196 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



behold is the realm of faery with the Fata Morgana' s 

 palace in the midst. 



These legends show that Avalon, first dreamed 

 of in the far North, had by this time been carried 

 southward to find a new locality under Etna, and 

 that already the mystic king, who dwelt with his 

 court in the land of shadows till he should again 

 return to earth, had taken a firm hold of the 

 southern fancy. It was but a step more then, and 

 one very easily taken, when men began to see in 

 the Princes of the Hohenstaufen, and the chief 

 figures of their court, the heirs of this legend in 

 some of its most important features. Frederick 

 Barbarossa, for example, was commonly said to pass 

 the ages between death and life in a hollow hill. 

 The Germans identified this abode with the Kyff- 

 hauser, and expected the Emperor's return in the 

 spirit of the tales told of Wo dan, Frau Holda, and 

 Frau Venus, in their national mythology. 1 It was 

 even reported that a bold shepherd armed with the 

 mysterious key-flower had forced the secret, enter- 

 ing these recesses of the hill and beholding Barba- 

 rossa as in life, with his red beard growing through 

 the marble table at which he sat asleep. The 

 romantic heritage next fell upon Barbarossa's grand- 

 son Frederick II. It was long before the adherents of 

 the Empire who had staked so much upon their 

 great champion's bold defiance of the Papacy could 

 bring themselves to believe that he was really dead. 

 In 1250 his corpse was carried in solemn procession 

 from Florentine, where he died, to Palermo, the 

 place appointed for his burial. There he soon lay 

 in the ancient sarcophagus brought from Cefalu ; 



1 See Grimm's Deutsche Myihologie. 



