King asleep in mountain (D 1960.2 in Stith Thompson's motif index system) is a prominent folklore motif found in many folktales and legends. Thompson also termed it the Kyffhaüser type. Some other designations are: king in the mountain, king under the mountain, or sleeping hero.
Examples include the legends of Barbarossa, Kraljevic Marko, Holger Danske, King Arthur, and Charlemagne.
The motifs A 571 " Culture hero asleep in mountain", and E 502 "The Sleeping Army" are similar and can occur in the same tale. A related motif is "Seven Sleepers" (D 1960.1, also known as the "Rip van Winkle" motif), whose type tale is the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (AT tale type 766).
Video King in the mountain
General features
King in the mountain stories involve legendary heroes, often accompanied by armed retainers, sleeping in remote dwellings, including caves on high mountaintops, remote islands, or supernatural worlds. The hero is frequently a historical figure of some military consequence in the history of the nation where the mountain is located.
The stories gathered by the Brothers Grimm concerning Frederick Barbarossa and Charlemagne are typical of the stories told, and have been influential on many variants and subsequent adaptations. The presence of the hero is unsuspected, until some herdsman wanders into the cave, typically looking for a lost animal, and sees the hero. The stories almost always mention the detail that the hero has grown a long beard, indicative of the long time he has slept beneath the mountain.
In the Brothers Grimm version, the hero speaks with the herdsman. Their conversation typically involves the hero asking, "Do the eagles (or ravens) still circle the mountaintop?" The herdsman, or a mysterious voice, replies, "Yes, they still circle the mountaintop." "Then begone! My time has not yet come."
The herdsman in this story was then supernaturally harmed by the experience: he ages rapidly, he emerges with his hair turned white, and often he dies after repeating the tale. The story goes on to say that the king sleeps in the mountain, awaiting a summons to arise with his knights and defend the nation in a time of deadly peril. The omen that presages his rising will be the extinction of the birds that trigger his awakening.
Maps King in the mountain
Examples
A number of kings, rulers, fictional characters and religious figures have become attached to this story. They include the following:
Religions
Christianity
- St. John the Evangelist - according to the Golden Legend, he is only sleeping in his grave at Ephesus until the coming of the Antichrist, when he would be needed as a witness.
Islam
- Muhammad al-Mahdi (Islamic mysticism, especially Shi'a)
Asia (w/o Middle East)
Japan
- K?b?-Daishi, founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism. He is said to be in deep meditation in a temple on Mount Koya, Wakayama Prefecture, awaiting the coming of the next Buddha.
Philippines
- Bernardo Carpio, the "King of the Tagalogs", is said to be trapped in the mountains of Rodriguez, Rizal, east of Metro Manila on Luzon. Legend has it that Carpio, a man of superhuman strength, causes earthquakes as he struggles to break free of his chains.
Europe
Baltic states
- A popular motif in Latvian legends involves a castle sinking into ground leaving a hill behind it. Years later somebody finds a way into the hill and somehow guesses the name of the castle causing it to rise again and its ruler and his people to return to the living.
- Vytautas the Great (Lithuania). It is believed he will rise from his grave when the worst danger threatens Lithuania in order to defend the motherland at the last battle.
Britain and Ireland
- King Arthur (Great Britain and Brittany), perhaps most famous of the king under the mountain examples. Arthur according to legend was taken away to the Isle of Avalon to sleep until he was needed by the people of Britain, but several legends talk of a herdsman who stumbles across a cave on mainland Britain in which he finds Arthur sleeping, often with his knights and Excalibur by his side. In a variation on this, sometimes the exploring herdsman finds instead just Arthur's knights, or Sir Lancelot, Guinevere and the knights sleeping in wait on the return of the "Once and Future King".
- Merlin of the Arthurian legend, who is imprisoned in an oak tree by Nimue.
- Thomas the Rhymer is found under a hill with a retinue of knights in a tale from Anglo-Scottish border. Likewise, Harry Hotspur was said to have been hunting in the Cheviots when he and his hounds got holed-up in the Hen Hole (or "Hell-hole") awaiting the sound of a hunting horn to awaken them from their slumber. Another border variant concerns a party of huntsmen who chase a roebuck into the Cheviots when they heard the sweetest music playing from the Henhole, however when they entered they became lost and are trapped to this day.
Wales
- Bran the Blessed (Wales)
- Owain Lawgoch, Welsh soldier and nobleman (14th century)
- Owain Glynd?r (Wales) The Last native born Welshman to hold the title "Prince of Wales"; he disappeared after a long but ultimately unsuccessful rebellion against the English. He was never captured or betrayed and refused all Royal pardons.
- An unnamed giant is supposed to sleep in Plynlimon in Wales.
Ireland
- Fionn mac Cumhaill (Ireland) is said to sleep in a cave/mountain surrounded by the Fianna (he is differentiated from them because of his large stature). It is told that the day will come when the Dord Fiann is sounded three times and Fionn and the Fianna will rise up again, as strong and well as they ever were. In other accounts he will return to glory as a great hero of Ireland.
- Gearóid Iarla, Earl of Desmond, who dozes under Lough Gur with his silver-shod horse (Ireland)
- Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, who is at temporary rest under the Curragh of Kildare (Ireland)
England
- King Harold (England). Said to have not been slain at Senlac by Anglo-Saxon legends, to come one day to liberate the English from the Norman yoke
- Sir Francis Drake (Great Britain) - In this legend, it is stated that when England is in deadly peril, if Drake's Drum is beaten, then Sir Francis Drake will arise to defend England from the sea. According to legend, it can be heard to beat at times when England is at war or significant national events take place.
