King asleep in mountain

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The king asleep in the mountain (D 1960.2 in Stith Thompson's motif-index)Template:Sfnp is a prominent folklore trope found in many folktales and legends. Thompson termed it as the Kyffhäuser type.Template:R Some other designations are king in the mountain, king under the mountain, sleeping hero, or Bergentrückung ("mountain rapture").

File:According to a legend linked to Arthurian myth, a Danish king known as Ogier the Dane, was taken to Avalon by Morgan le Fay. He returned to rescue France from danger, then travelled Kronborg castle, where he - panoramio.jpg
Statue of Ogier the Dane (Danish: Holger Danske) in Kronborg Castle, Helsingør; Ogier is said to sleep in the castle until one day when Denmark is in peril

Examples include the legends of King Arthur, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Charlemagne, Ogier the Dane, King David, Frederick Barbarossa at Kyffhäuser, Falanto of Taranto, Genghis Khan, Constantine XI Palaiologos, Kraljević Marko, Sebastian of Portugal and King Matjaž.Template:SfnpTemplate:R<ref>Šmitek, Zmago. 1999. “The Image of the Real World and the World Beyond in the Slovene Folk Tradition". Studia Mythologica Slavica 2 (May). Ljubljana, Slovenija. pp. 178-179. https://doi.org/10.3986/sms.v2i0.1848.</ref>

The Thompson motif entries A 571, "Cultural hero asleep in mountain", and E 502, "The Sleeping Army", are similar and can occur in the same tale.Template:Sfnp A related motif is the "Seven Sleepers" (D 1960.1,Template:R also known as the "Rip Van Winkle" motif), whose type tale is the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (AT tale type 766).

General features

File:Barbarossa01.jpg
Frederick sends out the boy to see whether the ravens still fly.

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.Template:Citation needed

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."Template:Citation needed

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.<ref>Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsche Sagen (1816/1818), no. 23.</ref><ref>Kaiser Karl im Untersberg (German)</ref>Template:Dead link

Examples from Europe

A number of European kings, rulers, fictional characters and religious figures have become attached to this story. Major examples are King Arthur of Britain, Charlemagne of the Franks, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, as well as Template:Sfnp<ref name=ashliman/> Ogier the Dane and William Tell.<ref name=ashliman>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Baltic states

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  • A motif in Latvian legends involves a castle sinking into ground leaving a hill behind it. In legends that have someone enter such hill, the inhabitants of the castle are found in sleep-like state. If the visitor is able to guess the name of the castle, it is returned to the surface with its inhabitants awakened. The choir song "Gaismas pils" (The Castle of Light), which is part of Latvia's Cultural Canon, drew inspiration from these legends.Template:Citation needed
  • Vytautas the Great in Lithuania is believed by some to rise from the grave to defend the country when danger threatens it.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Britain and Ireland

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  • 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 chased 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.<ref>Henry Tegner; Ghosts of The North Country, 1991 Butler Publishing, Template:ISBN. p.13</ref>

Wales

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  • Brân the Blessed. Referenced as protecting the Isles and overlooking Britain; his head severed and placed on a mound. Arthur later says he wishes to do the same and in early Arthurian literature both guard Britain together.
  • Owain Lawgoch, Welsh soldier and nobleman (14th century).
  • Owain Glyndŵr, 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Ireland

England

  • King Harold. In Anglo-Saxon legends he survived the Battle of Hastings and will come one day to liberate the English from the Norman yoke.<ref>The Science of Fairy Tales: An Enquiry Into Fairy Mythology, Edwin Sidney Hartland, 1925 edition, p. 143</ref>
  • Sir Francis Drake. It is stated that if England is in deadly peril and Drake's Drum is beaten, then Sir Francis Drake will arise to defend England from the sea. According to the legend, Drake's Drum can be heard at times when England is at war or significant national events take place.Template:Citation needed
  • Knights asleep at Alderley Edge in Cheshire. There is an enduring legend of a cavern full of knights in armour awaiting a call to decide the fate of a great battle for England. There is no king named, but there is a wizard involved, who is referred to as Merlin in later versions of the legend.<ref>Louisa Stanley, "Alderley Edge and Its Neighbourhood", 1843</ref>
  • King Dunmail. A Cumbrian King said to be defeated at the hands of Edmund I of England and Malcolmn of Alba. Dunmail's warriors are said to have fled with his crown, climbing into the mountains to Grisedale Tarn below Helvellyn, where they threw it into the depths to be safe until some future time when Dunmail would come again to lead them. Every year the warriors are said to return to the tarn, recover the crown and carry it down to the cairn on Dunmail Raise by the A591.Template:Citation needed

