Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/332

296 initiate it would be the means of imparting other, and less innocent, teaching as to the sources of life.

This much is certain: the Grail is perpetually treated as something strange, mysterious, awe-inspiring; its secrets are on no account to be rashly approached or lightly spoken of; he runs great danger who does so. Such terms could hardly be applied to the Adonis rites under ordinary conditions, and yet, as we have seen, the Grail story presents such a striking identity of incident with these rites that a connection between the two seems practically certain. We have to seek for some explanation which will preserve this connection while at the same time accounting for the presence of certain 'occult' features in the tale.

The explanation surely lies in the fact suggested above, that the Adonis cult was essentially a Life cult, and, as such, susceptible of strange developments. Dr. Frazer has laid stress on the close connection which, in the minds of primitive worshippers, subsisted between the varying forms of life: "They commonly believed that the tie between the animal and vegetable world was even closer than it really is—to them the principle of life and fertility, whether animal or vegetable, was one and indivisible." Dulaure, while assigning the same origin as does Dr. Frazer to the ritual, definitely classes the worship of Adonis among those cults which "assumed in process of time a distinctly 'carnal' character."

The Lance and Cup which form the central features of the imagery of our story are also met with as 'Phallic' symbols, and I am strongly of opinion that many of the most perplexing features of the legend are capable of