Rip van Winkle
The classical scholar will regard Rip Van Winkle as a resuscitation of Epimenides, who lived in the Island of Crete six centuries before the Christian era. The story is, that going by his father’s order in search of a sheep, he laid himself down in a cave, where he fell asleep, and slept for fifty years. He then reappeared among the people, with long hair and a flowing beard. But while poor Rip, after his twenty years’ slumber, awoke to find himself the butt of his village, Epimenides had absorbed a wonderful degree of knowledge.
The German legend on which Washington Irving’s story is founded is given by Otmar in his “Volks-Sagen,” entitled “Der Ziegenhirt.” Peter Klaus, a goatherd of Sittendorf, is the hero of the tale, the scene of which is laid on the Kyffhäuser.