Chapter Sleek to Sleeper Awakened of S by Brewer's Readers Handbook

(5) Grecian Legends. Endymion, a be autiful youth, sleeps a perpetual sleep in Latmos. Selenê (the moon) fell in love with him, kissed him, and still lies by his side. In the British Museum is an exquisite statue of Endymion asleep.—Greek Fable.

Epimenidesthe Cretan poet was sent in boyhood to search for a stray sheep; being heated and weary, he stepped into a cave, and fell asleep for fifty-seven years. Epimenidês, we are told, attained the age of 154, 157, 229, and some say 289 years.—Pliny: History, vii. 12.

(6) Irish Traditions. Brian, surnamed “Boroimhe,” king of Ireland, who conquered the Danes in twenty pitched battles, and was supposed to have been slain in the battle of Clontarf, in 1014, was only stunned. He still sleeps in his castle of Kincora, and the day of Ireland’s necessity will be Brian’s opportunity.

Desmond of Kilmallock, in Limerick, supposed to have perished in the reign of Elizabeth, is only sleeping under the waters of lough Gur. Every seventh year he reappears in full armour, rides round the lake early in the morning, and will ultimately reappear and claim the family estates.—Sir W. Scott: Fortunes of Nigel (1822).

(7) Jewish Legend. Elijah the prophet is not dead, but sleeps in Abraham’s bosom till Antichrist appears, when he will return to Jerusalem and restore all things.

(8) Russian Tradition. Elijah Mansur, warrior, prophet, and priest in Asiatic Russia, tried to teach a more tolerant form of Islâm, but was looked on as a heretic, and condemned to imprisonment in the bowels of a mountain. There he sleeps, waiting patiently the summons which will be given him, when he will awake, and wave his conquering sword to the terror of the Muscovite.—Milner: Gallery of Geography, 781.

(9) Scandinavian Tradition. Olaf Tryggvason king of Norway, who was baptized in London, and introduced Christianity into Norway, Iceland, and Greenland. Being overthrown by Swolde king of Sweden (A. D. 1000), he threw himself into the sea and swam to the Holy Land, became an anchorite, and fell asleep at a greatly advanced age; but he is only waiting his opportunity, when he will sever Norway from Sweden, and raise it to a first-class power.

(10) Scottish Tradition. Thomas of Erceldoune sleeps beneath the Eildon Hills, in Scotland. One day, an elfin lady led him into a cavern in these hills, and he fell asleep for seven years, when he revisited the upper earth, under a bond that he would return immediately the elfin lady summoned him. One day, as he was making merry with his friends, he heard the summons, kept his word, and has never since been seen.—Sir W. Scott: Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

(11) Spanish Tradition. Bobadil el Chico, last of the Moorish kings of Granada, lies spell-bound near the Alhambra, but in the day appointed he will return to earth and restore the Moorish government in Spain.

(12) Swiss Legend. Three of the family of Tell sleep a semi-death at Rütli, waiting for the hour of their country’s need, when they will wake up and deliver it. (See Seven Sleepers, p. 985.)

Sleeper Awakened (The). Abou Hassan, the son of a rich merchant at Bagdad, inherited a good fortune; but, being a prudent man, made a vow to divide it into two parts: all that came to him from rents he determined to set apart, but all that was of the nature of cash he resolved to spend on pleasure. In the course of a year he ran through this fund, and then made a resolve in future to ask only one guest at a time to his board. This guest was to be a stranger, and never to be asked a second time. It so happened that the caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, disguised as a merchant, was on one occasion his guest, and heard Abou Hassan say that he wished he were a caliph for one day, and he would punish a certain imân for tittle- tattling. Haroun-al-Raschid thought that he could make capital of this wish for a little diversion; so, drugging the wine, the merchant fell into a profound sleep, was conveyed to the palace, and on waking was treated as the caliph. He ordered the imân to be punished, and sent his mother a handsome gift; but at night,