King asleep in mountain


The king asleep in the mountain is a prominent folklore trope found in many folktales and legends. Thompson termed it as the Kyffhäuser type. Some other designations are king in the mountain, king under the mountain, sleeping hero, or Bergentrückung.
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.
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. A related motif is the "Seven Sleepers", whose type tale is the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

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 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.

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 Ogier the Dane and William Tell.

Baltic states

  • 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", which is part of Latvia's Cultural Canon, drew inspiration from these legends.
  • Vytautas the Great in Lithuania is believed by some to rise from the grave to defend the country when danger threatens it.

Britain and Ireland

  • King Arthur. According to the legend, Arthur was taken away to Avalon to sleep until he was needed by the people of Britain. 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. 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". 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. He wishes to do the same, and later they overlook and protect Britain together.
  • 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, 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.

Wales

  • 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.
  • 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.

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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Caucasus region

Armenia

Georgia

Dutch and German-speaking realm

Switzerland

Greek, Hellenistic and Byzantine

Ancient Greece

Byzantine Empire

Hungarians

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.

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.

Nordic countries

Slavic nations

East Slavic

  • Alexander Suvorov, 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, believed to be a supernatural hero, is said to sleep under his grave mound in Kaniv or even in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.

South Slavic

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.
  • St. Wenceslas of Bohemia. He sleeps in the Blaník mountain and will emerge to protect his country at its worst time, riding on his white horse and wielding the legendary hero Bruncvík's sword.

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 appear. In the third year of the Chinese Republic, 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.

China

Japan

Philippines

Tibet

  • Gesar of Ling, believed by the Tibetans to return one day and restore order on Earth.

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.

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.

Examples from the Americas

United States

Peru

  • The Inkarri of the indigenous peoples of Peru, who will return one day to restore the Inca Empire. There are two main versions of the myth with several local variations:
  • * In the first, Inkarri was the last Sapa Inca. He was decapitated by the Spaniards, who buried his head in an unknown location. The head is not dead but hibernating while it regenerates the rest of the body. When the regeneration is complete, Inkarri will return.
  • * In the second, Inkarri and his wife Qollari were the founders of Cusco. They fled to the Amazon jungle, where they sleep under rocks and will return one day.

Brazil

  • The Pedra Bonita massacre was a massacre involving a cult of Sebastianists who believed the lost king was buried in a hidden kingdom underneath their settlement.

Examples by religion

Judaism

  • King David is depicted in Hayim Nahman Bialik's tale "King David in the Cave" as sleeping along with his warriors deep inside a cave, waiting for the blast of the shofar 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.
  • The body of the Golem of Prague is said to be hidden in the attic of the Old New Synagogue.

Christianity

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. Among examples of this are:

In popular culture

In the 2015 video game Undertale, a song associated with the character Asgore plays named Bergentrückung.