Brador's Invasion Pattern and Irish Folk Song Structure
Note: This essay proposes a speculative literary influence based on observed patterns in Brador's behavior and Bloodborne's documented use of British Victorian/Georgian culture and literature. While thematically consistent with the game's established sources, this connection has not been confirmed by FromSoftware and should be read as interpretive analysis rather than established fact.
Bloodborne draws extensively from Georgian and Victorian literature. The Research Hall patients quote from William Ernest Henley's "Nocturn" with their obsessive cistern imagery. Robert Southey's "The Surgeon's Warning" echoes through the game's resurrectionist themes and body-snatching anxieties. Hugh MacDiarmid's "Edinburgh" captures Yharnam's Gothic architecture as a "mad god's dream." Given these observable (even if not confirmed nor confirmable) influences, it's worth examining whether Brador's invasion pattern might reference another piece of British folk culture: the Irish prison ballad "The Auld Triangle." [the lyrics of this song vary a bit from version to version.]
Oh, a hungry feeling, came o'er me stealing
And the mice were squealing in me prison cell
Then the auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal
"The Auld Triangle" originated as a lament about Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, made famous by The Dubliners' haunting 1967 rendition. The song describes a prisoner's compulsion and yearning, marked by the ringing of the triangle (a breakfast bell that also served as general alarm), with particular emphasis on the Royal Canal that runs past the prison. The melody is mournful and repetitive, emphasizing the inescapable routine of imprisonment and the perpetual call of the bell.
Brador invades the player exactly four times during the Old Hunters DLC. Three of these invasions occur in the Fishing Hamlet along the water's edge: near the lighthouse hut bridge, inside a building further along the shore, and in the underground caverns near the beach. The fourth invasion occurs near his underground cell. When he spawns, players can hear a distinctive bell sound with two tones—one slightly higher, one slightly lower—that elongates in a jingle-jangle pattern rather than a simple repetitive ding.
The Church Assassin set describes how the Healing Church gave Brador a "soundless bell" to "ensure the Church's secrets would be kept." Yet in the Nightmare, this bell paradoxically rings, compelling his invasions. The pattern of his appearances—three along water, marked by bell sounds—mirrors the song's refrain: "Then the auld triangle, went jingle jangle / All along the banks of the Royal Canal."
What makes this connection particularly compelling is that Brador's four invasion locations appear to map directly onto the song's four verses, each corresponding not just to geography but to thematic content.
Oh, a hungry feeling, came o'er me stealing
And the mice were squealing in me prison cell
Then the auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal
Brador's first invasion occurs near the lighthouse hut bridge. The "hungry feeling" suggests the compulsion beginning—the soundless bell compelling him to hunt. The lighthouse as a waking point, the beginning of his perpetual invasions along the water.
To begin the morning, the screw was bawlin'
Get up you bowsie, and clean up your cell
Then the auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal
The second invasion occurs in a building after the lighthouse area. Remarkably, this corresponds to Simon the Harrowed's questline. "Screw" is British prison slang for a guard or jailer—and Simon functions precisely as Brador's jailer. Simon's questline ends at the Lighthouse Hut area, where he gives you the Underground Cell Inner Chamber Key (which unlocks Brador's cell) along with his weapon, Simon's Bowblade. "Get up you bowsie, and clean up your cell" could read as Simon's implicit instruction: here is the key, go deal with Brador, clean up this mess. The exact sequence of events blends verses one and two somewhat, but Simon's role as "the screw" who enables you to confront Brador directly is unmistakable.
Ah, the screw was peepin', And the lag lay sleepin'
Dreaming about his girl Sal
Then that auld triangle, went jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal
The third invasion occurs in the underground caverns near the beach—where the snail women are found. "Lag" is prison slang for a convict, but a Japanese person not fully familiar with English could read this as "slow person", based on "lag", and the snail women are literally sluggish, slow-moving creatures found in a passive, almost dreaming state. "Sal" could be interpreted as salt—sea salt—these slow ones dreaming of their maritime connection, their "girl of the salt". Simon continues to "peep" (observe, watch). The imagery aligns: slow creatures sleeping near the water, dreaming of salt.
Up in the female prison, there are seventy five women
And among them I wish I did dwell
Then that auld triangle, could go jingle jangle
All along the banks of the Royal Canal
The fourth invasion occurs near Brador's underground cell—and the Research Hall (filled with dozens of patients, many of them female, at least some likely former Blood Saints) is positioned above. The verse explicitly states "up in the female prison," and the Research Hall is literally elevated relative to Brador's cell. His yearning to dwell among them suggests a desire for the purification they're undergoing (brain fluid treatment, fire-to-water transition) that he cannot access.
