Enchanted Sleep and Sleepers #1

 

 

This is the first of a series of posts on enchanted sleep and sleepers in mythology,legends, the eddas, sagas, fairy tales and folklore. And to begin as as close tothe beginning as I can, the earliest tale of an enchanted sleep I know is that ofthe 7th or 6th century BCE philosopher Epimenides, recordedby Diogenes Laertius in his 3rd century CE Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Epimenides is far enough in thepast for any story about him to be ofdubious historicity, but we're told he was a Cretan of Knossos. As a young man:

He was sent by his father into the fields to look for asheep, turned off the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fellasleep, and slept there fifty-seven years; and after that, when he awoke, hewent on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had taken a short nap; but ashe could not find it, he went on to the field and there he found everythingchanged, and the estate in another person’s possession, and so he came backagain to the city in great perplexity, and as he was going into his own househe met some people who asked him who he was, until at last he found his youngerbrother, who had now become an old man, and from him he learned all the truth.

            And when hewas recognised he was considered by the Greeks as a person especially belovedby the gods...

‘Beloved by the gods’ wouldbe down to the belief that Zeus was born in a cave on Crete, where his motherRhea hid from his father Cronos who had the bad habit of devouring his offspring. Epimenides’sleep was therefore presumed sacred or god-sent. He became a seer andphilosopher, and the Athenians called him to help them when the city wasafflicted by a plague in the year of the 16th Olympiad (596 BCE). Diogenesattributes various works to him, only one fragment of which has survived.

In the Bhagavata Purana (dated as written textfrom the 8th to 10th centuries CE but based on farolder oral traditions) King Mucukunda aids the devas, benevolent heavenly spirits, in their war against themalevolent asuras. When at last thedevas win, Indra their lord reveals to the king that an entire age of the worldhas passed, along with everyone he has known, but offers in recompense any giftwithin his power to give. The king, grief-stricken and weary, asks for unbrokensleep and for anyone who disturbs his slumber to turn to ashes. This Indragrants, and the king falls asleep in a cave. 

 

 

Thousands of years later the godKrisha lures his enemy Kalayavana into the dark cave where, mistaking thesleeping Mucukunda for Krishna, Kalayavana kicks and wakes him. The king’sopening eyes burn him to ashes. Krishna next instructs Mucukunda on how tocleanse himself of sin, concluding, ‘O King, in your very next life you willbecome an excellent brahmana, thegreatest well-wisher of all creatures, and certainly come to Me alone.’ Onleaving the cave, Mucukunda notices that ‘the size of all the human beings,animal, trees and plants’ are far smaller now than before his long sleep.

A story from the BabylonianTalmud (c. 200 - 400 CE) concerns the sage Honi HaMe’agel (Honi theCircle-maker), a historical character of the 1st century CE. Thenickname was given him when during a drought, he drew a circle in the dustand told God that he would not step out of it until it rained. God obliged witha drizzle. Honi complained this was not enough; God sent a downpour. Honi then beggedfor a ‘moderate rain’, and God kindly reduced the flow. ‘Troubled throughout his lifeconcerning the meaning of the verse, “When the Lord brought back those thatreturned to Zion, we were like dreamers,”(Psalm 126)’, Honi wondered how it waspossible for seventy years (the period of the Babylonian exile) to be like a dream:‘How could anyone sleep for seventy years?’

One day Honi was journeying on the road and he saw a manplanting a carob tree. He asked, ‘How long does it take to bear fruit?’ The manreplied, ‘Seventy years.’ Honi then asked him, ‘Are you certain you will liveanother seventy years?’ The man replied, ‘I already found carob trees in theworld; as my forefathers planted those for me, so I too plant these for mychildren.’

            Honi thensat down to eat, and sleep overcame him. As he slept, a rocky formationenclosed upon him which hid him from sight and he slept for seventy years. Whenhe awoke he saw a man gathering the fruit of the carob tree, and asked him,‘Are you the man who planted the tree?’ The man replied, ‘I am his grandson.’ 

When Honi returned, noone recognised him, or believed him when he tried to identify himself;distraught, he prayed for mercy and died. But the Jerusalem Talmud tells the storydifferently: ‘Near the time of the destruction of the [First] Temple,’ Honi setout to oversee his workers on a mountain, and went into a cave to shelter fromrain. There he fell asleep and remained for seventy years ‘until the Temple wasdestroyed and it was rebuilt a second time.’ At the end of this time he wokeand ‘saw a world completely changed.’ Vineyards had been replaced by olives,olives by fields of grain. On learning what had happened during his sleep hewent to the Temple and recited the verse: ‘When the Lord restored the fortuneof Zion, we were like those who dream.’ 

