A palmer was a pilgrim- the symbol they carried, a palm leaf folded into a cross, was still handed out in (RC) church on Palm Sunday when I was a lad. Strangers aren't expected to know intimate deatails of family relationships, so there's something uncanny about him- a prophet or perhaps an epiphany of a saint. The American version has explicitly made him Jesus, and missed out (prudery?) explicit descriptions of the incest.

Do lilies grow in bushes, or is this in just for the sound? And how can a well be below a valley?