<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>*I know it's off topic, but what better place to discuss ancient weapons anyways, we don't really have a forum for literature (which I think we should since it is a subject of growing popularity at the Shrine for the last few years) so I might as well post it here.
Since there's no real way of proving it since the original version Dark age epics are very hard to come by; all one can really do is speculate that they are one and the same. If they are one and the same sword then it would shed some light on Excalibur's origin: It was a sword which was forged by a God (Vulcan), and wielded by Trojan Kings and Princes, Hector is named among them. As the legend goes, the Trojans were the ancestors of the Romans, and the sword went with them into Europe. Orlando acquired the sword among other gifts from Morgan Le Fay; though there are about 3 or 4 different stories about how he obtained the sword, one was that it was given to Charlamagne by Morgan Le Fay who told the young King to give it to his mosst fearless and skilled Knight, another says that Charlamagne won it in one of his conquests. However, in later versions of the story, the sword is actually compared to Arthur's Excalibur among several other Legendary weapons, Durandal is said to be the greatest sword in existance. I am not overly familiar with Arthurian legend in comparison to other legends; though I have read Idylls of the King by Alfred Lord Tennyson and still know quite a bit.
This serves as no proof as to the linking of Excalibur and Durandal, but it is just an interesting fact: Orlando (well, I assume Orlandu is just the typical spelling error that is common in Japanese games for peoples names) in Final Fantasy Tactics has Excalibur as his weapon. FFT was a poorly translated game though, it is possible the translators just took the name Durandal and changed to to Excalibur; a much more recognizable name for a Sword of Power in the English speaking world.
Legends from the Dark ages are my favourite mythology. When I was very young I read about Beowulf and became quite interested in it along with other Mythology. Back in grade 2 or 3, I began writing a fictional story about Beowulf. Since Beowulf was originally a story of oral tradition and the story seems to be missing about 50 years of history, I always considered that there is much more to the story than is written, and that some of the details were originally different. I wrote it as if it happened around the year 160 AD; My story starred Wiglaf (again, I always assumed Wiegraf was bad Japanese for Wiglaf) who was Beowulf's successor. The Svear (Swedes) invaded Gothland (Gothland is a province in modern Southern Sweden, its capital is Gothenburg the second largest city in the country), and the Danes who had befriended the Goths during the time of Beowulf had allowed the Goths to settle in their land. For the most part, it is mainly a story which deals with the wars between the Teutonics and the Goths (I had all these fictional cities and characters involved). I never finished it, but it would have ended off with the Teutonics being defeated (historically they were defeated, and then were forced to look southward to the Roman Empire, Marcus Aurelius would defeat them, the same Marcus Aurelius from Gladiator, but Maximus is fictional). Anyways, I wrote this on and off as a hobby until grade 7 when I just became too busy in RL to write anymore. I was going to eventually write about the invasion of the Roman Empire later on 100 years later, and then how the Plague killed off over half the Goths and allowed the Romans to defeat them. It was to end in the third part, another 100-130 years later when they conquered Rome under King Alaric. Anyways, this is mainly just an example of how the myth of Beowulf could very well have some important historical factors involved; Beowulf did war with Teutonic tribes, but those tribes may have originally been different in earlier manuscripts and earlier oral tradition; proof comes because the legend of Beowulf is Pagan, but there is much Christian religion placed in the last surviving manuscript. It's hard to say with Germanic legends, there are so many different versions about everything. Beowulf is a fairly famous story now, but it was fairly unknown to the world before J.R.R. Tolkien made it famous.
As for FFT: if Final Fantasy Tactics really is littered with poorly spelled names, I will give them this, they did get Beowulf's name right =P</div>
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