{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/mart/mart041.htm","path":"neu/mart/mart041.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/mart/mart041.htm","text":"CHAPTER XV\nHow Balin fought with King Pellam, and how his sword\nbrake, and how he gat a spear wherewith he smote the\ndolorous stroke.\nANON all the knights arose from the table for to set on Balin,\nand King Pellam himself arose up fiercely, and said, Knight, hast\nthou slain my brother? thou shalt die therefore or thou depart.\nWell, said Balin, do it yourself. Yes, said King Pellam, there\nshall no man have ado with thee but myself, for the love of my\nbrother. Then King Pellam caught in his hand a grim weapon and\nsmote eagerly at Balin; but Balin put the sword betwixt his head\nand the stroke, and therewith his sword burst in sunder. And\nwhen Balin was weaponless he ran into a chamber for to seek some\nweapon, and so from chamber to chamber, and no weapon he could\nfind, and always King Pellam after him. And at the last he\nentered into a chamber that was marvellously well dight and\nrichly, and a bed arrayed with cloth of gold, the richest that\nmight be thought, and one lying therein, and thereby stood a\ntable of clean gold with four pillars of silver that bare up the\ntable, and upon the table stood a marvellous spear strangely\nwrought. And when Balin saw that spear, he gat it in his hand\nand turned him to King Pellam, and smote him passingly sore with\nthat spear, that King Pellam fell down in a swoon, and therewith\nthe castle roof and walls brake and fell to the earth, and Balin\nfell down so that he might <71>not stir foot nor hand. And so\nthe most part of the castle, that was fallen down through that\ndolorous stroke, lay upon Pellam and Balin three days.","title":"Le Morte d'Arthur BOOK II CHAPTER XV","type":"page"}