ignore the arguments, and evidence of the opposing school, and while
the result of half a century of patient investigation has been to show
that the origin of the Grail story must be sought elsewhere than in
ecclesiastical legend, or popular tale, I hold that the result has
equally been to demonstrate that neither of these solutions should be
ignored, but that the ultimate source must be sought for in a
direction which shall do justice to what is sound in the claims of
both.

Some years ago, when fresh from the study of Sir J. G. Frazer's
epoch-making work, The Golden Bough, I was struck by the resemblance
existing between certain features of the Grail story, and
characteristic details of the Nature Cults described. The more
closely I analysed the tale, the more striking became the resemblance,
and I finally asked myself whether it were not possible that in this
mysterious legend--mysterious alike in its character, its sudden
appearance, the importance apparently assigned to it, followed by as
sudden and complete a disappearance--we might not have the confused
record of a ritual, once popular, later surviving under conditions of
strict secrecy? This would fully account for the atmosphere of awe
and reverence which even under distinctly non-Christian conditions
never fails to surround the Grail, It may act simply as a feeding
vessel, It is none the less toute sainte cose; and also for the
presence in the tale of distinctly popular, and Folk-lore, elements.
Such an interpretation would also explain features irreconcilable with
orthodox Christianity, which had caused some scholars to postulate a
heterodox origin for the legend, and thus explain its curiously
complete disappearance as a literary theme. In the first volume of my
Perceval studies, published in 1906, I hinted at this possible
solution of the problem, a solution worked out more fully in a paper