MORDRAINS

1. Mordrains
   Evelake, Evelac, Mondrames, Mordrains, Mordrayns, Mordrayous
   
   King Evelake was a pagan contemporary of Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph converted him and his brother-in-law Nascien, with their families. Evelake, now bearing the baptismal name of Mordrains, came with Joseph to Britain.
   
   Despite a warning voice, Mordrains tried to see the Grail and, not being quite good enough, was blinded and paralyzed for the attempt. Meekly accepting his punishment, he prayed to be allowed to live to see Galahad. A voice, heard only by Mordrains, Nascien, Joseph, and Josephe, promised him this favor, adding that he would be healed when Galahad visited him. He waited several centuries, praying in a monastery, for Galahad to come. Upon being healed at last by Galahad, Mordrains enjoyed a holy death.
   
   The fact that Evelake and Mordrains are the same man is not apparent in Malory, and there is one passage in which I strongly suspect Malory or his editor confused the names of Nascien and Mordrains.
   
   
   
2. Mordrains, Abbey of King
   
   Malory does not make it clear, but from the Vulgate we know that King Evelake and King Mordrains were the same man, Evelake being his old name and Mordrains his name as a baptized Christian. He and his brother-in-law, Nascien, were contemporaries of Joseph of Arimathea, with whom they came to Britain. Mordrains lay blind in an abbey for several hundred years, waiting for Galahad to come and restore his sight. After Galahad had done so, Mordrains died happy in his arms.
   
   I can find no good clue in Malory as to the whereabouts of this abbey, but from comparison with Mordrains and Nascien's adventures at the Isle of Turnance and the Port of Perilous Rock, I would guess it likely to have been somewhere between Arthurian Cornwall and Avilion along the Devon-Somerset border. The Vulgate, however, places the abbey in a wood near Norgales.