Sleeping Anti-hero and Villain
Sometimes this type of story or archetype is also attached to not-so-heroic figures, who are either simple anti-heroes or fully villains, whose return would mean the end of the world, or whose sleep represents something positive. This kind of archetype is known as the "Chained Satan" archetype. Among examples of this are:
- The Sleeping Giant mountain in Connecticut, United States was said by the local Quinnipiac Indians to be the demon Hobbomock, sealed by the Great Spirit. One day he would supposedly awaken and destroy the world
- Mher (Armenia)
- Artavasdes II of Armenia, who according to Moses of Chorene was chained and cursed to stay eternally chained by his father Artaxias II.
- Loki in Norse mythology was bound by the gods after he engineered the death of Baldr. With the onset of Ragnarök, Loki is foretold to slip free and fight alongside the forces of the jötnar against the gods.
Read more about this topic: King In The Mountain
Famous quotes containing the words sleeping and/or villain:
“What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.
I am my brother’s keeper, and he’s sleeping pretty rough these days.”
—Derek, Archbishop Worlock (b. 1920)
“I am given up by traitors,
I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the greatest traitor,
I went myself first to the headland, my own hands carried me there.
You villain touch! what are you doing? my breath is tight in its throat,
Unclench your floodgates, you are too much for me.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)