Speluncar slumber and the medieval time traveler: Unearthing the imagined cave of the Old English Seven Sleepers

The anonymous Old English Legend of the Seven Sleepers retells a late ancient narrative in which seven Christian youths escape Roman imperial persecution through a centuries-long slumber in a nearby cave. Scholars have long noted ways in which the translator familiarizes the text for its early medieval audience—through special attention to coins, crowds, epistolarity, legalism, selfhood, and historical imagination. As caves abound in both Old English literature and the landscapes of Britain, this article centers the Sleepers’ cave among these familiarizing elements. I argue that a multifaceted web of associations with the underground—namely a cross-temporal death-life simultaneity—situates the Legend’s story and doctrinal message in common terms for its audience. By exploring the Legend’s imagined cave in conjunction with archaeological evidence for historical cave encounters across Britain, I offer a transdisciplinary approach that reveals the underground’s importance within the broader early medieval North Sea milieu.