If we accept that Kos represents Laurence's separated womb, then the "Royal Canal" takes on specific meaning. Canal evokes waterway, passage, the womb as generative channel. The Fishing Hamlet's shores, where Kos lies beached and butchered, become the banks of the Royal Canal: the violated shores of Laurence's womb-passage.
Brador is condemned to invade precisely here because it is the site of his crime. According to this reading, Brador killed Laurence and extracted his womb (the sacred organ that refined Old Blood through menstrual processes). He wears his victim's Cleric Beast scalp "while still moist with blood" and wields the Bloodletter, an exaggerated version of the tool used for abdominal extraction.
The song's fourth verse has already been addressed above in the verse-by-verse mapping, but it bears emphasis: the Research Hall is physically positioned above Brador's underground cell. The architecture itself encodes the yearning described in the song—the purification facility literally elevated above the prisoner who cannot reach it.
If Brador killed Laurence and extracted his womb, he would carry the corruption of that violation. The yearning to "dwell among" those undergoing water purification (the Research Hall patients receiving brain fluid treatment) suggests a desire for cleansing he cannot access. He is imprisoned in his cell, compelled to invade along the shore of his crime, but unable to reach the Research Hall where purification through water might be possible. His punishment is perpetual: the soundless bell rings only to summon him to violence, never to release.
The song's first verse mentions "mice were squealing in me prison cell" as prelude to the triangle's ringing. This detail is the most speculative element of the connection. Bloodborne's messengers—small, pale creatures that serve hunters connected to the Dream—could be read as the "mice" that alert and compel. Since the Hunter's Dream was created through Flora's failed birth (an event involving Laurence, whose essence helped generate the Dream's mechanisms), there's thematic logic to the idea that messengers might be assigned to Brador as part of his punishment: the little ones of the man he killed, forever squealing their alerts, forcing him to invade when hunters approach the site of his crimes.
However, this element remains unconfirmed. While white ephemera can be seen briefly when Brador spawns, it's unclear whether these are messengers or simply Nightmare manifestation effects. The song's pattern works with or without this detail—the mice might be metaphorical, representing the squealing alarm of guilt or the bell's own sound rather than literal creatures. I note the possibility without claiming certainty. Furthermore, if the "mice" are indeed messengers, they would only appear in his cell to alert him when hunters reach invasion trigger points, and would therefore not be visible to the player at any point.
Bloodborne's use of British (and possibly Irish) literature is well-established. The game doesn't merely borrow aesthetic elements; it incorporates structural patterns and thematic resonances from folk traditions. "The Auld Triangle," particularly The Dubliners' mournful, sonorous rendition, would fit seamlessly into this framework: a prisoner haunted by bells, compelled along waterways, yearning for a purification he cannot reach.
What began as pattern recognition—the repetition of Brador's invasions, the distinctive jingle-jangle of his bell—deepens into something more architectural when we examine the details. Simon's role as jailer who provides the cell key at the Lighthouse Hut. The snail women sleeping near the beach in the third invasion site. The Research Hall's physical elevation above Brador's cell. Each verse maps not just to a location but to specific narrative and environmental details.
Even the geometric symbolism aligns: three invasions along the water form a triangle, the bell rings in that distinctive jingle-jangle pattern of two tones, and the number three itself echoes throughout Bloodborne's womb-focused imagery (the womb-triad of Laurence, Gehrman, and Maria; the three figures in the Formless Oedon rune). Brador's fourth invasion at his cell returns him to the prison, unable to escape, unable to reach the patients undergoing purification in Maria's Research Hall above.
This reading remains speculative—it could be an extraordinary coincidence that Simon gives you Brador's cell key at the Lighthouse Hut, that snail women sleep near the third invasion point, that the Research Hall sits elevated above the fourth, that "Royal Canal" is referring to the royality that Laurence carries in himself. But the accumulation of correspondences is striking. Whether FromSoftware consciously structured Brador's questline around "The Auld Triangle" or whether these parallels emerged organically from similar thematic territory, the resonance is undeniable: a man imprisoned by his violation of the sacred, haunted by bells along the royal waters, observed by the screw who holds his key, passing the slow ones dreaming of salt, yearning for a cleansing he will never receive.