According to folkloric tradition, Ogier the Dane (Holger Danske) is slumbering and he will rise to save the country in its darkest hour of need. This tradition also inspired a resistance group under German occupation in ww2 to name itself after him.
The first traces of Ogier go back to the middle ages. Details vary, but he was portrayed as a knight in service to Charlamagne. His exploits are what you’d expect: great warrior winning duels, standing in the vanguard of conquering armies, saving or aiding the king, etc. I know the motif of the slumbering hero is not unique, but I’m quite curious about what, if any, your local variant is.
So, does your country have such a figure, and what’s their backstory?
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There’s the Giewont Mountain legend, I’m not sure if it’s the best example though.
https://www.lonelypoland.com/the-legend-about-sleeping-knights-of-giewont-tatra-mountain/
we got knights sleeping in Tatra mountains [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giewont#Cultural_significance)
There’s an old folk legend here in Poland that [mount Giewont](https://portaltatrzanski.pl/upload/article/5baf7382a3d07b2a8c2c7f3c2b9218f2.jpeg) is a gigantic sleeping knight, who will awaken in times of need to protect the country.
We have something similar in Portugal.
In the late XVI century our king Sebastião disappeared in the battle of Ksar el-Kebir (Morocco) in 1578 aged only 24. His disappearance caused a dynastic rift that ended up with Portugal and Spain joining up for 60 years.
Legend said he would return in a misty morning to restore the rightful dynasty and break away from the Spanish crown. Once enough time passed, and it was clear he would not return, this evolved to a more mystical legend were he would return from the dead to save the country in an hour of need.
It’s svatý Václav = st. Wenceslaw, he’s sleeping with his knights inside of the mountain called Blaník and they will come out when the Czech country is at its worst.
In 1578, the young king of Portugal D. Sebastião decided to crusade against the sultan Mulei Moluco, at Alcácer-Quibir, in Morocco.
It was a catastrophic defeat for the portuguese side, and in the midst of battle, the king disappeared. His body was never found, no ransom was ever claimed, he simply vanished.
The chaos and confusion and succession struggles after that (there were even people popping up randomly claiming to be the missing king), together with the religious and superstitious context that lead to the battle in the first place, led to the birth of the [Sebastianism mythos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastianism).
In the time of the country’s greatest need, king Sebastião will emerge from the mists to save us all.
There are several sagas, but the one I like best is the one about Barbarossa.
Emperor Frederick I, called Barbarossa, drowned in the Saleph River during the Third Crusade in 1190.
Nevertheless, the emperor continues to watch over the HRE and lives enchanted with his entire court in the mountains of the Kyffhäuser.
There, in an underground castle, the emperor sits at a table with his golden crown on his head.
When the time is right, Barbarossa will emerge from the mountain and rebuild his empire. Every one hundred years he therefore sends a dwarf out to see if the ravens are still flying around the mountain. If this is the case, the time of awakening has not yet come for Emperor Barbarossa. He falls into his magic sleep for another hundred years.
In the course of the German nationalism of the German Empire, a monument was built there in 1892.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyffh%C3%A4userdenkmal#/media/Datei%3AKyffh%C3%A4userdenkmal.IMG_7267WI.jpg
I don’t particularly like the monument and what it stands for, but the story is nice.
I can’t recall any personified national protector. However, here in England the [White Cliffs of Dover](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Cliffs_of_Dover) are often seen as the country’s final, seaward frontier, and resultantly they are invoked in a romantic and nationalistic sense in literature.
Classic folklore trope.
For UK there are many, there’s King Arthur asleep in Avalon, bunch of Knights asleep at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, Thomas the Rhymer is found under a hill with a retinue of knights on the scottish/english border, Brân the Blessed protecting the Isles and overlooking Britain; his head severed and placed on a mound (not sure how he’s doing the protecting bit) and any number more.
Well this one is complicated because he is technically from the legends of the ancient Britons i.e the Welsh, but he is the guardian of the whole of Great Britain (Albion). This is King Arthur and his knights, who are sleeping under the fairy hill in either Glastonbury or on Avalon, the Isles of the Blessed. He was originally a Welsh folk hero against the Saxons, which is how that story started.
However, from Henry II onwards it began to become a popular story in both England and France. Some people scoffed at it. But others saw value in the idea of Merlin’s prophecies and the return of the sleeping king to rule the isles once more. Edward I, who conquered Wales and Scotland, was one of them. He built the first Round Table at Windsor and his grandson Edward III continued that tradition. Various English kings hoped that one day, the prophecy would be fulfilled, and a golden age would ensue.
