Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/112

 a Mesopotamian bishop, in the fifth or sixth century, is said to have been the first to commit it to writing. Gregory of Tours (De Glor. Mart. i. 9) was perhaps the first to introduce it to Europe. Dionysius of Antioch (ninth century) told the story in Syrian, and Photius of Constantinople reproduced it, with the remark that Mahomet had adopted it into the Koran. Metaphrastus alludes to it as well; in the tenth century Eutychius inserted it in his annals of Arabia; it is found in the Coptic and the Maronite books, and several early historians, as Paulus Diaconus, Nicephorus, &c., have inserted it in their works.

William of Malmesbury tells us a strange story concerning these sleepers. He says, that King Edward the Confessor sat, during the Easter festival, wearing his royal crown at dinner, in his palace of Westminster, surrounded by his bishops and nobles. During the banquet the king, instead of indulging in meat and drink, mused upon divine things, and sat long immersed in thought. Suddenly, to the astonishment of all present, he burst out laughing. After dinner, when he retired to his bedchamber to divest himself of his robes, three of his nobles, Earl Harold, who was afterwards king, and an abbot and a bishop, followed him, and