Message #140686

[Tannhäuser]

Kratim, is one of the ten animals which will enter Paradise.

If the legend originated in Scandinavia, it is a curious fact that this dog should be found also in the Highland stories, with which Rydberg and others who have dealt with the legend were unfortunately unacquainted. The sleepers are found in Craig-a-howe, Black Isle; Ossian's Cave, Glencoe; and Smith's Rock, in Skye. In each case they are Fians (Fingalians), and beside Finn-mac-Coul lies his dog Bran. 1 In Tomnahurich, Inverness, the chief steeper is Thomas the Rhymer, who also reposes under the Eildon hills.

In the Scottish caves a horn hangs from the roof When it is blown three times, the sleepers will issue forth. A shepherd found the cave (it is always a shepherd) and blew two blasts on the horn. But he was so terrified by the ferocious appearance of the warriors and by a voice which cried, "If the horn is blown once again the world will be upset altogether", that he fled, leaving the warriors resting on their elbows. The Fians cried, "Alas! you have left us worse than you found us". The shepherd locked the door and threw the key into the sea. At Inverness there is a Gaelic saying, "When the horn is blown, True Thomas shall come forth".

If this Highland story was imported by the Norsemen, why should the Arabian dog be a "sleeper" also? It is possible that in Arabia and in the Highlands the tale is found in its most archaic form, and that it is part of the floating material from which Teutonic Mythology was constructed. 2

What appears to be a very old version of the legend



p. xlvi

is found in South Uist. It was taken down from a minister thirty years ago by an Inspector of Schools, who related it to the writer as follows:--

The Fians (Féinne) were lying in a cave, each resting on his elbow, chin upon hand, self-absorbed, not asleep.

They heard the falling waters, and the storms went over them unheeded. . . . Thousands of years went past.

They were still resting there, musing, when one of them moved his elbow and said:--

"Och! och! 's mi tha sgith." (Och! och! it's me that's tired.)

Thousands of years went past. . . . They heard the falling waters, and the storms went over them unheeded.

Then a great Fian said sharply, "Mur a' sguir sibh dhe 'n chonnspoid seo, theid mi mach 's fagaidh mi an uaimh agaibh fhein." (If you do not stop this wrangling I'll go out, and leave the cave to yourselves.)

Thousands of years went past. . . . They heard the falling waters, and the storms went over them unheeded.

In various legends the movements of the "sleepers" (who do not sleep in Uist) were associated with sorrow and disaster or seasonal changes. Edward the Confessor had a vision, while sitting at a banquet in his palace at Westminster, in which he saw the Ephesian sleepers turning round. A messenger was sent to Ephesus, and it was found that they had turned from their right sides to their left. This was taken as a sign of approaching disaster, and was, in fact, associated with the miseries that Christendom endured from the Saracens. The seasonal reference survives in the St. Swithin's day belief.

p. xlvii