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]

A most remarkable modern survival of this idea is recorded by Dr Frazer in the latest edition of The Golden Bough,[15] and is so complete and suggestive that I make no apology for transcribing it at some length.  The Shilluk, an African tribe, inhabit the banks of the White Nile, their territory extending on the west bank from Kaka in the north, to Lake No in the south, on the east bank from Fashoda to Taufikia, and some 35 miles up the Sohat river.  Numbering some 40,000 in all, they are a pastoral people, their wealth consisting in flocks and herds, grain and millet.  The King resides at Fashoda, and is regarded with extreme reverence, as being a re-incarnation of Nyakang, the semi-divine hero who settled the tribe in their present territory.  Nyakang is the rain-giver, on whom their life and prosperity depend; there are several shrines in which sacred Spears, now kept for sacrificial purposes, are preserved, the originals, which were the property of Nyakang, having disappeared.