Spear of the Dolorous Stroke

The Spear of the Dolorous Stroke is the weapon Balin takes up after his sword breaks in combat with King Pellam. With it, he strikes the blow known as the Dolorous Stroke, making the spear the decisive instrument of the episode’s violence and the object by which Balin’s broken sword gives way to a more devastating weapon.

Origin in the Fight

The evidence identifies the spear through a sharp reversal in Balin’s battle with King Pellam: Balin’s sword breaks, and he obtains a spear in its place. The account does not specify how he obtains it or describe its appearance, but it makes the weapon’s arrival consequential. The broken sword ends one means of fighting; the spear enables the strike that follows.

The Dolorous Stroke

Balin uses the spear to smite King Pellam with the Dolorous Stroke. The episode’s title binds weapon and action together, so the spear is remembered not simply as a substitute weapon but as the instrument of a defining blow. The account supplies no further physical description or independent history for it; its significance lies in what happens when Balin wields it.

Narrative Significance

The spear marks the moment when a reversal in combat becomes a consequential wound. Balin’s sword breaking might have ended his ability to fight with it, but the spear carries the action onward and gives the battle its named outcome. Its identity is therefore inseparable from the strike: the weapon’s narrative meaning is concentrated in the transition from broken sword to Dolorous Stroke.