Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/331

 Rh the Grail Castle: the wasted land; the slain king (or knight); the mourning, with special insistence on the part played by women; and the restoration of fertility; while certain minor points, such as the crimson covering of the bier, the incense, and the presence, in certain versions, of doves as agents in the mysterious ceremonies also find their parallel in the same ritual.

To put the matter briefly, the scene enacted in the presence of the chance visitor to the Grail Castle involved the chief incidents of the Adonis rites. I would submit that whereas the presence of an isolated feature might be due to chance, that of a complete and harmonious group, embracing at once the ceremonies and the object of the cult, can scarcely be so explained.

To go a step further. Originally I entitled this paper 'The Grail and the Mysteries of Adonis.' For the word mysteries I have now substituted ritual, in view of the perfectly well-grounded objection that, in classical times,, the worship of Adonis was not carried on in secret. Nevertheless, I am disposed to believe that the word mysteries might, without impropriety, be used in connection with the celebration of these rites when in later ages Christianity had become the faith 'in possession,' and the votaries of an older cult performed their rites under the ban of ecclesiastical disapproval. Much, of course, depends upon the character of the cult; the Adonis worship was in its essence a 'Life' cult, the life of the god ensuring the life of vegetation, and that in its turn the life of man; it is obvious that such a cult might possess an esoteric as well as an exoteric significance. To the ordinary worshipper the ritual would be an object-lesson, setting forth the actual processes of Nature, to the