MARGINAL ANNOTATION IN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE MANUSCRIPTS

Avilion” (Malory, Works, 38.10), and that ultimately dooms him, when he refuses to
return the sword, despite the damsel’s warning. The second subplot is also precipitated
by a swordbearing damsel, the Lady of the Lake who gifts Arthur with Excalibur in
return for a boon, which she attempts to redeem in claiming Balin’s head. When Balin
beheads her instead, he sets in motion a series of events that results in the suicide of the
lady Columbe, of whom Merlin prophesies: “because of the dethe of that lady thou shalt
stryke a stroke moste dolorous that ever man stroke, excepte the stroke of oure Lorde
Jesu Cryste” (45.31-32). The Dolorous Stroke will, of course, be redressed and fulfilled
by Galahad at the climax of the Grail quest, and the Balin thus sets up the necessary
background and circumstances for the Sankgreal. 670
Intriguingly, the annotator seems to recognize the dichotomy between these two
narrative strains and to untangle the somewhat confused plotline of the text by
highlighting one and not the other. As in the other sections of the Morte already
discussed, notes appear fairly regularly, every one or two folios:
f. 21r, at Malory, Works, 35.21: “Here ys a mencion | of þe lady of
the | laake whan | she asked Ba | lyne le sa | veage hys | hede”
24r, at 41.7: “The dethe of | the lady | of the | lake”
25v, at 43.18: “How Balyn | slew launceor”
26v, at 45.5: “How the lady | Columbe slew | hir selfe | for the |
deth of | laun | ceor”
670 These two narrative strains are not, of course, fully separate from one another. The cursed
sword and scabbard will come into the possession of Galahad in the Sankgreal, and Malory even draws
attention to the cross-reference between these episodes, both in the Balin as the sword is placed in the stone
and at the point of the marvel’s achievement in the Sankgreal (Malory, Works, 58.41–44 and 520.8–13).
At this latter point, in fact, Malory seems to integrate the two strains fully, as Galahad attributes not just
Pellam/Pelles’s wounding to the Dolorous Stroke, but Balin and Balan’s deaths as well. Nevertheless,
there seems still to be a legitimate dichotomy between, on the one hand, those aspects of the Balin that look
forward to Grail quest, often through direct causation (or as direct as causation becomes in the Balin), and
those aspects that thematically prefigure the final civil conflicts of the Morte.
400