German-speaking realm
- Charlemagne, Emperor of future Germany, France, and the Low Countries, rests in the Untersberg near Salzburg. (Austria)
- Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor, sleeps in the Kyffhäuser mountain and will rise to save the Empire. (Germany)
- Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
- Henry the Fowler, king. (Germany)
Greek, Hellenistic and Byzantine
Ancient Greece
- Theseus (Athens)
- Typhon and Enceladus in Mount Etna
Byzantine Empire
- Constantine I, said to have been turned into a stone statue, although not resting within a mountain
- Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, said to have been turned into marble and thus was known as "Marmaromenos", "the Marble King". He was said to be hidden somewhere underground until his glorious return as the Immortal Emperor.
- John III Doukas Vatatzes (also known as "Kaloyannis III'") of the Eastern Roman Empire, due to his kindness and ability, also known as "Marmaromenos."
Hungarians
- Csaba, the son of Attila the Hun (Hungary) who is supposed to ride down the Milky Way when the Székelys are threatened.
- King St. Stephen, King St. Ladislaus, King Matthias Corvinus (Hungary)
Iberia
- Boabdil, last Islamic prince of Granada. (Spain)
- King Pelayo, Visigothic king of Asturia, credited with beginning the Reconquista. (Spain)
- King Rodrigo (Spain). Said to escape from the Moorish invasion and await for "the time of maximum need" to save his people.
- Sebastian I of Portugal. It is said by Sebastianists that the king will return in a hazy morning in time of need.
Jewish Ashkenazi
- Golem of Prague, whose remains are said to be in the attic of the Old New Synagogue in Prague, and that it can be brought back to defend the Jewish people. (Jewish mysticism)
- King David is depicted in Haim Nachman Bialik's tale "King David in the Cave" as sleeping along with his warriors deep inside a cave, waiting for the blast of the ram's horn that will awaken them from their millennia of slumber and arouse them to redeem Israel. This role was not attributed to King David in earlier Jewish tradition.
Romania
- Vlad III the Impaler (Romania)
- Ogier the Dane (Danish: Holger Danske, Denmark)
- King Olaf I (Norway)
- Väinämöinen, the protagonist of the Finnish national epic Kalevala. At the end of Kalevala, he leaves on a boat, promising to return when he is most needed.
Slavic nations
East Slavic
- Alexander Suvorov (Russia), Russian generalissimo, sleeps in a deep cave where prayer is heard and icon lamp burns. The legend says Suvorov will come back to save his country from a mortal danger.
- Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian poet and painter (Ukraine), believed to be a supernatural hero (charakternik), is said to sleep under his grave mound in Kanev or even in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.
South Slavic
- Marko Kraljevi? (Serbia)
- Matija Gubec (Croatia)
- Kralj Matja? (Slovenia)
- Napoleon Bonaparte was considered to be also not dead but in Irkutsk and to come back by a sect from Slavonia, Croatia
West Slavic
- Je?mínek, legendary Moravian king will, according to a prophecy, return to save his country from enemies.
- Giewont, a mountain massif which is said to be a sleeping knight (Poland)
- St. Wenceslas (Václav) of Bohemia (Czech Republic). He sleeps in the Blaník mountain (with a huge army of Czech knights) and will emerge to protect his country at its worst time, riding on his white horse and wielding the legendary hero Bruncvík's sword.
- Knights of Sitno in Slovak mythology are a legion of knights supposedly sleeping inside the mountain Sitno in Central Slovakia, waiting to be called upon in times when the Slovaks are in danger. It is said that every seven years, the oldest of them climbs up the hill and shouts the question: "Is it time yet?" in every world direction. If nobody answers, he climbs back inside.
Switzerland
- William Tell (Switzerland, in some legends accompanied by two other Tells)
Middle East
Persia
- Key-Khosrow, legendary shah of Persia.
North America
- The Pueblo hero-god Montezuma -- believed to have been a divine king in prehistoric times, and suspended in an Arizona mountain that bears his image.
- The Sleeping Ute mountain in Colorado is said to have been a "Great Warrior God" who fell asleep while recovering from wounds received in a great battle with "the Evil Ones" (there are many other variants of this legend)
- Tecumseh of the Shawnee
- Emperor Norton is claimed by several defunct civil rights groups to have been destined to return to the USA when the unity of the Republic is at its nadir.
Sleeping anti-hero and villain
Sometimes this type of story or archetype is also attached to not-so-heroic figures, who are either simple anti-heroes or fully villains, whose return would mean the end of the world, or whose sleep represents something positive. This kind of archetype is known as the "Chained Satan" archetype. Among examples of this are:
- The Sleeping Giant mountain in Connecticut, United States was said by the local Quinnipiac Indians to be the demon Hobbomock, sealed by the Great Spirit. One day he would supposedly awaken and destroy the world.
- Mher (Armenia)
- Artavasdes II of Armenia, who according to Moses of Chorene was chained and cursed to stay eternally chained by his father Artaxias II.
- Loki in Norse mythology was bound by the gods after he engineered the death of Baldr. With the onset of Ragnarök, Loki is foretold to slip free and fight alongside the forces of the jötnar against the gods.
- Dukljan (Serbian mythology)
See also
- Seven Sleepers
- Rip Van Winkle
- Honi HaM'agel
- Sidhe
- King Arthur's messianic return
References
- Bibliography
External links
- List of other sleeping hero legends
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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