Legends of buried armies occur also at Trzebnica, in Silesia, where the Poles encountered the Turks, and at Matwa in the Prussian province of Posen. In the former a girl who is admitted into the cavern is warned against touching a bell that, as in the Welsh tale, hangs in the entrance. She cannot resist the temptation to transgress this command, and is ignominiously ejected. In the latter, an old man buys corn for the troops. Again, in the Carpathians, as in one of the sagas concerning the Blanik, a smith is summoned to shoe the steeds. The Rev. W. S. Lach-Szyrma, in addition to these stories, gave the Folklore Society some years ago, from a chap-book of Posen, the following abstract of a legend I have not met with elsewhere: “Once upon a time, in Mazowia, there were seven victorious leaders. After having won a hundred battles, finding their beards had grown white, they ordered their soldiers to build in their honour a very high tower. The soldiers built and built, but every day part of the tower tumbled down. This lasted a whole year. The leaders, after supper, assembled at the ruins of the tower. Here, at the sound of lutes and songs, immediately a tower grew up from the earth to heaven, and on its seven pinnacles shone the seven helmets of the seven leaders. Higher and higher they rose, but brighter and brighter they shone till they appeared as the seven stars in heaven. The soldiers sank down into graves which had been dug round the tower and fell asleep. The tower has melted out of view, but on fine nights we still see the seven helmets of the leaders, and the soldiers are sleeping till they are wanted.”[165]
FOOTNOTES:
[148] “Choice Notes,” p. 94.
[149] Curtin, p. 327. See also Kennedy, p. 240, and “F. L. Record,” vol. ii. p. 15, where the late Mr. H. C. Coote quotes the “Transactions of the Ossianic Society.”
[150] Comparetti, vol. i. p. 212. An English version is given by Mr. Coote, “F. L. Record,” vol. ii. p. 12. Madame D'Aulnoy gives a similar story in her “Histoire d'Hypolite, Comte de Douglas,” which seems to be the original of a tale in verse quoted by Mr. Baring-Gould from Dodsley's “Poetical Collection.” See “F. L. Record,” vol. ii. p. 8; Baring-Gould, p. 547.
[151] Des Michels, p. 38; Kreutzwald, p. 212. See also my article on “The Forbidden Chamber,” “F. L. Journal,” vol. iii. p. 193, where the relations of the Esthonian tale to the myth of the Forbidden Chamber are discussed.
[152] Dennys, p. 98, “Gent. Mag. Lib.” (Eng. Trad. Lore), p. 22; “Revue des Trad. Pop.” vol. iii. p. 566.
[153] “Thomas of Erceldoune,” passim; Child, vol. i. p. 318; “Border Minstrelsy,” vol. iii. p. 170.
[154] Malory, vol. iii. p. 339; Braga, vol. ii. p. 238; Liebrecht in a note to Gerv. Tilb., p. 95, quoting Aznar, “Expulsion de los Moriscos.”
[155] “Athenæum,” No. 2,400, 25 Oct. 1873, giving an account of Bishop Melchisedech's book, entitled “Lipovenismulu,” on the creed and customs of the Raskolnics, or Russian schismatics.