Asleep

In mythology and literature

Many cultural stories have been told about people falling asleep for extended periods of time. The earliest of these stories is the ancient Greek legend of Epimenides of Knossos. According to the biographer Diogenes Laërtius, Epimenides was a shepherd on the Greek island of Crete. One day, one of his sheep went missing and he went out to look for it, but became tired and fell asleep in a cave under Mount Ida. When he awoke, he continued searching for the sheep, but could not find it, so he returned to his old farm, only to discover that it was now under new ownership. He went to his hometown, but discovered that nobody there knew him. Finally, he met his younger brother, who was now an old man, and learned that he had been asleep in the cave for fifty-seven years.