BRAZEN (Captain), a kind of Bobadil.  A boastful, tongue-doughty warrior, who pretends to know everybody; to have a liaison with every wealthy, pretty, or distinguished woman; and to have achieved in war the most amazing prodigies.

BRAZEN HEAD.  The first on record is one which Sylvester II. (Gerbert) possessed.  It told him he would be pope, and not die till he had sung mass at Jerusalem.  When pope he was stricken with his death-sickness while performing mass in a church called Jerusalem (999-1003).

The next we hear of was made by Rob.  Grosseteste (1175-1253).

The third was the famous brazen head of Albertus Magnus, which cost him thirty years’ labor, and was broken to pieces by his disciple Thomas Aquinas (1193-1280).

The fourth was that of friar Bacon, which used to say, “Time is, time was, time comes.”  Byron refers to it in the lines: 

  Like friar Bacon’s brazen head, I’ve spoken,
  “Time is, time was, time’s past [?]”
  Don Juan, i. 217 (1819).

Another was made by the marquis of Vilena of Spain (1384-1434).  And a sixth by a Polander, a disciple of Escotillo an Italian.

Brazen Head (The), a gigantic head kept in the castle of the giant Ferragus of Portugal.  It was omniscient, and told those who consulted it whatever they desired to know, past, present, or future.—­Valentine and Orson.

BREAKFAST TABLE (Autocrat of).  See AUTOCRAT.

BREAKING A STICK is part of the marriage ceremony of the American Indians, as breaking a glass is still part of the marriage ceremony of the Jews.—­Lady Augusta Hamilton, Marriage Rites, etc., pp. 292, 298.

In one of Raphael’s pictures we see an unsuccessful suitor of the Virgin Mary breaking his stick, and this alludes to the legend that the several suitors of the “virgin” were each to bring an almond stick which was to be laid up in the sanctuary over night, and the owner of the stick which budded was to be accounted the suitor God ordained, and thus Joseph became her husband.—­B.H.  Cowper, Apocryphal Gospel ("Pseudo-Matthew’s Gospel,” 40, 41).

In Florence is a picture in which the rejected suitors break their sticks on the back of Joseph.

BRECAN, a mythical king of Wales.  He had twenty-four daughters by one wife.  These daughters, for their beauty and purity, were changed into rivers, all of which flow into the Severn.  Brecknockshire, according to fable, is called after this king. (See next art.)

Brecan was a prince once fortunate and great (Who dying lent his name to that his noble seat), With twice twelve daughters blest, by one and only wife.  They, for their beauties rare and sanctity of life, To rivers were transformed; whose pureness doth declare How excellent they were by being what they are ... ..._[they]_ to Severn shape their course.  M. Drayton, Polyolbion, iv. (1612).

BREC’HAN (Prince), father of St. Cadock and St. Canock, the former a martyr and the latter a confessor.