Kuwait's Sword

Balin’s Sword is at once a mark of a knight’s worth and the instrument of a calamity he cannot escape: Balin claims it despite a warning that it will bring about his destruction, then strikes King Pellam with a spear after the sword breaks. After Balin’s death, Merlin gives the weapon a new pommel, records its future in an inscription, and sets the sword on a course that ends with Galahad drawing it from a stone above the water at Winchester. The sword’s changing roles turn an object first won by personal merit into a vehicle of prophecy and a later trial of exceptional knighthood.

The Sword and Balin’s Claim

Balin is a poor knight, recently released after more than half a year in prison, and his clothing sets him apart from the richly arrayed lords gathered at King Arthur’s court. When a maiden offers a sword for a knight to draw, she doubts that Balin can succeed because of his humble appearance. He answers that worth and good deeds are not determined by clothing: a knight’s honor and courage may be hidden from public view. The maiden accepts his claim, and Balin draws the sword easily. His success overturns the assumption that outward rank and appearance reliably disclose merit.

The sword’s selection of Balin immediately acquires a more ominous meaning. The maiden calls him a knight of great worth, but warns that the weapon will lead him to kill the best friend he has and the person he loves most, and will ultimately be his destruction. She says she wished to keep the sword for his benefit and leaves sorrowful when he refuses to give it back. Balin accepts the danger as an adventure ordained by God, yet insists that the sword will remain his unless someone takes it by force. His confidence in his own worth is real, but it cannot protect him from the future attached to the weapon.

The Broken Sword and the Dolorous Stroke

The sword’s decisive role comes when Balin confronts King Pellam. After Balin has killed Pellam’s brother, Pellam rises against him, insisting that Balin must die or depart. Pellam strikes, and Balin uses the sword to block the blow; the weapon breaks, leaving him without arms. As Pellam pursues him, Balin searches from chamber to chamber for another weapon.

In a richly furnished chamber, Balin finds a figure lying on a golden bed, a table of pure gold supported by four silver pillars, and a strangely made spear resting on the table. He takes the spear and strikes Pellam with it. Pellam falls unconscious, and the castle’s roof and walls collapse. Balin and Pellam are trapped beneath much of the fallen structure for three days. The sword does not itself deliver the stroke, but its breaking precipitates the search that brings Balin to the spear and the catastrophe. The warning attached to the sword thus converges with a larger disaster, while the weapon’s failure marks the turn from a contest between knights to the ruin of the castle.

Merlin’s Inscription and the Sword’s Future

After Balin and Balan die, Merlin places a new pommel on the sword and asks another knight to handle it. The knight cannot. Merlin explains that only the best knight in the world will be able to wield it: either Sir Launcelot or his son Galahad. He further prophesies that Sir Launcelot will use the sword to kill the person he loves most in the world, Sir Gawaine. Merlin has this prediction written on the pommel. The weapon that foretold destruction for Balin is therefore made to carry a second prophecy, extending its association with love, fatal violence, and the limits of knightly prowess into a later generation.

Merlin also orders an exceedingly narrow bridge of iron and steel, only half a foot wide, leading to an island. No one can cross it without exceptional goodness and courage and without treachery or villainy. He leaves the sword’s scabbard on this side of the island for Galahad to find, while the sword itself is set in an upright marble stone as large as a millstone. The stone floats above the water and eventually travels downstream to Camelot, identified in the account as Winchester. The sword’s placement turns the weapon into more than a possession: its future depends on a test of moral as well as martial distinction.

Galahad and the Later Test

On Whitsunday, Galahad arrives with King Arthur, brings the scabbard, and draws the sword from the marble stone floating above the water. The narrative connects this achievement with the account of the Sangreal. Where Balin’s drawing had exposed the gap between visible status and inward worth, Galahad’s success fulfills Merlin’s prediction about the one knight capable of wielding the weapon. The scabbard and sword, separated by Merlin and reunited through Galahad, make the later episode the completion of a design begun after Balin’s death.

The sword also belongs to the larger geography of the Arthurian story. The account identifies the Camelot to which it floats with Winchester, a place associated with a Round Table. In the antiquarian discussion of Arthurian locations, Winchester is likewise named as one of the places sometimes identified with Camelot. This geographical association gives the sword’s arrival a setting within the tradition of Arthur’s court, even as the narrative preserves the miraculous detail of its passage through the water.

Meaning and Narrative Function

The sword’s history is structured by reversals. At court, a poorly dressed knight succeeds where appearance has prompted doubt; soon afterward, the weapon that confirms Balin’s distinction breaks at a critical moment. Its failure sends him in search of another arm, and the resulting stroke brings down Pellam’s castle. Later, Merlin preserves the sword but changes its significance: a prophecy is inscribed on its pommel, and its unusual placement makes it a future test for Galahad.

Through these changes, Balin’s Sword binds individual prowess to consequences no knight can master by strength alone. Balin’s faith in his merit does not cancel the maiden’s warning; Merlin’s foresight does not prevent the sword’s destructive history but gives it a continuing form. In Galahad’s hands, the weapon becomes an emblem of achievement within the Grail narrative. It passes from a young knight’s fateful prize to an object whose handling distinguishes the greatest knight, carrying the story of Balin’s tragedy into the next generation.