Sir Balin
Encyclopedia
Sir Balin le Savage ˈbeɪlɨn, also known as the Knight with the Two Swords, is a character in the Arthurian legend. Merlin told King Arthur
he would have been his best and bravest knight. A knight before the Round Table was formed, Sir Balin hails from Northumberland
, and is associated with Sir Balan
, his brother. Balin lives only for a few weeks following his departure from King Arthur's court. The king is virile and strong, near the beginning of his reign. Balin is a poor knight and has been in King Arthur's prison for six months. Just prior to his departure from court, a free man once more, his destiny is sealed by the arrival of a mysterious damsel bearing a sword that only the most virtuous knight in King Arthur's court will be able to draw. Balin draws this sword easily and Sir Thomas Malory's fifteenth century account of his subsequent, brief adventures ends when Balin and his brother Balan destroy each other in single combat, fulfilling an earlier prophecy about the destiny of the bearer of the damsel's sword.
Prior to his tragic end, this ill-fated knight contrives to inflict a "dolorous stroke" with the spear that pierced Christ upon the Cross, thus setting the scene for the post-Vulgate version of the search for the Holy Grail
. Like Sir Galahad
, Sir Balin is a late addition to the medieval Arthurian world. His story, as told by Sir Thomas Malory, is based upon that told in the continuation of the second book of the post-Vulgate cycle of legend, the Suite du Merlin, dating to the mid-thirteenth century.
. Malory based his tale on the continuation of the second book of the Old French
post-Vulgate cycle of Arthurian Grail legend, the Suite du Merlin, dating to the mid-thirteenth century. The Suite du Merlin survives in only two copies: British Museum Add. 38117 and Cambridge Add. 7071, both dating to the fourteenth century.
.
, Balin is released at about the same time that a damsel sent from the lady Lily of Avalon comes to court wearing a sword that she reveals she is wearing when she lets her fur mantle fall to the floor. This sword can only be drawn from its scabbard by a truly virtuous knight, she claims. After many, including Arthur himself, have attempted to pull this sword out, Balin asks for a chance to try.
The damsel is at first reluctant to allow a knight who has just been released from prison to attempt the trial. But she does and Balin succeeds in drawing the sword and claiming it as his own. The damsel regrets her initial presumptuousness, but then further chastises Balin when he refuses to return the sword to her. She is not angry but concerned for him, because if he does not return the sword to her, he will suffer for it. The damsel leaves, but not before warning Balin that he will kill, with this sword, his greatest friend, the one whom he loves the best, and it will cause his own destruction.
Shortly thereafter, the Lady of the Lake
, in pursuit of a vendetta
between her family and Balin's, arrives to ask King Arthur for Balin's head. She demands it as payment for Excalibur
, the sword that she has given to Arthur. King Arthur agrees to pay her for the sword, but not to her demand for the head of Balin, whom she claims has killed her brother, or the head of the damsel, whom she claims caused her father’s death. Balin, upon hearing that the woman who was the cause of his mother's wrongful execution is in court, impetuously strikes off the lady’s head with the cry: "You wanted my head and so I shall take yours!" Balin justifies his swift action by making known his claim that the lady caused his own mother to be burned to death. Arthur is unimpressed by this plea, however, and insists that even were the claim true, Balin ought to have withheld his sword in the royal court, and against such a lady. Arthur then banishes Balin from his court.
Merlin
arrives and explains that the damsel with the sword was actually a false traitor, who was angry with her own brother, a good knight who slew her lover. With the help of the lady Lily of Avalon, this damsel had sought revenge for her lover's death through that sword, whose holder is destined to slay his own brother. Although logic may suggest that Balin and this damsel might therefore share a brother, there is no indication from Malory that this is the case. Merlin explains this all to the court; he explains how the sword came to be where it was and its intended purpose. This explanation that Merlin gives may have evolved through re-tellings of the story and through inconsistencies in the legend, but it is clear from Merlin that this sword that Balin has taken from the damsel bears a curse of some kind.
