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.
in the Castle of Kyffhausen, 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."
