FABLE AND FOLKLORE 163 



"shock" troops who bore this device on their targes. 

 Cuchulain, the savage hero of Irish fables, had, like Odin, 

 two magic ravens that advised him of the approach of 

 foes. Old-fashioned Germans believe that Frederick I 

 (Barbarossa) is sleeping under Raven's Hill at Kaiser- 

 lauten, ready to come forth in the last emergency of his 

 country. There in his grotto-palace a shepherd found 

 him sleeping. Barbarossa awoke and asked: "Are the 

 ravens still flying around the hill?" The shepherd 

 answered that they were. "Then," sighed the king, "I 

 must sleep another hundred years." 



Waterton 73 tells us that a tradition was once current 

 throughout the whole of Great Britain that King Arthur 

 was changed into a raven (some say a chough) by the art 

 of witchcraft; and that in due time he would be restored 

 to human form, and return with crown and sceptre. In 

 Brittany, where Arthur and his knights are much more 

 real than even in Cornwall, the sailor-peasants will assure 

 you that he was buried on the little isle of Avalon, just 

 off the foreshore of Tregastel, but they will add very 

 seriously that he is not dead. If you inquire how that 

 can be, they will explain that the great king was con- 

 veyed thither magically by Morgan le Fay, and he and 

 she dwell there in an underground palace. They are in- 

 visible now to all human eyes, and when Arthur wants 

 to go out into the air his companion turns him into a 

 raven ; and perchance, in proof, your boatman may point 

 your gaze toward a real raven sitting on the rocks of the 

 islet. 



Ravens figure in many monkish legends, too, usually in 

 a beneficent attitude, in remembrance of their friendly 

 offices toward Elijah. Saint Cuthbert and several lesser 

 saints and hermits were fed by these or similar birds. 



