Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/430

422 given to Joseph's sister and Bron's wife. Her other appellation, mulier Veronica, was taken as "femme d'Ebron", whence by misinterpretation "femme de Bron", and she was thus provided with a husband named Bron (or, in some texts, Hebron). This Bron probably represents Nicodemus, who is connected with the evangelisation of Britain, though indirectly, by the early knowledge in this country of the apocryphal gospel devoted to him, and who plays a part in the oldest texts of the Early History section of the Grail legend.

Prof. Heinzel is at some pains to demonstrate that this discovery ruins my theory of the relation between Bron and Bran the Blessed of Welsh tradition. But I submit that all depends upon the date of the process he assumes. This must be much older than Robert de Borron (end of twelfth century), seeing that Robert mentions Enygeus, the Veronica, and Mary the Egyptian as three distinct personages, clear proof that the corruption which Prof. Heinzel thinks he has detected was then of old standing. Moreover, Prof. Heinzel conjectures that the epithet "blessed" assigned to the Welsh Bran may be due to the Bron story. If this is so it is another proof that Bron must be much older than Robert de Borron. For Robert's version of the Grail legend is entirely unknown in Wales, and the two French Grail romances translated into Welsh (the Queste, and the prose Perlesvans) know nothing of Bron and of his companions. Moreover, the mere similarity of name between Bron and Bran can hardly be deemed sufficient ground for the Welsh story-tellers to have decorated their old god (for such Bran is—his legend, save for this possible epithet, is absolutely untouched by Christianity) with a standing epithet derived from the Christian missionary. There must have been some similarity of attribute or condition, more than which I have never postulated. Indeed, I think that the epithet (pre-Christian in Bran's case) is the first and only link between the two personages. In any case Prof. Heinzel's theory