And should any of my readers find it difficult to believe that, even did initiations take place, and even were they of a character that involved a stern test of mental and physical endurance—and I imagine most scholars would admit that there was, possibly, more in the original institutions, than, let us say, in a modern admission to Free-Masonry—yet it is ‘a far cry’ from pre-Christian initiations to Medieval Romance, and a connection between the two is a rash postulate, I would draw their attention to the fact that, quite apart from our Grail texts, we possess a romance which is, plainly, and blatantly, nothing more or less than such a record. I refer, of course, to _Owain Miles_, or _The Purgatory of Saint Patrick_, where we have an account of the hero, after purification by fasting and prayer, descending into the Nether World, passing through the abodes of the Lost, finally reaching Paradise, and returning to earth after Three Days, a reformed and regenerated character.[15] “Then with his monks the Prior anon, With Crosses and with Gonfanon Went to that hole forthright, Thro’ which Knight Owain went below, There, as of burning fire the glow, They saw a gleam of light; And right amidst that beam of light He came up, Owain, God’s own knight, By this knew every man That he in Paradise had been, And Purgatory’s pains had seen, And was a holy man.” Now if we turn to Bousset’s article _Himmelfahrt der Seele_, to which I have previously referred (p. —-), we shall find abundant evidence that such a journey to the Worlds beyond was held to be a high spiritual adventure of actual possibility—a venture to be undertaken by those who, greatly daring, felt that the attainment of actual knowledge of the Future Life was worth all the risks, and they were great and terrible, which such an enterprise involved. Bousset comments fully on Saint Paul’s claim to have been ‘caught up into the Third Heaven’ and points out that such an experience was the property of the Rabbinical school to which Saul of Tarsus had belonged, and was brought over by him from his Jewish past; such experiences were rare in Orthodox Christianity.[16] According to Jewish classical tradition but one Rabbi had successfully passed the test, other aspirants either failing at a preliminary stage, or, if they persevered, losing their senses permanently. The practice of this ecstatic ascent ceased among Jews in the second century A.D. Bousset also gives instances of the soul leaving the body for three days, and wandering through other worlds, both good and evil, and also discusses the origin of the bridge which must be crossed to reach Paradise, both features characteristic of the _Owain_ poem.[17] In fact the whole study is of immense importance for a critical analysis of the sources of the romance in question.