, who has refused to acknowledge King Arthur as his sovereign and is making war against him. Balin wants to do this was a way of winning back King Arthur's love, but before they can leave on this mission, a dwarf appears, lamenting the death of the knight whom Balin has just killed and the woman who committed suicide beside him. The dwarf declares that this knight's brother will seek revenge on Balin. King Mark of Cornwall appears and builds a tomb for the fallen knight and his damsel. Then Merlin appears and prophesies that Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram will do battle on this very same site and that because of the death of the damsel, Balin will strike the most Dolorous Stroke
ever committed by man, except for the Stroke which pierced Christ’s Side on the Cross. Merlin then vanishes. King Mark asks Balin his name before he departs and Balan answers that, because he wears two swords, his brother should be known as the Knight with the Two Swords.
With Merlin's help, Balin and Balan capture King Rience and take him to King Arthur. Soon however, King Rience's brother, King Nero, brings up an army and a great battle takes place beside Castle Terrible; King Arthur kills Nero and Balin and Balan do great deeds of arms fighting on Arthur's side. At last King Lot of Orkney, who has been prevented until now from joining in the engagement by a prescient Merlin, advances with eleven other rebel kings, thinking that Arthur's forces are now spent. King Lot is killed by King Pellinor and the other rebel kings are killed also. King Arthur kills twenty knights that day and maims forty, and the battle is won.
king Pellam
, and Balin kills him at a feast in Pellam's castle. Pellam immediately seeks revenge for this act. Searching for a weapon with which to defend himself, Balin unknowingly grabs the Spear of Longinus
and stabs Pellam with it: this is the Dolorous Stroke
that maims Pellam, turns the Grail kingdom into the Wasteland
, and brings the castle down on Balin's and Pellam's heads. Three days pass, then Merlin digs Balin out of the rubble.
Balin rides through the Wasteland, receiving rebukes for causing such death and devastation; but as the days pass he finds himself in fairer countryside and at last arrives at a castle where he is compelled to fight with its resident defender. This defender is his brother Balan, who has earned this role against his will by killing the previous occupier of the position, in a situation that is reminiscent of that at the Sacred Grove of Nemi
, as described by Sir James Frazer
in The Golden Bough
. It recalls, also, the duty that Sir Yvain acquires after defeating the Knight of the Fountain in Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
, and one that Sir Tristram briefly assumes in Malory's Le Morte d'Arther. Unfortunately, neither brother recognises the other: Balan is wearing unfamiliar red armour, and Balin has been persuaded to change his shield for a better one immediately before the duel. The brothers mortally wound each other, Balin outliving Balan only by a few hours. They are "buryed bothe in one tombe."
Merlin secures this sword that Balin got from the damsel in a block of stone, from which it is drawn by Galahad
at the start of the Grail Quest years later. After Galahad's death, this sword passes to his father Lancelot
, who uses it to give Gawain
the wound that eventually kills him.
, dying before that institution is founded. Despite Sir Balin being proven, by his drawing of the sword, to be "a passing good man of his hands and of his deeds, and without villainy or trechery and without treason," his distinguishing characteristic, as portrayed by Sir Thomas Malory, is impetuosity.
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
, were dedicated to the late Prince Albert and written over a period of twenty-five years. The final idyll of the epic twelve to be published, in Tiresias and other poems in 1885, was entitled by Tennyson "Balin and Balan". In this poem, King Arthur is concerned to help Balin to "control his violent tendencies". Algernon Charles Swinburne
, in his Tale of Balen, published in 1896, "did not have to alter Malory's version of Balin's story very much to show how destiny governs human life.
The story of Sir Balin is recast in Douglas Carmichael's novel Pendragon, published in 1977. In The Sword in the Stone
by T. H. White
, the young Arthur meets two hawks called Balin and Balan.
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
he would have been his best and bravest knight. A knight before the Round Table was formed, Sir Balin hails from Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
, and is associated with Sir Balan
Sir Balan
Sir Balan le Savage, brother of Sir Balin from Northumberland, is a minor character mentioned in various Arthurian legends. His story is retold, along with his brother's, in The Ballad of Balin and Balan, Book II in Malory's Le Morté d' Arthur and by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Idylls of the...
