Sir Balin
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Sir Balin le Savage, also known as the Knight with Two Swords, is a character in Arthurian legend. He hails from Northumberland, and has a brother, Sir Balan. His story is recounted in the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin and in Book II of Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.
Wrongfully imprisoned for the death of a cousin of King Arthur's, Balin is released at about the same time that a damsel comes to court wearing a sword that can only be drawn by a skilled, virtuous knight. Balin alone succeeds and takes the sword as his own, earning the sobriquet "the Knight with two Swords".
Shortly thereafter, the Lady of the Lake, in pursuit of a vendetta between her family and Balin's, arrives to ask Arthur for Balin's head as payment for Excalibur. Balin instead decapitates her, and leaves court under a cloud. Merlin then shows up and explains to the court the provenance and purpose of the sword: this passage is confusing, but it is clear that the sword bears a curse of some kind.
Balin meets up with his brother Balan, and the brothers plan to get Balin back into Arthur's good graces by kidnapping Arthur's enemy King Rience: this they accomplish with Merlin's help. They then fight on Arthur's side at the Battle of Terrabil, which sees the slaughter of King Lot of Orkney and eleven other rebel kings.
Soon after the rebels' funeral, Balin sets out to avenge a man slain by an invisible knight while travelling under Balin's protection. The villain turns out to be the brother of the Grail king Pellam, and Balin kills him at a feast in Pellam's castle. Pellam immediately seeks vengeance, and searching for a weapon, Balin unknowingly grabs the Spear of Longius [sic] 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.
After Merlin digs him out of the rubble, Balin has a couple of minor adventures before fetching up at a castle where he is compelled to fight the resident defender. This turns out to be Balan, who earned the position against his will by killing the previous incumbent: the set-up is reminiscent of that at the Sacred Grove of Nemi, as described by Sir James Frazer in The Golden Bough. Unfortunately, neither brother recognises the other: Balan is wearing unfamiliar red armour, and Balin was persuaded to swap his shield for a better one immediately before the duel. The brothers mortally wound each other, Balin outliving Balan by a few hours.
Merlin fixes the 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, the sword passes to his father Lancelot, who uses it to give Gawain the wound that eventually kills him.
Perhaps uniquely among the significant knights of Arthur's court, Balin never joins the Round Table, dying before that institution is founded.
[edit] J.R.R. Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien used the name Balin for a character in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: nothing else of the original story survives in those works.
