first and last, and exclude, as a mere literary invention, the
intermediate parallel?

The ground for such a denial may be mere prejudice, a reluctance to
renounce a long cherished critical prepossession, but in the face of
this new evidence does it not come perilously close to scientific
dishonesty, to a disregard for that respect for truth in research
the imperative duty of which has been so finely expressed by the late
M. Gaston Paris.--"Je professe absolument et sans reserve cette doctrine,
que la science n'a d'autre objet que la verite, et la verite pour
elle-meme, sans aucun souci des consequences, bonnes ou mauvaises,
regrettables ou heureuses, que cette verite pourrait avoir dans
la pratique."[17] When we further consider that behind these three
main parallels, linking them together, there lies a continuous chain of
evidence, expressed alike in classical literature, and surviving Folk
practice, I would submit that there is no longer any shadow of a doubt
that in the Grail King we have a romantic literary version of that
strange mysterious figure whose presence hovers in the shadowy
background of the history of our Aryan race; the figure of a divine
or semi-divine ruler, at once god and king, upon whose life, and
unimpaired vitality, the existence of his land and people directly
depends.

And if we once grant this initial fact, and resolve that we will no
longer, in the interests of an outworn critical tradition, deny the
weight of scientific evidence in determining the real significance of
the story, does it not inevitably follow, as a logical sequence, that
such versions as fail to connect the misfortunes of the land directly
with the disability of the king, but make them dependent upon the
failure of the Quester, are, by that very fact, stamped as secondary