, his brother. Balin lives only for a few weeks following his departure from King Arthur's court. The king is virile and strong, near the beginning of his reign. Balin is a poor knight and has been in King Arthur's prison for six months. Just prior to his departure from court, a free man once more, his destiny is sealed by the arrival of a mysterious damsel bearing a sword that only the most virtuous knight in King Arthur's court will be able to draw. Balin draws this sword easily and Sir Thomas Malory's fifteenth century account of his subsequent, brief adventures ends when Balin and his brother Balan destroy each other in single combat, fulfilling an earlier prophecy about the destiny of the bearer of the damsel's sword.
Prior to his tragic end, this ill-fated knight contrives to inflict a "dolorous stroke" with the spear that pierced Christ upon the Cross, thus setting the scene for the post-Vulgate version of the search for the Holy Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
. Like Sir Galahad
Galahad
Sir Galahad |Round Table]] and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, he is perhaps the knightly...
, Sir Balin is a late addition to the medieval Arthurian world. His story, as told by Sir Thomas Malory, is based upon that told in the continuation of the second book of the post-Vulgate cycle of legend, the Suite du Merlin, dating to the mid-thirteenth century.
Medieval sources
The story of Sir Balin and his brother Balan is found in Sir Thomas Malory's epic retelling of the Arthurian legend, Le Morte d'ArthurLe Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...
. Malory based his tale on the continuation of the second book of the Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
post-Vulgate cycle of Arthurian Grail legend, the Suite du Merlin, dating to the mid-thirteenth century. The Suite du Merlin survives in only two copies: British Museum Add. 38117 and Cambridge Add. 7071, both dating to the fourteenth century.
Knight with the Two Swords
This account of the life and adventures of Sir Balin is taken from the story Balin or the Knight with the Two Swords told by Sir Thomas Malory in Le Morte d'ArthurLe Morte d'Arthur
Le Morte d'Arthur is a compilation by Sir Thomas Malory of Romance tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table...
.
King Arthur's court
Having been imprisoned for "half a year" for the death of a cousin of King Arthur'sKing Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
, Balin is released at about the same time that a damsel sent from the lady Lily of Avalon comes to court wearing a sword that she reveals she is wearing when she lets her fur mantle fall to the floor. This sword can only be drawn from its scabbard by a truly virtuous knight, she claims. After many, including Arthur himself, have attempted to pull this sword out, Balin asks for a chance to try.
The damsel is at first reluctant to allow a knight who has just been released from prison to attempt the trial. But she does and Balin succeeds in drawing the sword and claiming it as his own. The damsel regrets her initial presumptuousness, but then further chastises Balin when he refuses to return the sword to her. She is not angry but concerned for him, because if he does not return the sword to her, he will suffer for it. The damsel leaves, but not before warning Balin that he will kill, with this sword, his greatest friend, the one whom he loves the best, and it will cause his own destruction.
Shortly thereafter, the Lady of the Lake
Lady of the Lake
The Lady of the Lake is the name of several related characters who play parts in the Arthurian legend. These characters' roles include giving King Arthur his sword Excalibur, enchanting Merlin, and raising Lancelot after the death of his father...
, in pursuit of a vendetta
Feud
A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...
between her family and Balin's, arrives to ask King Arthur for Balin's head. She demands it as payment for Excalibur
Excalibur
Excalibur is the legendary sword of King Arthur, sometimes attributed with magical powers or associated with the rightful sovereignty of Great Britain. Sometimes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are said to be the same weapon, but in most versions they are considered separate. The sword was...
, the sword that she has given to Arthur. King Arthur agrees to pay her for the sword, but not to her demand for the head of Balin, whom she claims has killed her brother, or the head of the damsel, whom she claims caused her father’s death. Balin, upon hearing that the woman who was the cause of his mother's wrongful execution is in court, impetuously strikes off the lady’s head with the cry: "You wanted my head and so I shall take yours!" Balin justifies his swift action by making known his claim that the lady caused his own mother to be burned to death. Arthur is unimpressed by this plea, however, and insists that even were the claim true, Balin ought to have withheld his sword in the royal court, and against such a lady. Arthur then banishes Balin from his court.
