Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/119

 protect the sacred host from profanation. Then the wall opened, and he entered, bearing the Blessed Sacrament. It closed on him, and there he is sleeping with his head bowed before the Body of Our Lord, waiting till the Turk is cast out of Constantinople, and St. Sophia is released from its profanation. God speed the time!

In Bohemia sleep three miners deep in the heart of the Kuttenberg. In North America Ripp Van Winkle passed twenty years slumbering in the Katskill mountains. In Spain, Boabdil el Chico, the last Arab king of Granada, is said to lie spellbound in the mountains close to the Alhambra. In Arabia, the prophet Elijah waits till he is called forth in the days of Antichrist. In Ireland, Brian Boroimhe slumbers, waiting till a Fenian insurrection promising action and not talk summons him to his country’s aid. In Wales, the legend of Arthur still dreaming through a long sleep in Avillon, has not died out. In Servia, Knez Lazar, who fell in battle against the Turks in the fight of Kossowa, in 1389, is expected to re-appear one day. A similar hope of the return of James IV. lasted for more than a hundred years after Flodden was fought. In Portugal it is believed that Sebastian, the chivalrous young monarch who did his