User blog comment:WoodlandGirl/Questions (SPOILERS)/@comment-5659316-20121226052007

It was Freya's hand, not Arthur's.

Here's how we know that.

1) Arthur wasn't IN Avalon when the hand came up, he wasn't even in the BOAT yet.

2) Freya is the Lady of the Lake; if you go by the legends (which the finale does more than other parts of the series, actually, save for the fact that Morgana got no redemtion) ONLY her hand ever comes up from the lake. Also, it mirrored the scene in The Coming of Arthur almost exactly. And that hand was DEFINATELY Freya's. If Freya gave Merlin the sword from the bottom of the lake, and the finale was concluding basically all the major legend characters' stories that weren't already settled in earlier seasons (like Lancelot; and Tristan, I guess we're just meant to assume he went off on his own and never came back to Camelot again after Isolde died), Gwaine, Arthur, Morgana, Gwen, and of course, even though she's not a big part of the show in general, the Lady of the Lake.

3) yes, the far away shot may look a little like a man's hand, but the closer shot of the hand holding up the sword before it goes under looks way more like a girl's hand.

4) Why on earth would they have shown, in the crystal flashbacks, which were basically like recaps of the important moments of Merlin's past in the series, Freya's hand as foreshadowing and then have Arthur's hand (Which is somehow not attached to his body, which Merlin hasn't even PUT IN THE BOAT YET!) come up and take the sword?

It's Freya.