1. Graf has reviewed all the legends on this theme that were common in Christian Europe from the thirteenth century onwards.⁠[537] In the main they tell the same story. The protagonists are monks or princes who, after visiting the earthly paradise, return to their homes believing that their absence has lasted but a few hours or days; whereas in reality long years, even centuries, have passed; astonished at the change in their surroundings, they try to make themselves known, only to meet with incredulity; in the end they succeed in establishing their identity either by the testimony of some venerable old man, who vaguely remembers the story of their disappearance, or by the aid of books of record.

Of the three principal legends of this cycle, the Italian one of the monks of the Jihun dates from the fourteenth century:

Three monks set out to seek the earthly paradise, and after many adventures succeed in finding it. They return under the delusion that they have been absent but three days, whereas three whole centuries have elapsed. The monastery still stands, but the monks are strangers who do not recognise them. With the aid of old records they manage to prove their identity, and forty days after recounting their experiences they turn into dust.

The German legend of the Cistercian monk, Felix, also dates from the fourteenth century:

Felix doubts that the bliss of heaven can last eternally without cloying the elect. But one day, listening in the garden to the sweet song of a little bird of white plumage, he falls into a trance. The clanging of the bell calling to Matins awakens him and he hastens towards the monastery to find that he is unknown to the porter, who, on hearing his explanations, believes him to be either drunk or mad and turns him away. Nor do the monks recognise him, although one of them, a centenarian and infirm, does remember that when he was a novice a monk named Felix disappeared; and it is found that the books record his supposed death. A century had passed in what seemed to Felix a single hour.

Another Italian legend, which is later than the eleventh century, tells a similar story of a young prince:

Three days after his wedding, the prince sets out from his castle and is miraculously led to a garden of paradise, where he remains for three hundred years, which to him appear but three hours. On his return, he finds his home strangely changed; for his wife and parents, having given him up for dead, had converted the castle into a monastery and his hall into a church. On the tower, where formerly had flown the standard of his family with the eagle, he sees a banner with the cross. He makes himself known to the porter and tells his story to the monks and people of the village, who listen to him in awe. The story is recorded, but the prince, upon eating the bread of man, ages and dies and is buried by the side of his wife.

Occasionally, this theme is introduced into stories of fabulous voyages, as in the legend of the Armorican monks, which is an imitation of the voyage of St. Brandan⁠[538]:

After visiting the isle of paradise, the monks return to their monastery and find everything changed; church and town have disappeared, and a new king rules over a strange people. They have been absent for three hundred years.

The Spanish legend of San Amaro, which is still current in Spain, belongs to the same group:

After many wonderful adventures at sea, the saint visits the earthly paradise and, on returning to the place where his companions were to await him, finds a city built by them; and, in a monastery erected to his memory, he dies. His absence, which he had believed to be but of an hour’s duration, had lasted two centuries.

2. From the eighth century onwards there existed in Islam two groups of legends, which deal with this subject pretty much after the manner of the Christian legends. The protagonists are either prophets—Hebrew or mythical—or noble Christian martyrs, who, after a sleep of centuries, which to them appear brief hours, return to their homes where they finally succeed in proving their identity by means either of witnesses of venerable age or of ancient documents.

3. The tales of the first group were composed by companions of the Prophet as gloss on a passage of the Koran (II, 261), in which the theme is outlined as follows:

Behold him who, passing one day by a ruined and deserted city, cried out, “How shall God bring this dead city to life again?” God laid the hand of death upon this man for a hundred years and then, bringing him to life again, asked him: “How long hast thou lain here?” “A few hours, or maybe a day,” answered the man. And God replied: “Thou hast lain there for a hundred years. Behold thy food and thy drink, they are yet good; and, lo! there is thine ass. We have proposed thee as a sign (of wonder) to the people. Behold how the bones are brought to life again and are clothed with flesh.” And when (this miracle) was made manifest (the man) exclaimed: “Verily, I see that God is all-powerful.”

Around this nucleus, which had its origin in a Talmudic source, three legends appeared, one of which, dating from the eighth century, reads as follows⁠[539]:

Nebuchadnezzar destroys Jerusalem and its temple and carries off the surviving Israelites into captivity at Babylon. Jeremiah (in other versions, Esdras), who had sought refuge in the desert, returns to find the city in ruins and he doubts whether God will be able to rebuild the city and its temple. God sends him into a profound slumber, which lasts for a hundred years. In the meantime, the ass he was mounted on dies, but the wine and figs he carried with him remain intact. God shields the prophet from beasts and birds of prey and renders him invisible to man. A hundred years later, and thirty years after God has caused Jerusalem to be rebuilt, Jeremiah is brought to life again and, when he opens his eyes, he sees the bones of the ass lying scattered on the ground. A voice from heaven calls upon them to unite and clothe themselves with flesh and skin, and the ass returns to life. God asks Jeremiah how long he thinks he has slept and, when he answers “a few hours or a day,” tells him that he has slept a hundred years.

