Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/335

 Rh at the crucial point of his test. But what caused this slumber? Is it too bold a suggestion that the blood drops, which are often so closely associated with the Grail, and are always found in connection with a trance, were the operating cause? that, in fact, they were employed to induce an hypnotic slumber on the part of the aspirant? We know that in Mesmerism and kindred practices, the first step is to seize and fix the attention of the subject—I believe a glittering disc, or some such object, is often employed—in any case it is through the eye that the desired effect is produced upon the brain. In the case of Gawain, and of Perceval alike, we are told that it is the startling contrast of colour—the crimson blood on the white cloth, or snow—that fetters their attention. It is of course possible that the slumber was merely a literary device for winding up the story, but the introduction of the feature of restored vegetation shows that the tale was moulded by some one who understood its real significance; and slumber hypnotically induced would be a very natural method of getting rid of an intruder who had stumbled upon rites not intended for general knowledge, and had failed to qualify for admission to their secrets. This much is certain, if the Grail stories have their root in the ritual of Adonis, we are dealing with a set of concrete facts, which must originally have admitted of a rational explanation. I would submit that if the slumber be really a part of the original tale, and there is every reason to believe that it is, then it must be capable of a rational explanation, and I can, in no other way, account for its constant recurrence, or for its connection with the blood drops, save on the hypothesis that one of the trials to which the neophyte was exposed, and to which apparently he frequently succumbed, was the test of hypnotic suggestion.

But how shall we explain the Grail itself? Would