In all these stories we
encounter the belief that the god or hero is in heaven, or in some
remote land. Such a belief is the sign of a civilization comparatively
advanced. The cruder and more archaic belief is that he sleeps within
the hills.

This cruder belief is more familiar in the folklore of Europe than the
other. King Arthur was believed to lie with his warriors beneath the
Craig-y-Ddinas (Castle Rock) in the Vale of Neath. Iolo Morganwg, a
well-known Welsh antiquary, used to relate a curious tradition
concerning this rock. A Welshman, it was said, walking over London
Bridge with a hazel staff in his hand, was met by an Englishman, who
told him that the stick he carried grew on a spot under which were
hidden vast treasures, and if the Welshman remembered the place and
would show it to him he would put him in possession of those treasures.
After some demur the Welshman consented, and took the Englishman (who
was in fact a wizard) to the Craig-y-Ddinas and showed him the spot.
They dug up the hazel tree on which the staff grew and found under it a
broad flat stone. This covered the entrance to a cavern in which
thousands of warriors lay in a circle sleeping on their arms. In the
centre of the entrance hung a bell which the conjurer begged the
Welshman to beware of touching. But if at any time he did touch it and
any of the warriors should ask if it were day, he was to answer without
hesitation: "No; sleep thou on." The warriors' arms were so brightly
polished that they illumined the whole cavern; and one of them had arms
that outshone the rest, and a crown of gold lay by his side. This was
Arthur; and when the Welshman had taken as much as he could carry of the
gold which lay in a heap amid the warriors, both men passed out; not,
however, without the Welshman's accidentally touching the bell. It rang;
but when the inquiry: "Is it day?" came from one of the warriors, he was
prompt with the reply: "No; sleep thou on." The conjurer afterwards told
him that the company he had seen lay asleep ready for the dawn of the
day when the Black Eagle and the Golden Eagle should go to war, the
clamour of which would make the earth tremble so much that the bell
would ring loudly and the warriors would start up, seize their arms, and
destroy the enemies of the Cymry, who should then repossess the island
of Britain and be governed from Caerlleon with justice and peace so long
as the world endured. When the Welshman's treasure was a