User blog comment:Adelina Le Morte March/Something kinda freaky I just realized/@comment-89.69.47.92-20121226203020/@comment-5659316-20121226213340

Yes, but Freya's arm never appeared until AFTER (indeed, several EPISODES, and an entire SEASON, after) Merlin put her out in the boat. Arthur's body was still with Merlin. He had JUST DIED. There's no way he would have already been in Avalon. Also, how would you explain the close-up of the hand looking girlish, very like a woman's hand, if it was in fact Arthur?

Not to mention, Kilgharrah said Arthur would come back when he was needed, it seems pretty strongly implied that he's asleep in death until then. I think Merlin would have been much more hopeful-looking if it was Arthur's hand. Indeed, I think he would have smiled like he did at Freya's hand in season 3. Before that (aside from her appearence in the puddle of Avalon water, which he didn't even fully believe, asking if it was "really her"), he thought she had been dead for at LEAST a year and was never coming back. If he saw Arthur's hand, I believe he would have smiled or at least visibly felt better. There would have been happiness and relief in his expression that was not present in the scene. Just Freya's hand again wouldn't have made an impact because, however fond he is of her, he already KNOWS she's under there -he was probably EXPECTING her to take the sword back when he threw it. His reaction to Arthur, his best friend and king for FIVE seasons, would have been more enthusasic, in spite of the somberness of the funeral.

Plus it being Arthur's hand would make NO SENSE. Not with the legends and not with the show itself. Freya gave Merlin the sword which he hid there a season before he met her. Then, so that no one BUT Arthur could ever use it (USE IT, not protect it/watch over it), he stuck in a stone, which Arthur later pulled it out of. After Arthur dies, there is no purpose to keeping it in the world anymore, so Merlin would naturally return it to Freya. Who knows, if she's immortal, she can probably just give it back to him in modern times when Arthur comes back.