158 wife of whom Walter Map tells in De nugis curialium, v, 5. In the Prose Lancelot the hero's mother is called Elaine. [W] Richter, in DF, XXVII, 50, rightly remarks: "Wer weiss, wie Namen in den Handschriften entstellt, verunstaltet, verändert werden, wird nicht zweifeln können, dass aus der Elaine die Clarine geworden ist." Similarly ,whereas in the Didot Perceval Gauvain's sister is called Elainne, in Chrétien's Conte del Graal (1. 8269) she is called Clarianz, Clarissanz, doubtless as the result of a similar misreading. It is noteworthy that Chrétien's Clarianz dwelt in a splendid castle above a river and received a love message from a falconer, who had never seen her and whom she had never seen, whereas in the Welsh Dream of Maxen (dated 1150-1200) a beautiful maiden Elen, who dwelt in a splendid castle above a river, received a love message from a huntsman, who had never seen her except in dreams and whom she had never seen. The falconer wedded Clarianz, and the huntsman wedded Elen. Thus we have three reasons for supposing that the name Clarine represents a misreading of Elaine. It is a remarkable coincidence—if it is a coincidence—that the same resplendent castle, Caer Seint, where Elen dwelt, is represented in Branwen as the place where Bran the Blessed held a court of justice. Speculum, XXII (1947), 522�26. For other evidence that the author of O was familiar with local legends of this region, see Introduction and notes 7, 93, 131, 134. It is quite possible, therefore, that though native Welsh tradition never linked Bran with Elen as king and queen, a non-Welsh conteur, who knew them vaguely by reputation and associated both with North Wales, arbitrarily united them to provide worthy parents for the hero Lancelot. At least, I know of no other explanation of the linking of Ban with Elaine and of Pant with Clarine. [L] 5. It was a quite uncourtly thing in the Middle Ages for a mother to suckle her child. But so Herzeloyde nursed the infant Parzival in Wolfram von Eschenbach's noble poem, § 118. Cf. M. F. Richey, Story of Parzival (London, 1935), p. 30; Schultz, I, 149f. ; Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, part I, sect. 2, memb. 4, subs. 1. [W] According to La Chanson du Chevalier au Cygne et de Godefroid de Bouillon, ed. C. Hippeau (Paris, 1874-77), I, 26, Countess Yde, daughter of the Knight of the Swan, insisted on suckling her three sons and flew into a rage when by chance her third son was suckled by an attendant damsel. G. G. Coulton, Life in the Middle Ages (New York, 1931), III, 3of. It is certainly not without significance that the Vulgate Merlin (Sommer, II, 465) says of the infant Lancelot that his mother loved him so that “elle le norri de son lait." This is but another example of the dependence of the Vulgate cycle and of Lanzelet on common sources. [L]