There seems very little doubt that both poems are specimens, and very
good specimens, of a genre the popularity and vitality of which are
commensurate with the antiquity of its origin.[2]
CHAPTER IX
The Fisher King
The gradual process of our investigation has led us to the conclusion
that the elements forming the existing Grail legend--the setting of
the story, the nature of the task which awaits the hero, the symbols
and their significance--one and all, while finding their counterpart
in prehistoric record, present remarkable parallels to the extant
practice and belief of countries so widely separate as the British
Isles, Russia, and Central Africa.
The explanation of so curious a fact, for it is a fact, and not
a mere hypothesis, may, it was suggested, most probably be found
in the theory that in this fascinating literature we have the,
sometimes partially understood, sometimes wholly misinterpreted,
record of a ritual, originally presumed to exercise a
life-giving potency, which, at one time of universal observance,
has, even in its decay, shown itself possessed of elements of the
most persistent vitality.
That if the ritual, which according to our theory lies at the root
of the Grail story, be indeed the ritual of a Life Cult, it should,
in and per se, possess precisely these characteristics, will, I think,
be admitted by any fair-minded critic; the point of course is, can
we definitely prove our theory, i.
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