Doctor, or Medicine Man, formed, as I believe, at one time, no
unimportant link in the chain which connects these practices with the
Grail tradition.

The signification of the resuscitation ceremony is obscured in cases
where the same figure undergoes death and revival without any
corresponding change of form. This point did not escape Mannhardt's
acute critical eye; he remarks that, in cases where, e.g., in Swabia,
the 'King' is described as "ein armer alter Mann," who has lived seven
years in the woods (the seven winter months), a scene of rejuvenation
should follow--"diese scheint meistenteils verloren gegangen; doch
vielleicht scheint es nur so." He goes on to draw attention to the
practice in Reideberg, bei Halle, where, after burying a straw figure,
called the Old Man, the villagers dance round the May-Pole, and he
suggests that the 'Old Man' represents the defunct Vegetation Spirit,
the May Tree, that Spirit resuscitated, and refers in this connection
to the "durchaus verwandten Asiatischen Gebrauchen des Attis, und
Adonis-Kultus."[11]

The foregoing evidence offers, I think, sufficient proof of the, now
generally admitted, relationship between Classical, Medieval, and
Modern forms of Nature ritual.

But what of the relation to early Aryan practice? Can that, also, be
proved?

In this connection I would draw attention to Chapter 17 of Mysterium
und Mimus, entitled, Ein Volkstumlicher Umzug beim Soma-Fest.
Here Professor von Schroeder discusses the real meaning and
significance of a very curious little poem (Rig-Veda, 9. 112); the