Bengatruking king under the mountain mac#

Thomas the Rhymer is found under a hill with a retinue of knights in a tale from Anglo-Scottish border.

Merlin of the Arthurian legend, who is imprisoned in an oak tree by Nimue.

He wishes to do the same, and later they overlook and protect Britain together. In early Arthurian literature Arthur references his predecessor Brân the Blessed as having his head placed on a mound overlooking Britain so as to protect it. 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'. Several legends talk of a herdsman who stumbles across a cave on mainland Britain, wherein he finds Arthur sleeping, often with his knights and Excalibur by his side.

According to the legend, Arthur was taken away to Avalon to sleep until he was needed by the people of Britain. King Arthur ( Great Britain and Brittany).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. 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. A popular motif in Latvian legends involves a castle sinking into ground leaving a hill behind it.Other examples from European regions are as follows: Major examples are King Arthur of Britain and Holy Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Ogier the Dane and William Tell. Europe Ī number of European kings, rulers, fictional characters and religious figures have become attached to this story. The omen that presages his rising will be the extinction of the birds that trigger his awakening.

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 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. 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.' In the Brothers Grimm version, the hero speaks with the herdsman. 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. 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 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 hero is frequently a historical figure of some military consequence in the history of the nation where the mountain is located. 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. A related motif is the '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).įrederick sends out the boy to see whether the ravens still fly. The motifs A 571 'Cultural hero asleep in mountain', and E 502, 'The Sleeping Army' are similar and can occur in the same tale.

Bengatruking king under the mountain mac#

Some other designations are: king in the mountain, king under the mountain, or sleeping hero.Įxamples include the legends of King Arthur, Fionn mac Cumhaill, Charlemagne, Ogier the Dane, King David, Frederick Barbarossa at Kyffhäuser, Constantine XI Palaiologos, Kraljević Marko, Sebastian of Portugal and King Matjaž. Thompson also termed it as the Kyffhäuser type. The 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. Ogier is said to sleep in the castle, his beard grown down to the floor, until some day when the country of Denmark is in peril. Statue of Ogier the Dane in Kronborg Castle.