Merlin
Merlin
Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...
arrives and explains that the damsel with the sword was actually a false traitor, who was angry with her own brother, a good knight who slew her lover. With the help of the lady Lily of Avalon, this damsel had sought revenge for her lover's death through that sword, whose holder is destined to slay his own brother. Although logic may suggest that Balin and this damsel might therefore share a brother, there is no indication from Malory that this is the case. Merlin explains this all to the court; he explains how the sword came to be where it was and its intended purpose. This explanation that Merlin gives may have evolved through re-tellings of the story and through inconsistencies in the legend, but it is clear from Merlin that this sword that Balin has taken from the damsel bears a curse of some kind.
King Rience
Tragedy soon begins to haunt Balin. One of Arthur's knights from Ireland, jealous that he was not the one to pull the accursed sword free of its scabbard, and with the approval of King Arthur, sets out in pursuit of Balin to slay him. Sir Balin kills him. This knight's damsel, however, appears suddenly and, overcome with grief, commits suicide by falling upon her lover's own sword. Balin then meets his brother Balan, who has come to King Arthur's country looking for him. They agree to set off together to do battle with King RienceRience
King Rience is a character from Arthurian legend, an enemy of King Arthur in the early years of his reign...
, who has refused to acknowledge King Arthur as his sovereign and is making war against him. Balin wants to do this was a way of winning back King Arthur's love, but before they can leave on this mission, a dwarf appears, lamenting the death of the knight whom Balin has just killed and the woman who committed suicide beside him. The dwarf declares that this knight's brother will seek revenge on Balin. King Mark of Cornwall appears and builds a tomb for the fallen knight and his damsel. Then Merlin appears and prophesies that Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram will do battle on this very same site and that because of the death of the damsel, Balin will strike the most Dolorous Stroke
Dolorous Stroke
The Dolorous Stroke is a trope in Arthurian legend and some other stories of Celtic origin.In its fullest form, it concerns the Fisher King , the guardian of the Holy Grail, who falls into sin and consequently suffers a wound from a mystical weapon...
ever committed by man, except for the Stroke which pierced Christ’s Side on the Cross. Merlin then vanishes. King Mark asks Balin his name before he departs and Balan answers that, because he wears two swords, his brother should be known as the Knight with the Two Swords.
With Merlin's help, Balin and Balan capture King Rience and take him to King Arthur. Soon however, King Rience's brother, King Nero, brings up an army and a great battle takes place beside Castle Terrible; King Arthur kills Nero and Balin and Balan do great deeds of arms fighting on Arthur's side. At last King Lot of Orkney, who has been prevented until now from joining in the engagement by a prescient Merlin, advances with eleven other rebel kings, thinking that Arthur's forces are now spent. King Lot is killed by King Pellinor and the other rebel kings are killed also. King Arthur kills twenty knights that day and maims forty, and the battle is won.
Wasteland
Soon after the funeral of the rebel kings, Balin sets out to avenge a man slain by an invisible knight while travelling under his protection. The villain is the brother of the GrailHoly Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
king Pellam
Pellam
King Pellam of Listeneise is the name that Malory gives to the Maimed King in his rendition of the tale of Sir Balin, at whose hands Pellam suffers the Dolorous Stroke. In the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles, Malory's source for these episodes, the character is called Pellehan.The Dolorous Stroke...
, and Balin kills him at a feast in Pellam's castle. Pellam immediately seeks revenge for this act. Searching for a weapon with which to defend himself, Balin unknowingly grabs the Spear of Longinus
Holy Lance
The Holy Lance is the name given to the lance that pierced Jesus' side as he hung on the cross in John's account of the Crucifixion.-Biblical references:The lance is mentioned only in the Gospel of John and not in any of the...
and stabs Pellam with it: this is the Dolorous Stroke
Dolorous Stroke
The Dolorous Stroke is a trope in Arthurian legend and some other stories of Celtic origin.In its fullest form, it concerns the Fisher King , the guardian of the Holy Grail, who falls into sin and consequently suffers a wound from a mystical weapon...
that maims Pellam, turns the Grail kingdom into the Wasteland
Wasteland (mythology)
The Wasteland is a Celtic motif that ties the barrenness of a land with a curse that must be lifted by a hero. It occurs in Irish mythology and French Grail romances, and hints of it may be found in the Welsh Mabinogion....
