St. Michael's Mount

The romantic Castle of St Michael's, situated upon a lofty insulated hill, in Mount's Bay, is the theme of many a Cornish legend; the most prevalent supposes that their ‘long-lost Arthur’ resides there, under the immediate guardianship of the archangel, until the time appointed for his return to earth; and it is to this Milton alludes, when he says—
"Where the great vision of the guarded Mount
Looks to Namancos and Bayona’s hold.”
[Note to Verses privately printed by the late Sir Hardinge
Giffard, at the Wesleyan Mission Press, Colombo.]

O For the glorious days of old,
When Arthur and his champions bold,
With iron hand, from cup of gold,
Drank to the table round !
Entranced beneath St. Michael’s keep,
Now Arthur and his warriors sleep
Their charmed slumber, long and deep
In magic thraldom bound.

Say, when shall come the fated morn,
To rouse them from the rest they scorn ?
Say, when shall sound the wizard horn,
To wake them to the strife ? *
“When on her base of noble rock,
Britain shall yield to ocean's shock,
Fate will their prison-door unlock,
And call them into life :”

“But not 'till then—and while unfurl'd
Is Britain's flag throughout the world,
She will not from her throne be hurled,
Or need St. Michael's host.”
So sleep ye on, ye ancient men !
Entombed within your murky den,
‘Tis dull enough ; if not tell then
Ye quaff the circling toast.            

C.

* According to the legend concerning the sleep of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, they are to be awakened by the sound of a magic horn, when England is on the point of being conquered ; and they will then rush to the fight, and overcome the invaders.—A similar legend is related in Wales, of Owen Lawgoch, or Owen of the Bloody Hand, who, like Arthur in St. Michael’s Mount, is supposed to sleep in the Mountain of Mynnydd Mawr near Llandilo in Carmarthenshire.—“Almost in our days,” says a writer in the Quarterly Review, No. xliv. “it was thought that Sebastian of Portugal would one day return, and claim his usurped realms.—Thus also the three founders of the Helvetic Confederacy are thought to sleep in a cavern near the Lake of Lucerne. The herdsmen call them the Three Tells, and say that they lie there in their antique garb in quiet slumber, and, when Switzerland is in her utmost need, they will awaken, and regain the liberties of the land,”—In the same work, we are told that “The Emperor (Frederick Barbarosa, or Red-beard) is secluded in the Castle of Kyffhaüsen, in the Hercynian forest, where he remains in a state not much unlike the description which Cervantes has given of the inhabitants of the Cavern of Moutesinos : he slumbers on his throne; his red beard has grown through the stone table on which his right arm reclines ; or, as some say, it has grown round and round it.—A variation of the same fable, coloured according to its locality, is found in Denmark; where it is said, that Holger Danske, whom the French romances call Ogier the Dane, slumbers in the vaults beneath Cronenburgh Castle. A villain was once allured by splendid offers to descend into the cavern, and visit the half-torpid hero. Ogier muttered to the visitor, requesting him to stretch out his hand. The villain presented an iron crow to Ogier, who grasped it, indenting the metal with his fingers. ‘It is well!’ quoth Ogier, who imagined he was squeezing the hand of the stranger, and thus provoking his strength and fortitude ; ‘there are yet men in Denmark.’”
It has been recently and justly remarked by Sir Walter Scott, in one of his notes on Peveril of the Peak— that “Superstitions of various countries are in every respect so like each other, that they may be referred to one common source ; unless we conclude that they are natural to the human mind, and, like the common orders of vegetables, which naturally spring up in every climate, these naturally arise in every bosom ; as the best philologists are of opinion, that fragments of an original speech are to be discovered in almost all languages in the globe.”