Garlon’s invisibility

Garlon’s invisibility gives his violence an asymmetry that ordinary chivalric combat cannot answer: he can strike without being seen, leaving his victims and their companions to discover the attack only after it has happened. The narrative connects this concealed method across repeated killings, a carried spear-truncheon, and Balin’s eventual decision to confront Garlon openly at a feast hosted by King Pellam.

Identity and Operation

Garlon is identified as a knight and as the brother of King Pellam. His invisibility is not presented as a general uncertainty about who is responsible: witnesses and later encounters name him, while describing the advantage that allows him to attack unseen. At the feast, a knight calls Garlon the most marvellous knight then living because he goes invisible and destroys many good knights. The reputation makes his concealed power a recognized part of the danger he poses.

The episodes establish a consistent method. Garlon approaches unseen and drives a spear through his victim, leaving the injured knight to name the attacker only as he is dying. In the account of the feast, the narrative supplies no explanation for how the invisibility works or whether it has limits. Its significance lies in what it permits: violence without a visible challenge, and an opponent whom a knight cannot readily meet in the ordinary terms of a joust or fight.

The Attacks and Their Evidence

Garlon first strikes Herlews le Berbeus while the knight is accompanying Balin under Balin’s protection. Herlews identifies Garlon as the attacker and tells Balin that he has been slain under his conduct. He entrusts Balin with his better horse and asks him to continue the quest the damsel will direct and to avenge the death. Balin vows to do so. King Arthur has Herlews buried richly, and an inscription on the tomb records both the death and Garlon’s treachery.

The damsel carries the broken truncheon of the spear that killed Herlews. It remains material evidence of the unseen attack, carried onward through later encounters rather than lost with the victim. When Balin and the damsel meet Perin de Mountbeliard, the knight pledges to remain with Balin for life after hearing the cause of Balin’s sorrow. Garlon again appears invisibly and strikes him with a spear. Balin recognizes that this is another outrage by the same attacker; the hermit and Balin bury Perin beneath a richly appointed tomb. The repeated attack turns Garlon’s invisibility from a single surprise into a pattern of danger following Balin and his companions.

The Feast at King Pellam’s Court

A third consequence reaches beyond Balin’s companions. A wealthy host tells Balin that, after he had twice unhorsed a knight related to King Pellam at a joust, that knight promised to take revenge on his best friend. The revenge fell on the host’s son, who cannot recover without blood from the attacker. The host does not know the assailant’s name, but Balin recognizes the account as Garlon’s work and connects it to the two knights already killed under the same unseen method. He agrees to seek blood to help the son.

The host reports that King Pellam has proclaimed a great feast within twenty days, to which a knight may come only with a wife or beloved lady. Balin, his host, and their companion travel fifteen days before arriving on the day the feast begins. Although the host is refused entry because he has no lady, Balin is welcomed, given a chamber and robes, and seated among knights of worship with his lady before him. The hosts would have him leave his sword behind. He refuses, saying that in his country a knight keeps his weapon with him, and is allowed to retain it. That decision leaves him armed in the very court where Garlon is present.

Balin asks whether Garlon is there. A knight points out the man with the black face and describes his invisibility and the many good knights he has destroyed. Balin weighs the danger of acting in the crowded court against the possibility that Garlon may escape and continue harming others. Before he can act, Garlon notices Balin watching him, comes over, strikes him on the face with the back of his hand, and rebukes him for staring. The attack makes their conflict public. Balin answers that Garlon has affronted him before and rises to kill him, striking off his head.

Exposure, Revenge, and Consequences

After killing Garlon, Balin asks the damsel for the truncheon from the spear that had killed her knight. She has carried it throughout the journey. Balin drives it through Garlon’s body and declares that the weapon which killed a good knight now remains in its killer. He then calls his host, who can take blood to try to heal his son. The conclusion makes the truncheon more than a reminder: the surviving sign of Garlon’s hidden attacks becomes an instrument in the confrontation that ends his violence.

The episodes give Garlon no account of his motives beyond the revenge described by the host, and do not explain the source or rules of his invisibility. Their emphasis is instead on the consequences of a power that removes the visible contest from knightly combat. Herlews and Perin die before Balin can protect them; the host’s son remains in need of a cure; and Balin’s vow of vengeance is carried forward by a witness, a weapon fragment, and repeated recognition of the attacker. At the feast, Garlon’s own public insult exposes him to the armed opponent he had previously been able to strike unseen.