This is the first of a series of posts on enchanted sleep and sleepers in mythology, legends, the eddas, sagas, fairy tales and folklore. And to begin as as close to the beginning as I can, the earliest tale of an enchanted sleep I know is that of the 7 th or 6 th century BCE philosopher Epimenides, recorded by Diogenes Laertius in his 3 rd century CE Lives of Eminent Philosophers.
Epimenides is far enough in the past for any story about him to be of dubious historicity, but we're told he was a Cretan of Knossos. As a young man:. And when he was recognised he was considered by the Greeks as a person especially beloved by the gods He became a seer and philosopher, and the Athenians called him to help them when the city was afflicted by a plague in the year of the 16 th Olympiad BCE.
Diogenes attributes various works to him, only one fragment of which has survived. In the Bhagavata Purana dated as written text from the 8 th to 10 th centuries CE but based on far older oral traditions King Mucukunda aids the devas , benevolent heavenly spirits, in their war against the malevolent asuras.
When at last the devas win, Indra their lord reveals to the king that an entire age of the world has passed, along with everyone he has known, but offers in recompense any gift within his power to give. The king, grief-stricken and weary, asks for unbroken sleep and for anyone who disturbs his slumber to turn to ashes.
This Indra grants, and the king falls asleep in a cave. Thousands of years later the god Krisha lures his enemy Kalayavana into the dark cave where, mistaking the sleeping Mucukunda for Krishna, Kalayavana kicks and wakes him. A story from the Babylonian Talmud c. The nickname was given him when during a drought, he drew a circle in the dust and told God that he would not step out of it until it rained.
