Balin

Balin, also known as Balin le Savage, is a knight in the Arthurian narrative whose recorded story is marked by a decisive killing and a fatal ending. The surviving evidence identifies him as the slayer of Garlon and states that he is later slain, but does not supply the scenes or causes connecting those events.

Identity and Record

The book’s index lists Balin and Balin le Savage as names for the same figure. It records his appearance at several points in the narrative and singles out two facts: he slays Garlon, and he is slain. The index establishes the outline of an arc, not a full account of its episodes.

Actions and Fate

Balin’s killing of Garlon is the clearest action attributed to him in the available evidence. The entry does not explain the encounter, its motive, or its immediate consequences, and no fuller circumstances can safely be inferred from the index alone. It does, however, place the act before Balin’s own death in the narrative’s record.

The same record closes Balin’s listed trajectory with his death. It provides no account of who kills him or how the event unfolds. His arc is therefore presented here through its documented endpoints: a knight who kills Garlon and who is ultimately killed himself.

Narrative Significance and Limits

The paired notices make Balin’s story legible as an arc of violence and reversal, but the evidence does not support a more detailed interpretation of his motives, loyalties, or relationships. The broader Arthurian narrative also includes accounts of knights, royal authority, and the obligations imposed on the Round Table; those contexts cannot, on the supplied evidence, be assigned as direct causes or defining features of Balin’s recorded actions. His account should consequently remain distinct from other events and figures whose stories are described in fuller detail.