Used as propaganda by the Tudors, especially Henry VII, who rallied Welsh support on the grounds that he could take the throne of England as Merlin had foretold. His son Arthur would be his designated heir and successor. However, Arthur died and we got Henry VIII (who united England with Wales into a single dominion) instead. Some rumoured the name was cursed.
If you read Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queene, Prince Arthur in that represents the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I.
> Details vary, but he was portrayed as a knight in service to Charlamagne
Fun Fact as a side note: He was mentioned in *La Chanson de Roland*. Said Roland became the symbol of free towns in the HRE, as those towns built a statue of Roland usually in front of the town hall/at the market place.
Many of them still exist.
– https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Roland_Magdeburg.JPG
– https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Roland_Halberstadt.jpg
– https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Quedlinburg_asv2018-10_img27_Roland.jpg
OP, in Kronborg Slot (think Macbeth), where a statue of Holger Danske slumbers, there is a wall which remarks about how his “legend is universal,” and mentions other similar legends such as Barbarossa and King Arthur. Recommend a visit if you find the opportunity.
James the Great, patron of Spain whose remains are supposed to lay in Santiago de Compostela. The St James Way was born after this discovery in the 9th century
He’s best remembered in his warrior shape, Santiago Matamoros (Santiago Moor-slayer). Spanish soldiers would scream “Santiago!” when attacking the enemy, whether it was the moors, native americans or european heretics, and he’s supposed to have intervened in several battles in favour of the spaniards.
Well there is the myth of Prince Csaba and the Path of Hosts (as in armies).
According to the myth Prince Csaba was the youngest son of Attila the Hun and specifically the leader of the Székely people, a group of ethnic Hungarians living in Transylvania.
In his life he was a fierce warrior who defended the Hungarian people time and again. When he died our enemies rose against us once more and ambushed us at night. Their leaders mocked the surrounded Hungarians and told them no one will save them now that Csaba is dead. Then suddenly a great thunder roared and spectral horsemen charged across the skies. It was Csaba and his ghostly hosts coming to the aid of the Hungarians from beyond the grave. The invaders were routed once more.
It is said that the spectral dust that the horses of the ghostly army kicked up can still be seen at night (the galaxy) and thus it is called the Path of Hosts / Path of the Army / suitably badass poetic translation.
England has King Arthur,
Wales has a prophesied return of the true prince.
dont know about scotland
Ireland has cu chulainn who was a legendary hero/demigod but as far as im aware theres no legends of his return or any continuing protection. alternatively you might consider saint patrick, who, being our patron saint, supposedly watches over the country still.
Iceland has four “landvættir” (e. *land guardians*), one each for the four quarters of the country: a giant for the south, a dragon for the east, a bull for the west and a vulture (or eagle) for the north. They are included in the country’s coat of arms.
As the story is told in Snorri Sturluson’s *Heimskringla (Sagas of the Norwegian Kings)* during the settlement era, King Harald of Norway sent a spy who took the form of a whale and swam to Iceland to see if and how the country could be subjugated. He swam around the country and was met in every quarter by land guardians. The biggest in each quarter were the ones I listed above, accompanied by many other of a similar kind.
In the Netherlands there’s the myth of Hans Brinker created by an American writer. He’s a small schoolboy who suddenly sees a leak at a dyke in Haarlem and prevents a flood by putting his finger in the whole.
[That guy.](https://www.drachenhort.ch/media/image/d7/25/c8/Teaser-Arminius.jpg)
It’s Armin, also called Arminius, or Hermann. He’s not mythical though. He was the chief of the Cherusker in the year 9 AD. The Cherusker had been allied to Imperial Rome for some time at that point but Armin decided that this alliance should end with a bang.
He treasoned the Roman general Varus and lead the three legions they should guide from Germania Magna to Roman occupied territory into a *Holzweg*. That’s a way into the forest that looks very much like a road in the beginning, but it’s only used to harvest wood. So it leads nowhere.
In the end, the rebels lead by Armin killed about 20,000 Roman soldiers within a few days with a force much much smaller than the Roman one.
To give you figures, *all of Imperial Rome* only had 28 legions. And those bloody Germans wiped out three of them in three days. So the Romans likely thought it was divine interference at work and that was the end of their ambitions in Germania Magna. They did not reestablish those three legions either. As their numbers meant defeat.
