He’s said to have had a sword called Cortana or Curtana, which is also the name of a ceremonial sword used in British coronations. Although introduced in French literature (as far as we know, anyway), he became a Danish folk hero, and is said to be asleep under Kronborg, the castle that Shakespeare called Elsinore, until such time as he’s needed to save the country. A later poem adds to this by saying he was originally an enemy and hostage of Charlemagne, but later joined forces with him against the Saracens (whom they should have instead asked to add a dog to the story). Ogier the Dane, or Holga Danske in Danish, is first known to have appeared in Chanson de Roland in the eleventh century, in which he’s one of Charlemagne’s knights. It also says that nobody knows exactly how many sleepers there were, and gives the length of their snooze as 300 solar years. The Islamic version of the legend, as recounted in the Quran, adds a dog who watched over the sleepers (I guess Disney wasn’t the first to add lovable animal companions to classic stories). They are said to have slept for 360 years, presumably a symbolic number that doesn’t work out mathematically with the emperors commonly name-checked in it it was only 201 years from the beginning of Decius’ reign until the end of that of Theodosius II. After the truth was revealed to the Emperor Theodosius and certain of his subjects, the sleepers died. They were amazed to find that Christianity had become the official religion, and the age of the few coins they had led the people of Ephesus that they had dug up a buried treasure. Centuries later, a shepherd moved the stones covering the cave and the sleepers awoke, unaware that they had been asleep for so long. They hid out from imperial persecution in a cave in Mount Celion, and while Decius couldn’t find them, he did have all the caves in the mountain sealed. According to Jacques de Voragine, their names were Malchus, Maximian, Marcian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine.
One early example of the type involves not kings or warriors, but rather seven faithful Christians in Ephesus in the time of Emperor Decius. This page on the Alderley Edge legend also mentions a few other similar tales.
KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN FREDERICK BARBAROSSA TV
In addition to the Wikipedia page, there are lists of such sleeping heroes here and on TV Tropes. It does seem to be distinct from people hanging out in Heaven, made outright immortal, mysteriously disappearing, or just flat-out faking their deaths and hiding out from the public eye but there are certainly common elements.
KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN FREDERICK BARBAROSSA FULL
They often are, though, I guess because mountains tend to be full of largely unexplored caves. Wikipedia refers to the motif as “king in the mountain”, although not all of the sleeping heroes are kings, and their resting places aren’t always mountains. In fact, both Arthur and Merlin are said to be sleeping until they’re needed again (which you could argue has already happened several times), the former most commonly placed in Avalon, although there are local tales that give him other resting places.Īnd these are far from the only sleeping warrior tales. Although Garner does not directly associate the knights with King Arthur, the legend has been tied to that mythos. In Garner’s series, the wizard’s name is Cadellin Silverbrow. He turned out to be a wizard guarding a cavern where men and horses were sleeping until the time they would be needed to save England.Īs one of the sleepers was missing a horse, the wizard paid the farmer in the treasure kept in the cave. Since no one there would buy the horse, he returned back home, and fortunately for him the old man was still there. An old man near the Thieves’ Hole offered to buy the animal, but the farmer didn’t think the price was enough, so he continued on to Macclesfield. The story has it that a farmer from Mobberley set out to Macclesfield to sell a horse. As I mentioned in my review, Alan Garner’s Alderley Edge fantasies incorporate a local legend about sleeping knights.
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