Editing 2578: Sword Pull

A surprised [[Cueball]] walks up to a stone where apparently a sword is stuck in almost to the hilt, embedded in a stone much like a particularly well-known fable in the legends of {{w|King Arthur}}. This may mean this sword is called {{w|Excalibur}}. Usually, the narrative is that the one who can free the significant sword becomes king of England (or, technically, Britain), see for instance Disney's ''{{w|The Sword in the Stone (1963 film)|The Sword in the Stone}}'' — or the scene as featured in [[1521: Sword in the Stone]], where [[Megan]] decides to return the sword back into the stone after reading about {{w|England}} on Wikipedia. (It has been commented that the one who managed to embed the sword in the stone in the first place may have had the greater skill and/or strength.)

Cueball rises to the challenge and stands atop the stone, for leverage, and pulls hard to yank it almost out of the stone. With a surprise even greater than before, he finds that the pulling of the sword merely starts a motor within the stone and, almost immediately,  the whole assemblage starts moving to the right with Cueball still standing upon it. Having failed to fully remove the sword from the stone, after he releases it the sword is retracted back to its original position inside the now moving stone.

The title text implies that the sword is actually the {{w|rope start|rope starter}} for Merlin's {{w|dirt bike}}. {{w|Merlin}}, a wizard, is typically known as King Arthur's mystical advisor. The title text mentions that Merlin really should not just let his dirt bike lie around, indicating that this is a common occurrence and has caused problems before. Since rocks are usually not dirt bikes in disguise,{{citation needed}} [[Randall]] may be describing this literally, as in a stone-bike that travels through the dirt, as it appears to represent in the last panel.

Some similarly-sized stones, namely {{w|Sailing stones|sailing stones}}, do move spontaneously with up to 0.3 km/h in precise conditions. However, the stone in the comic appears to be moving at a higher speed, and sailing stones require no rope starting.{{citation needed}}

:[Cueball manages to pull the sword partially out of the stone, still using both hands, and now he is almost standing in full height, but still leaning a bit back. Both he and the sword is vibrating from the effort, as indicated by several sets of two lines around the sword and Cueball's arms. The pull gives off a loud sound, and also a buzzing sound comes because of the pull.  And three small lines above the right part of the stone indicated that other sounds are coming from the stone]