Armin was killed a few years later when he wanted to declare himself King of all Germans. As we cannot allow that.
The only one that could be called that is the Piave river in the Veneto region that as told by the “Legend of the Piave” written in June 1918, became swollen with water halting the Austro-Hungarian advance after the defeat of Caporetto and aiding the Italian Army in the defense of Venice and the Po Valley.
Probably King Matjaž, the legendary sleeping king under the mountain.
The legend is based on pre-christian traditions, but later became more and more inspired by a real historical figure, Matthias Corvinus, a Hungarian king who fought the Turks in the 15th century. There are some folktales and poems, songs, in the slovene speaking eastern Alps about him. A slumbering king, who will wake up when needed, defeat all foes and bring a golden age of prosperity.
A leader of a peasant uprising in 16th century was also nicknamed after him, Matija Gubec. Ottoman raids strained the economy of the southeast flank of the HRE, so the feudal lords increased their demands on the peasantry, especially in the military frontier buffer zone, the Kingdom of Croatia. After the uprising had been quelled, Matija was forced to wear a red hot iron crown, dragged across the city for everyone to see him, and finally quartered.
King Matjaž is also depicted as the king of diamonds on Tarock playing cards.
There is several!
Sir Guy of Warwick who slew the monstrous dun cow, an enormous beast many hands high that supplied milk to all the villages ( or perhaps just one) in the county of ( wherever ) until she was milked by a witch, or milked through a sieve and went on a rampage killing and trampling many country yokels.
Or the great St George who slew the dragon.
Wales has Beddgelert the hound who fought a wolf intent on eating Prince Lleweyn’s child.
In Iceland we have the four Landvættir.
The giant, the bull, the eagle and dragon.
It was said a man tried to make landfall but in every direction he went he was greeted by one of these guardians who chased him away.
More than a protector, he is a symbol, the character of Alberto da Giussano (who probably never existed) who, according to legend, led the Lombards in the Battle of Legnano against Frederick Barbarossa in 1176. A statue in the square of Legnano is associated with him, depicting a knight raising his sword to the sky (he actually represents a generic Legnano warrior).
His figure was used extensively during the Risorgimento, partly during the Resistance, and, more recently, by the Northern League (as well as as a logo for Legnano bicycles).
We don’t have any such personified mythical protector.
(There is a robin hood-like figure called Jánošík who according to legends was a bandit attacking wealthy nobility and gaving out the money to the poor, but I wouldn’t consider him a protector such as yours.)
But there is something that resembles your ogier and that would the ‘nation’. In our national anthem we’re summoning the nation, ‘the Slovaks’ to rise up and fight the terrible thunders that’s striking over Tatras. The lyrics go something like “That Slovakia of ours, had been sleeping by now. But the thunder’s lightnings are rousing the land to wake it up”
Many have mentioned British heroes such as King Arthur, Sir Francis Drake (whose drum sounds when the country is in danger) and Bran the Blessed, whose head is under the White Tower and whose ravens have to stay there or the kingdom will fall.
I’m just going to add St Edmund of East Anglia to the list. He was martyred by the vikings in 869 CE and later came to be seen as the patron saint/spiritual protector of England (until the Crusaders brought back the cult of St George). Edmund’s ghost was also credited with killing Sweyn Forkbeard in 1014 when that king threatened to tax the abbey’s lands around Edmund’s shrine.
In Finnish mythology, the wizard Väinämöinen, the greatest hero of the Kalevala epic, will return when he is again needed. Since the epic was binded for the first time in the 19th century, his disappearance is explained in a way that he got pissed off when a fatherless baby (basically baby Jesus) he has sentenced to be killed as a bastard starts to talk and accuses Väinämöinen of even greater crimes. Due to his shame, Väinämöinen then sails away in a metal boat but vows to return when he is again needed. The original story probably didn’t have such strong christian motives.
Not quite protector, but a legend in a similar vein. Greece has the legend of the Marble King. The legend goes that when Constantinople was about to fall in 1453, the last roman emperor Constantine XI Palaeologos removed all his regalia and rushed to defend the gates with the other soldiers. When he was surrounded by Turks and about to be killed, an angel spirited him away, turned him to a marble statue and hid him away in a crypt. When it’s time for Constantinople to be liberated, God will reawaken the Marble King and he will lead the fight against the Turks. The legend does not specify what Greece will do with the 16 million Turks that live currently in Constantinople. 😂