The locality had been part of Bledri's estate, and
the house in which he lived was built on the site of what had been
Bledri's castle. Mr Rogers Rees maintained the existence of a living
tradition connecting Bledri with the legends in question. At his
request I sent him the list of the names of the brothers of Alain
li Gros, as given in the 1516 edition of the Perlesvaus, a copy of
which is in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and received in return a letter
stating that the list must have been compiled by one familiar with the
district. Unfortunately, for a year, from the autumn of 1916, I was
debarred from work, and when, on resuming my studies, I wrote to my
correspondent asking for the promised evidence I obtained no answer to
my repeated appeal. On communicating with Mr Owen I found he had had
precisely the same experience, and, for his part, was extremely
sceptical as to there being any genuine foundation for our
correspondent's assertions. While it is thus impossible to use the
statements in question as elements in my argument, I think it right in
the interests of scholarship to place them on record; they may afford
a clue which some Welsh scholar may be able to follow up to a more
satisfactory conclusion.
[14] Had Wauchier really desired to invent an authority, in view of
his date, and connection with the house of Flanders, he had a famous
name at hand--that of Chretien de Troyes.
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