I would also suggest that the double form,
Blihos-Bliheris, would have been adopted by the author himself,
to indicate the identity of the two, Blihis, and Bleheris. It is
worthy of note that, when dealing directly with the Grail, he assumes
the title of Master, which would seem to indicate that here he
claimed to speak with special authority.
I sent the letter in question to the late Mr Alfred Nutt, who was
forcibly struck with the possibilities involved in the suggestion,
the full application of which he thought the writer had not grasped.
I quote the following passages from the long letter I received from
him in return.
"Briefly put we presuppose the existence of a set of semi-dramatic,
semi-narrative, poems, in which a Bledri figures as an active, and at
the same time a recording, personage. Now that such a body of
literature may have existed we are entitled to assume from the fact
that two such have survived, one from Wales, in the Llywarch Hen
cycle, the other from Ireland, in the Finn Saga. In both cases, the
fact that the descriptive poems are put in the mouth, in Wales of
Llywarch, in Ireland largely of Oisin, led to the ascription at an
early date of the whole literature to Llywarch and Oisin. It is
therefore conceivable that a Welsh 'litterateur,' familiar as he must
have been with the Llywarch, and as he quite possibly was with the
Oisin, instance, should cast his version of the Arthurian stories in a
similar form, and that the facts noted by you and Singer may be thus
explained.
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