Caucasus region

Armenia

Georgia

Dutch and German-speaking realm

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Switzerland

Greek, Hellenistic and Byzantine

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Ancient Greece

Byzantine Empire

Hungarians

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Italy

Roman Empire

Spain

  • King Rodrigo, said to escape from the Moorish invasion and await for "the time of maximum need" to save his people.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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File:Alonso Sánchez Coello 009.jpg
Sebastian I. With his death, the house of Aviz lost the throne of Portugal. Sebastianists hold that he will return to rule Portugal's Fifth Empire.

Portugal

  • Sebastian I, who Sebastianists hold will one day return on a hazy morning in time of need, hiding in a mysterious island surrounded by fog until then.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Famous Legends From Portugal: With some Portuguese Legends presented in English for the first time, Miguel Carvalho Abrantes, p. 27-28, 40.</ref>

Nordic countries

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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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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South Slavic

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West Slavic

  • Bolesław the Brave, king of Poland, asleep with a host of knights in a cave hidden somewhere in Giewont, a mountain massif which is itself said to resemble a sleeping knight. Several different versions of the legend exist, sometimes involving a different historical figure or another cave in the Tatra Mountains.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite summitpost</ref>

  • 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.<ref name="Old Bohemian Legends 1894">Alois Jirásek, Old Bohemian Legends (1894, Staré pověsti české)</ref>

Examples from Asia

Asia Minor and Middle East

Iran

East Asia

Mongolia

  • A traditional tale of the death of Genghis Khan says he died falling from his horse while being injured, but that whether he died or not is unknown, and he may be merely resting. Every spring and autumn "those who know the secret" of where Genghis is buried are said to put new sets of clothes into his casket and take the old ones out, worn and frayed. Folklore reports another instance of evidence that Genghis would return: every year there is a sacrifice for Genghis Khan in the Ordos and two white horses (the horses of Genghis Khan) appear. In the third year of the Chinese Republic (1914), though, just one horse appeared. When the second horse came, four years later, it had saddle galls. This was taken as evidence that Genghis Khan had been using the horse, and was making ready to appear again.<ref>Owen Lattimore, Mongol Journeys, London: Doran & Co., 1941, pp. 35–37</ref>

China

Japan

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Philippines

Tibet

Vietnam

  • The temple of Trần Hưng Đạo, the supreme commander who defeated Kublai Khan's invasions of Vietnam, housed a sword chest that rung if the nation was in peril, but it also foretold victories.Template:Citation needed

Examples from Africa

A king and queen are said to be sleeping in legendary desert city of Zerzura. Trespassers are warned not to wake them. According to the legend they will eventually one day waken.Template:Citation needed

Examples from the Americas

United States

Peru

  • The Inkarri (from Spanish Inca Rey, "Inca King") of the indigenous peoples of Peru, who will return one day to restore the Inca Empire.<ref>OMER, Aurélie. Cuatro versiones inéditas del mito de Inkarrí. Áreas de estudio: Shipetiari y Quero. Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana, 2015, vol. 41, no 81, p. 405-434.</ref> There are two main versions of the myth with several local variations:

Brazil

Examples by religion

Judaism

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> This role was not attributed to King David in earlier Jewish tradition.Template:Citation needed

Christianity

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Islam

Druze

Hinduism

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.<ref name="Mher in the Carved Rock">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Among examples of this are:

In the 2015 video game Undertale, a song associated with the character Asgore plays named Bergentrückung.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>

See also

References

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Bibliography

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