Curious Myths of the Middle AgesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
Curious Myths of the Middle Ages
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Folklore; Legends -- History and criticism; Tales, Medieval
In Scotland, beneath the Eilden hills, sleeps Thomas of Erceldoune;
the murdered French who fell in the Sicilian Vespers at Palermo are
also slumbering till the time is come when they may wake to avenge
themselves. When Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks, a
priest was celebrating the sacred mysteries at the great silver altar
of St. Sophia. The celebrant cried to God to protect the sacred host
from profanation. Then the wall opened, and he entered, bearing the
Blessed Sacrament. It closed on him, and there he is sleeping with
his head bowed before the Body of Our Lord, waiting till the Turk is
cast out of Constantinople, and St. Sophia is released from its
profanation. God speed the time!
In Bohemia sleep three miners deep in the heart of the Kuttenberg. In
North America Rip Van Winkle passed twenty years slumbering in the
Katskill mountains. In Portugal it is believed that Sebastian, the
chivalrous young monarch who did his best to ruin his country by his
rash invasion of Morocco, is sleeping somewhere; but he will wake
again to be his country's deliverer in the hour of need. Olaf
Tryggvason is waiting a similar occasion in Norway. Even Napoleon
Bonaparte is believed among some of the French peasantry to be
sleeping on in a like manner.
St. Hippolytus relates that St. John the Divine is slumbering at
Ephesus, and Sir John Mandeville relates the circumstances as follows:
"From Pathmos men gone unto Ephesim a fair citee and nyghe to the see.
And there dyede Seynte Johne, and was buryed behynde the highe
Awtiere, in a toumbe. And there is a faire chirche. For Christene mene
weren wont to holden that place alweyes. And in the tombe of Seynt
John is noughte but manna, that is clept Aungeles mete. For his body
was translated into Paradys. And Turkes holden now alle that place and
the citee and the Chirche. And all Asie the lesse is yclept Turkye.
And ye shalle undrestond, that Seynt Johne bid make his grave there in
his Lyf, and leyd himself there-inne all quyk. And therefore somme men
seyn, that he dyed noughte, but that he resteth there till the Day of
Doom. And forsoothe there is a gret marveule: For men may see there
the erthe of the tombe apertly many tymes steren and moven, as there
weren quykke thinges undre." The connection of this legend of St. John
with Ephesus may have had something to do with turning the seven
martyrs of that city into seven sleepers.
The annals of Iceland relate that, in 1403, a Finn of the name of
Fethmingr, living in Halogaland, in the North of Norway, happening to
enter a cave, fell asleep, and woke not for three whole years, lying
with his bow and arrows at his side, untouched by bird or beast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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