 

A 12th or 13thcentury CE manuscript owned by Kiel University (S.H. 8A 8vo) contains a similarand charming story. An unnamed monk was meditating on the psalm, ‘The merciesof the Lord I will sing forever’ (Psalm 89) when a beautiful little bird ledhim out of the cloister into a wood, where it flew into a tree and begansinging so wonderfully that the monk was entranced. When it had finished itssong and flown away he made his way back to the monastery, but the buildingswere utterly changed, no one knew him, and he was accused of being an imposter.On checking the records however, the current abbot realised that that the monkhad lived there two hundred years before.

Then the monk became aware that he was seized by God ...and that the sweet birdsong had delighted him throughout so many years that hecompletely forgot food, drink or sleep. From then on the monk was received withgreat veneration and retired within the same sacred monastery.

Though this monk doesn’tactually fall asleep, he certainly experiences the lapse of time in a very dream-liketrance. The story of the Seven Sleepers ofEphesus dates from at least the 6th century CE and is extant in numerous Islamic and Christian versions. The basic Christian story tells how, escaping persecution for their faith duringthe reign of the Emperor Decius, seven Christian youths take refuge in amountain cave where they pray and fall asleep. The Emperor has the cave sealedup with them inside. More than two centuries later the cave is opened by alandowner who wishes to stall cattle there, and the sleepers wake, imaginingonly a day has passed. Finding that Ephesus is now a Christian city, they telltheir story to the bishop, and die praising God. 

I can’t resist addingthat in her children’s novel The SilverCurlew (an adaptation of the Norfolk folktale Tom Tit Tot) Eleanor Farjeon uses the Seven Sleepers in a spellcast by the Man in the Moon, Charlee, to rescue the heroine Poll from thewicked Spindle-Imp and his coven of Queer Things.

And now strange words seemed to swim through the pipe withthe tune, but whether Charlee was breathing them as he blew, or whether themoon-misty notes had a tongue of their own, Poll could not have said.

            ‘Malchus... ’ breathed the pipe. ‘Martinian ... Serapion...’

            The Queer Things swayed like shadows, andRackny yawned.

            The Spell of the Seven Sleepers (breathedthe pipe)

            I put upon your peepers,

            The sevenfold spell of the Sleepers

            In Ephesus long gone.

            Malchus ... Maximinian...

            Dionysius ... John...

            Constantine ... Martinian ...

            And Serapion...

What did the strange spell mean? But what did it matter?The Queer Things were nodding now, their heads flopping from side to side,their heavy eyelids lolling up and down. [...] ‘Two hundred nine-and-twentyyears shall you lie there,’ murmured Charlee to the sleepers.

Leaving  Eleanor Farjeon aside, almost all theseaccounts have four things in common: an implied intervention by a god or other religioussupernatural power; a cave; a world that has visibly changed since their sleepbegan; and an all-male cast who reap spiritual benefit from their experiences. Thereseemed nothing special about Epimenides before his oddly specific 57 year sleepin – it seems to have been assumed – Zeus’s cave: but afterwards he isgod-touched and becomes a philosopher important enough to be called upon by theAthenians in their hour of need. King Mucukunda assists Indra and his devasagainst the evil asuras, sleeps thousands of years in a cave and wakes to meetKrishna and become a Brahman. After pondering the meaning of a psalm, theJewish sage Honi sleeps for seventy years in either a ‘rocky formation’ whichgrows up around him or else in a mountain cave. Though not specified it’simplicit that God has sent this experience. Minus the cave, the same is truefor the monk who spends two centuries listening to the bird. ‘Seized by God’,he does not immediately die but is treated with ‘great veneration’ by theabbey. The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus slumber in their cave for two or threecenturies: on waking to find themselves in a Christian world, there is no morefor them to do but ‘praise God and die’. 

Caves are dark, quietand secret places into which people might well disappear, and as such they recurfrequently in enchanted sleep narratives. There are more to come. In my nextpost I’ll be looking at some of the more malevolent occurrences of sleep-spells, such asthat cast on the valkyrie who pre-figures the Sleeping Beauty.   

 

Picture credits

Seven Sleepers: Menologion of Basil II  Wikipedia

King Mucukunda burns Kalayavana: Artist unknown

Bird (bluetit?): 13th C Medieval ms. British Library