The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-12


sea to her home beneath the waves. At
ter three days, he desires to see his old
mother and father. On parting she gives
him golden casket and a key, but beg
ging him never to open it. AT his home
he finds all changed and his parents
graves 100 years old. Thinking that three
days could not have made such a change
and that he was under a spell he opens
the casllet A white vapor rises, and I'M
der its influence his hair turns gray, his
form loses its youth and in 4 few mo-
ments he dies Of old age.
The Chinese legend relates how two
friends wandering among the ravines of
their native mountains came to a fairy
bridge, where they arc invited by two
beautiful maidens to the land on the
other side. Tho youths become enamored
Of the maidens and pass what to them
seems a short blissful period of existence
with the fairy folk. On their return to
earth they find that seven generations
have lived and died during their apparent
short absence, they themselves having
become Ceptenarians.
At Killarney, in Lord Kenmere's park
Spillane, the bugle man, will point out
the stone called Clough ma Cuddy, i'm
pressed with the knees of a priest who
slept in that spot from the time the mon
astery at Innis fallen was in its zenith to
the day Elizabeth suppressed the place,
some 100 years and over.
The Welsh Rip Van Wrinkle is Taffy and
Sion, who is alleged to have heard bird
singing and sat beneath tree until it had
finished. Upon arising he observed that
the tree had become dead and withered
In the doorway of his home which also
had suddenly grown older, he asked of a
strange old man for his parents. Upon
learning his name the old man said
"Alas} Tafy, 1 have often heard my
grandfather, your father, speak of you,
and it was said you were under the spell
of fairies not to be released until the last
sap of that sycamore tree had dried up"
Within the deepest dungeon of Drou-
berg's fortress in Denmark, Ogier, the
Dane, is sleeping. Once, it is said, a num-
Der Of young men went in search of him
and found him seated with his head upon
mis- hand, his beard grown through the
rocky tablet. Ogier half awoke and
asked: rs there manhood yet left in
Denmark" One OF the party, afraid 10
answer. thrust into his hand an iron bar
which broke in Ogier's clasp. Thinking
it TO be the youths hand, Ogier went to
sleep again satisfied.
A similar story is told of Frederick
BarbarOSsa anu his six knights, who
were supposed to sleep in the great Kytf-
hauserDerg in Ihuringia. A shepherd
once penetrating into the heart Of the
mountain by a cave, aWOke the emperor
from his slumber, and he asked: do
the ravens still fly over the mountains p"
Sire. they do" Then we must sleep
another hundred years." said the en-
peror.
In Scandinavian mythology Siegfried
thus rested, and at Gutenberg, in Hess,
Charlemagne was said to sleep seated on
his throne, with his crown on his head
and his sword at his side. In Switzer-
land three Tells, near the Vierwaldstat-
ter Sea, were supposed to live in slum Der.
A shepherd crept into the cave and the
third Tell arose and asked the time.
"Noon, " replied the shepherd lad. THE
time has not yet come" said Tell, and lay
down again.
In ancient Mexico the Aztecs treasured
up legend of the pale-faced god Quet-
zalcoatl who had taught them the arts of
agriculture and departed to the east,
where he was to sleep until the land was
to need him again; and it is known that
this belief was partly responsible for Cor
tez's conquest, who, coming from the
east, is also said to have greatly resem-
bled pictures of the god. In. Scotland, be-
meath the Eileen hills, Thomas of Ercel-
doune was supposed to sleep! in Bohemia,
three miners slept deep in theheart of the
Kattenberg; in Portugal it was believed
that Sebastian, the ChivalrouS young
monarch, who did his best to ruin his
country by his rash invasions of Morocco
was asleep somewhere, and Olaf Tryggva-
son served a similar fate in Norway. Even
Napoleon Bonaparte IS believed by some
of the French peasantry to be sleeping on
in like manner.
In German tradition is also met the ac-
count of woman who sought nights
lodging from the celebrated Heiling, and
who, when she woke in the morning,
found herself lying at the foot of the rock
where she had slept a hundred years.
The annals OF Iceland relate that in 1903
man. of the name of Fethminar, living in
Heligoland, happening to enter cave,
fell asleep and woke not for three whole
wears lying with his bow and arrow at
his side, untouched by bird or beast.
Gwyneth slept 800 years by the enchant-
ment of Merlin. She was the natural
daughter of King of Arthur and Gwendo-
len, and was thus punished because she
would not put an end to combat in
which twenty knights were mOrtally
wounded, including Merlin's son.
kesmytna, wife of a Hindoo emperor,
was likewise put to sleep in an enchanted
forest as punishment for evil doing
Merlin, the enchanter, himself, is said TO
sleep and sigh in an old tree, spellbound
by Vivian King Arthur, too, was said
20 sleep at Avillion. Nourihad, wife OF
Geangir, the mogul emperor, was said to
have slumbered for ages; likewise Knez
Lazar of Servia, supposed to have been
slain by the Turks in 1889, Boabdn ct
Chico. last of the Moorish Kings Of Ora
NADIA, was supposed to sleep near the Al
hambra and Brian, surnamed Boroihme,
King of Ireland, who conquered the
Danes in twenty pitched battles and was
supposed to have been slain in the battle
of Clontarf in 1914, was believed to sleep
in his castle Of klncora.
Russia Elijah, warrior, prophet
and priest, who tried to teach more toll
Grant form of Islam, but was looked upon
as hereto and condemned to imprison-
ment in the bowels of a mountain, was
supposed to have slept Cor centuries.
Ara legends tell Of how Mohammed
Mahadi. the twelfth Imam, Is only sleep
ing. and Braziliaus say that Sebastian l.
who fell in the battle of Alcazarquebir in
1878, is still sleeping.
1t is thus seen that the easy belief OF
long sleepers has had a fascination for all
races and minds This may be ascribed
10 the genuine merit of the fable itself.