Message #186695

[Teutonic Knight]

Various heroes lie asleep, including Charlemagne, Frederick of Barbarossa, William Tell in Switzerland, Brian Boroimhe in Ireland, and Arthur in Wales. The warning that when the sleepers leave the cave "the world will be upset" was transformed into the popular belief that certain heroes would issue forth in the hour of their country's direst need. The French peasants believed in the coming of Napoleon, as the Swiss did in the return of William Tell. During the Russo-Japanese war the peasantry of Russia were confident that General Skobeleff would hasten to Manchuria to lead the armies to victory. To this day there are many Highlanders who remain convinced that General Sir Hector Macdonald is not dead, but is waiting his hour of return. A similar belief attached to James IV, who fell at Flodden. So do "immemorial modes of thought" survive in the twentieth century from, perhaps, that remote Stone Age period when the fair-haired and blue-eyed "long-heads" spread from North Africa over the undivided lands of ancient Europe to mingle with earlier inhabitants and later "broad-heads" from Asia.