The seven sleepers slept for 250 years in Mount Celion.
St. David slept for seven years. (See Ormandine.)
(The following are not dead, but only sleep till the fulness of their respective times:—Elijah, Endymion, Merlin, King Arthur, Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa and his knights, the three Tells, Desmond of Kilmallock, Thomas of Erceldoune, Boabdil el Chico, Brian Boroimhe, Knez Lazar, King Sebastian of Portugal, Olaf Tryggvason, the French slain in the Sicilian Vespers, and one or two others.)
Riquet with the Tuft, the beau-ideal of ugliness, but with the power of bestowing wit and intelligence on the person he loved best. Riquet fell in love with a most beautiful woman, as stupid as he was ugly, but possessing the power of giving beauty to the person she loved best. The two married, whereupon Riquet gave his bride wit, and she bestowed on him beauty.—Charles Perrault, Contes des Fées (“Riquet à la Houppe,” 1697).
*** This tale is borrowed from the Nights of Straparola. It is imitated by Mde. Villeneuve in her Beauty and the Beast.
Risingham (Bertram), the vassal of Philip of Mortham. Oswald Wycliffe induced him to shoot his lord at Marston Moor; and for this deed the vassal demanded all the gold and movables of his late master. Oswald, being a villain, tried to outwit Bertram, and even to murder him; but it turned out that Philip of Mortham, was not killed, neither was Oswald Wycliffe, his heir, for Redmond O’Neale (Rokeby’s page) was found to be the son and heir of Philip of Mortham.—Sir W. Scott, Rokeby (1812).
Ritho or Rython, a giant who had made himself furs of the beards of kings killed by him. He sent to King Arthur, to meet him on Mount Aravius, or else to send his beard to him without delay. Arthur met him, slew him, and took “fur” as a spoil. Drayton says it was this Rython who carried off Helĕna, the niece of Duke Hoel; but Geoffrey of Monmouth says that King Arthur, having killed the Spanish giant, told his army “he had found none so great in strength since he killed the giant Ritho;” by which it seems that the Spanish giant and Ritho are different persons, although it must be confessed the scope of the chronicle seems to favor their identity.—Geoffrey, British History, x. 3 (1142).
As how great Rython’s self he [Arthur] slew ...
Who ravished Howell’s niece, young Helena, the fair.
Drayton, Polyolbion, iv. (1612).
Rival Queens (The), Stati´ra and Roxa´na. Statīra was the daughter of Darīus, and wife of Alexander the Great. Roxana was the daughter of Oxyartês, the Bactrian; her, also, Alexander married. Roxana stabbed Statira, and killed her.—N. Lee, Alexander the Great, or The Rival Queens (1678).
Rivals (The), a comedy by Sheridan (1775). The rivals are Bob Acres and Ensign Beverley (alias Captain Absolute), and Lydia Languish is the lady they contend for. Bob Acres tells Captain Absolute that Ensign Beverley is a booby; and if he could find him out, he’d teach him his place. He sends a challenge to the unknown, by Sir Lucius O’Trigger, but objects to forty yards, and thinks thirty-eight would suffice. When he finds that Ensign Beverley is Captain Absolute, he declines to quarrel with his friend; and when his second calls him a coward, he fires up and exclaims, “Coward! Mind, gentlemen, he calls me a ‘coward,’ coward by my valor!” and when dared by Sir Lucius, he replies, “I don’t mind the word ‘coward;’ ‘coward’ may be said in a joke; but if he called me ‘poltroon,’ ods, daggers and balls——” “Well, sir, what then?” “Why,” rejoined Bob Acres, “I should certainly think him very ill-bred.” Of course, he resigns all claim to the lady’s hand.