The whole study is of extraordinary interest for Folk-lore students, and so far as our especial investigation is concerned it seems to me to supply the necessary proof of the identity, and persistence, of Aryan folk-custom and tradition. A very important modification of the root idea, and one which appears to have a direct bearing on the sources of the Grail tradition, was that by which, among certain peoples, the _rôle_ of the god, his responsibility for providing the requisite rain upon which the fertility of the land, and the life of the folk, depended, was combined with that of the King. This was the case among the Celts; McCulloch, in _The Religion of the Celts_, discussing the question of the early Irish _geasa_ or taboo, explains the _geasa_ of the Irish kings as designed to promote the welfare of the tribe, the making of rain and sunshine on which their prosperity depended. “Their observance made the earth fruitful, produced abundance and prosperity, and kept both the king and his land from misfortune. The Kings were divinities on whom depended fruitfulness and plenty, and who must therefore submit to obey their ‘_geasa_.’[13] The same idea seems to have prevailed in early Greece; Mr A. B. Cook, in his studies on _The European Sky-God_, remarks that the king in early Greece was regarded as the representative of Zeus: his duties could be satisfactorily discharged only by a man who was perfect, and without blemish, _i.e._, by a man in the prime of life, suffering from no defect of body, or mind; he quotes in illustration the speech of Odysseus (_Od_. 19. 109 ff.). “‘Even as a king without blemish, who ruleth god-fearing over many mighty men, and maintaineth justice, while the black earth beareth wheat and barley, and the trees are laden with fruit, and the flocks bring forth without fail, and the sea yieldeth fish by reason of his good rule, and the folk prosper beneath him.’ The king who is without blemish has a flourishing kingdom, the king who is maimed has a kingdom diseased like himself, thus the Spartans were warned by an oracle to beware of a ‘lame reign.’”[14]