, and brings the castle down on Balin's and Pellam's heads. Three days pass, then Merlin digs Balin out of the rubble.
Balin rides through the Wasteland, receiving rebukes for causing such death and devastation; but as the days pass he finds himself in fairer countryside and at last arrives at a castle where he is compelled to fight with its resident defender. This defender is his brother Balan, who has earned this role against his will by killing the previous occupier of the position, in a situation that is reminiscent of that at the Sacred Grove of Nemi
Rex Nemorensis
The rex Nemorensis was a priest of the goddess Diana at Aricia in Italy, by the shores of Lake Nemi, where she was known as Diana Nemorensis. The priesthood played a major role in the mythography of J.G...
, as described by Sir James Frazer
James Frazer
Sir James George Frazer , was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion...
in The Golden Bough
The Golden Bough
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer . It first was published in two volumes in 1890; the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes...
. It recalls, also, the duty that Sir Yvain acquires after defeating the Knight of the Fountain in Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
Yvain, the Knight of the Lion
Yvain, the Knight with the Lion is a romance by Chrétien de Troyes. It was probably written in the 1170s simultaneously with Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and includes several references to the action in that poem...
, and one that Sir Tristram briefly assumes in Malory's Le Morte d'Arther. Unfortunately, neither brother recognises the other: Balan is wearing unfamiliar red armour, and Balin has been persuaded to change his shield for a better one immediately before the duel. The brothers mortally wound each other, Balin outliving Balan only by a few hours. They are "buryed bothe in one tombe."
Merlin secures this sword that Balin got from the damsel in a block of stone, from which it is drawn by Galahad
Galahad
Sir Galahad |Round Table]] and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, he is perhaps the knightly...
at the start of the Grail Quest years later. After Galahad's death, this sword passes to his father Lancelot
Lancelot
Sir Lancelot du Lac is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is the most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...
, who uses it to give Gawain
Gawain
Gawain is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table who appears very early in the Arthurian legend's development. He is one of a select number of Round Table members to be referred to as the greatest knight, most notably in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight...
the wound that eventually kills him.
Character and setting
Perhaps uniquely among the significant knights of Arthur's court, Balin never joins the Round TableRound Table (Camelot)
The Round Table is King Arthur's famed table in the Arthurian legend, around which he and his Knights congregate. As its name suggests, it has no head, implying that everyone who sits there has equal status. The table was first described in 1155 by Wace, who relied on previous depictions of...
, dying before that institution is founded. Despite Sir Balin being proven, by his drawing of the sword, to be "a passing good man of his hands and of his deeds, and without villainy or trechery and without treason," his distinguishing characteristic, as portrayed by Sir Thomas Malory, is impetuosity.
Modern interpretations
Idylls of the KingIdylls of the King
Idylls of the King, published between 1856 and 1885, is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom...
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
, were dedicated to the late Prince Albert and written over a period of twenty-five years. The final idyll of the epic twelve to be published, in Tiresias and other poems in 1885, was entitled by Tennyson "Balin and Balan". In this poem, King Arthur is concerned to help Balin to "control his violent tendencies". Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...
, in his Tale of Balen, published in 1896, "did not have to alter Malory's version of Balin's story very much to show how destiny governs human life.
The story of Sir Balin is recast in Douglas Carmichael's novel Pendragon, published in 1977. In The Sword in the Stone
The Sword in the Stone
The Sword in the Stone is a novel by T. H. White, published in 1939, initially a stand-alone work but now the first part of a tetralogy The Once and Future King. A fantasy of the boyhood of King Arthur, it is a sui generis work which combines elements of legend, history, fantasy and comedy...
by T. H. White
T. H. White
Terence Hanbury White was an English author best known for his sequence of Arthurian novels, The Once and Future King, first published together in 1958.-Biography:...
, the young Arthur meets two hawks called Balin and Balan.