The significance of Mr Cornford’s work lies in the fact that, while he accepts Sir Gilbert Murray’s deeply interesting and suggestive theory that the origins of Greek Tragedy are to be sought in “the Agon of the Fertility Spirit, his Pathos, and Theophany,” he contends that a similar origin may be postulated for Attic Comedy—that the stock Masks (characters) agree with a theory of derivation of such Comedy from a ritual performance celebrating the renewal of the seasons.[5] “They were at first serious, and even awful, figures in a Religious Mystery, the God who every year is born, and dies, and rises again; his Mother and his Bride; the Antagonist who kills him; the Medicine Man who restores him to life.”[6] I would submit that the presence of such a character in the original ritual drama of Revival which, on my theory, underlies the romantic form of the Grail legend, may, in view of the above evidence, and of that brought forward in the previous chapters, be accepted as at least a probable hypothesis. But, it may be objected, granting that the Doctor in these Fertility processions and dramas represents a genuine survival of a feature of immemorial antiquity, a survival to be traced alike in Aryan remains, in Greek literature, and in Medieval ceremony, what is the precise bearing upon the special subject of our investigations? There is no Doctor in the Grail legend, although there is certainly abundant scope for his activities! There may be no Doctor in the Grail legend to-day, but was there never such a character? How if this be the key to explain the curious and persistent attribution of healing skill to so apparently unsuitable a personage as Sir Gawain? I would draw the attention of my readers to a passage in the _Perceval_ of Chrétien de Troyes, where Gawain, finding a wounded knight by the roadside, proceeds to treat him: “Et Mesire Gauvain savoit Plus que nuls homs de garir plaie; Une herbe voit en une haie Trop bonne pour douleur tolir De plaie, et il la va cueillir.”[7] Other MSS. are rather fuller: “Et Messires Gauvain savoit Plus que nus hons vivant de plaies, Unes herbe voit les une haies Qu’il connoissoit lonc temps avoit Que son mestre apris li avoit Enseigniee et bien moustree, Et il l’avoit bien esgardee Si l’a molt bien reconneue.”[8] We find reference to Gawain’s possession of medical knowledge elsewhere. In the poem entitled _Lancelot et le cerf au pied blanc_, Gawain, finding his friend desperately wounded, carries him to a physician whom he instructs as to the proper treatment.[9] “Ende Walewein wiesde den Ersatere mere Ene const, die daertoe halp wel sere.”[10] In the parallel adventure related in _Morien_ Gawain heals Lancelot without the aid of any physician:[11] “Doe was Walewein harde blide Ende bant hem sine wonden ten tide Met selken crude die daer dochten Dat si niet bloden mochten.”[12]