Etymology
The name has several possible etymologies:
- Welsh Caerbannog ('Fort of the Peaks'); this form is used by Monty Python and the Holy Grail;
- Cornish (or Breton) Caer Bran (city of 'Raven' = Bran; this is an extant hill-fort in Penwith; nearby an inscribed stone (Men Scryfa) gives 'RIALOBRANI CUNOVALI FILI' which in Cornish means 'Royal Raven son of the Glorious Prince'. -ek,e.g. remains the Brythonic possessive form, e.g. Kernewek,Brythonek,etc.
- Mediaeval Gaelic garbh Eanric ('rough Eanric') William I of Scotland (Mediaeval Gaelic: Uilliam mac Eanric), known as the Lion or Garbh, "the Rough".
- Old French cor beneoit, meaning both 'blessed horn' (referring to the Grail as a horn of plenty) and 'blessed body' (referring to the Grail as a Eucharistic vessel);
- Old French corbin, meaning 'raven' or 'crow'; a possible allusion to the Welsh hero Bran the Blessed, whose tale has some similarities to that of the Fisher King. The putative form corbin beneoiz is an approximate translation of Bran's full name in Welsh, Bendigeidfran.
Read more about this topic: Corbenic
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)