There is no doubt that a ceremonial ‘marriage’ very frequently formed a part of the ‘Fertility’ ritual, and was supposed to be specially efficacious in bringing about the effect desired.[9] The practice subsists in Indian ritual to this hour, and the surviving traces in European Folk-custom have been noted in full by Mannhardt in his exhaustive work on _Wald und Feld-Kulte;_ its existence in Classic times is well known, and it is certainly one of the living Folk-customs for which a well-attested chain of descent can be cited. Professor von Schroeder remarks that the efficacy of the rite appears to be enhanced by the previous strict observance of the rule of chastity by the officiant.[10] What, however, is of more immediate interest for our purpose is the fact that the Ṛishyaçṛiñga story does, in effect, possess certain curious points of contact with the Grail tradition. Thus, the lonely upbringing of the youth in a forest, far from the haunts of men, his absolute ignorance of the existence of human beings other than his parent and himself, present a close parallel to the accounts of Perceval’s youth and woodland life, as related in the Grail romances.[11] In Gerbert’s continuation we are told that the marriage of the hero is an indispensable condition of achieving the Quest, a detail which must have been taken over from an earlier version, as Gerbert proceeds to stultify himself by describing the solemnities of the marriage, and the ceremonial blessing of the nuptial couch, after which hero and heroine simultaneously agree to live a life of strict chastity, and are rewarded by the promise that the Swan Knight shall be their descendant—a tissue of contradictions which can only be explained by the _mal-à-droit_ blending of two versions, one of which knew the hero as wedded, the other, as celibate. There can be no doubt that the original _Perceval_ story included the marriage of the hero.[12] The circumstances under which Ṛishyaçṛiñga is lured from his Hermitage are curiously paralleled by the account, found in the _Queste_ and Manessier, of Perceval’s temptation by a fiend, in the form of a fair maiden, who comes to him by water in a vessel hung with black silk, and with great riches on board.[13]