The second tale dates from the seventh century:

Esdras, who had been carried off into captivity at Babylon in his boyhood, escapes some years later and, mounted on an ass, sets out for his native country. Passing on his way through a deserted village on the banks of the Tigris, he eats his fill of the fruit of the trees and, having drunk the juice of the grapes, he stores the remainder in a pitcher and some figs in a basket. He does not believe that God could ever rebuild the ruined village and, having tied up his ass, he falls asleep. God sends death upon him for a hundred years and then brings him to life again. The angel Gabriel asks him how long he thinks he has been asleep, and he replies “A day or less.” Gabriel tells him that he has slept a hundred years and bids him observe that the ass, the figs and the wine are intact. Thereupon Esdras returns to his native country and finds that his children and grandchildren have grown old, whilst his own hair and beard are still black.

The third legend is attributed to Ibn Abbas, and provides the conclusion to the two former versions:

Upon awakening from his hundred years’ sleep, Esdras returns to his native village, where no one will believe his story. At last he finds an old woman who had been his father’s servant and is now a hundred and twenty years of age, blind and paralytic. “Esdras,” replies the old woman to his story, “was hearkened to by the Lord in his prayers. If thou art he, pray then to God that He restore my sight, that I may see thee.” Esdras cures the old woman of her infirmities, and she leads him to the house where a son of his is still alive, although a hundred and eighteen years old. Even his grandchildren are of great age. None will believe either him or the old woman, until finally his son recognises him by a birth-mark he bears between his shoulders.

According to a variant version, he is recognised by his knowledge of the Torah⁠[540]:

During their captivity at Babylon, the Israelites lose their knowledge of the Mosaic Law. Esdras, on his return, is scoffed at as a liar and is only believed when he recites by heart and writes out the whole of the Torah and the text is found to agree literally with an old copy found buried in a vineyard.

4. The Islamic tales belonging to the second group of this cycle were also woven around a passage of the Koran (XVIII, 8-24), which in its turn was based upon a Christian legend of the East, the tale of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. The fact that this Islamic myth had its remote origin in Christianity renders it of little interest as far as our argument is concerned, so that especially as Guidi has published an Italian version of the Oriental texts, both Christian and Moslem, we need give here only the outline of the Moslem tale, as it appears in the four versions handed down by Thaalabi and translated by Guidi⁠[541]:

During the persecution under Dacian seven Christian nobles of Ephesus seek refuge in a cave where, after a frugal meal, they fall asleep for three hundred years. Their kinsmen give them up for lost, and record on a tablet the story and date of their disappearance. At the end of the three centuries God restores them to life, and they awake thinking they have slept but a day. Under this delusion, one of them sets out for Ephesus to purchase provisions and secretly bring back tidings of the persecution. As he proceeds, his astonishment increases at the changes he sees on every side. Over the gate of the city a banner bearing the inscription, “There is but One God, and Jesus is His Spirit,” puzzles him greatly. In the city the people are all strange and, when he tenders a coin of the time of Dacian in payment of bread, he arouses suspicion and is led before the authorities on the charge of having found secret treasure. In vain does he attempt to vindicate his story, for the authorities refuse to listen to him until he can find someone who can identify him. He ultimately succeeds in reaching his own house, when a grandson of his, though blind and infirm with great age, recognises him. The tablet recording his disappearance is also found and thus his story is corroborated. The authorities and townsfolk seek out his companions, who now definitively die and are buried with great pomp.

5. The close resemblance of the Islamic tales of both the above-mentioned groups to the Christian mediæval legends related by Graf is too evident to be ignored. But, it will be asked, is this resemblance to be attributed to Moslem influence upon Christian folklore? Graf, with all his erudition, makes no mention of the precedents that these Christian tales may have had in other literatures.⁠[542] And, indeed, the question is not an easy one to answer. Guidi has shown⁠[543] that the Islamic tales of Jeremiah and Esdras are derived from rabbinical stories, the protagonist of which is either Abimelech or the Rabbi, Joni Hamaggel. Now both of these probably lived before the third century of our era, but there is no evidence to prove that these Jewish tales, as such, ever spread to the West. On the other hand, the Islamic legends of the Seven Sleepers are based on a Syrian legend that appeared, also in the East, in the sixth century; and this tale, we know, in that very century passed to the West, where it is found in a Latin version that St. Gregory, of Tours, included in one of his books on the saints.⁠[544] But are we, on that account, to suppose that the Christian mediæval tales mentioned by Graf grew solely from the seed sown by St. Gregory and were uninfluenced by the Islamic legends? If so, how can it be explained that that seed should have taken over six centuries to germinate and did not produce its crop of legends until the thirteenth century?

That is the problem, in so far as the influence of the myth of the Seven Sleepers on the similar Christian tales of the thirteenth century is concerned. But there still remains the other group of Islamic legends, of which the protagonists are Jeremiah and Esdras. The resemblance of these to the Christian tales is no less striking; and here there can be less doubt about the direct Moslem influence, for there is nothing to show that the early rabbinical models ever passed to Christian Europe.