inventive and charming retellings of the Arthurian legend, the first part of The Once and Future King.

Through a series of adventures that involve being turned into animals, an encounter with a very hungry witch and a meeting with the real Robin Hood, Merlyn instructs his young charges in the ways of the world, and broader wisdom too. One of them will need it – the King has died leaving no heir, and a rightful one must be found by pulling a sword from an anvil resting on a stone…