Editing Frederick Barbarossa (section)

===Legend===
[[File:Barbarossa01.jpg|thumb|left|Frederick sends out the boy to see whether the ravens still fly.]]
Frederick is the subject of many legends, including that of a [[King asleep in mountain|Kyffhäuser legend]]. Legend says he is not dead, but asleep with his knights in a cave in the [[Kyffhäuser]] mountains in [[Thuringia]] or Mount [[Untersberg]] at the border between Bavaria, Germany, and [[Salzburg]], [[Austria]], and that when the ravens cease to fly around the mountain he will awake and restore Germany to its ancient greatness. According to the story, his red beard has grown through the table at which he sits. His eyes are half closed in sleep, but now and then he raises his hand and sends a boy out to see if the ravens have stopped flying.<ref>{{harvp|Brown|1972|p=172}}</ref> A similar story, set in Sicily, was earlier attested about his grandson, [[Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick II]].<ref>[[Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz|Kantorowicz]], ''Frederick II''; last chapter</ref> To garner political support the [[German Empire]] built atop the Kyffhäuser the [[Kyffhäuser Monument]], which declared [[Kaiser Wilhelm I]] the reincarnation of Frederick; the 1896 dedication occurred on 18 June, the day of Frederick's coronation.<ref>{{harvp|Jarausch|1997|p=35}}</ref>

In medieval Europe, the ''[[Golden Legend]]'' became refined by [[Jacopo da Voragine]]. This was a popularized interpretation of the Biblical end of the world. It consisted of three things: (1) terrible natural disasters; (2) the arrival of the [[Antichrist]]; (3) the establishment of a good king to combat the anti-Christ. These millennial fables were common and freely traded by the populations on Continental Europe. [[Eschatology|End-time]] accounts had been around for thousands of years, but entered the Christian tradition with the writings of the Apostle Peter. German propaganda played into the exaggerated fables believed by the common people by characterizing Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick II as personification of the "good king".<ref>{{harvp|Le Goff|2000|p=190}}</ref>

Another legend states that when Barbarossa was in the process of seizing Milan in 1158, his wife, the [[Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy|Empress Beatrice]], was taken captive by the enraged Milanese and forced to [[Parading on donkey|ride through the city on a donkey]] in a humiliating manner. Some sources of this legend indicate that Barbarossa implemented his revenge for this insult by forcing the magistrates of the city to remove a fig from the anus of a donkey using only their teeth.<ref>{{harvp|Walford|Cox|Apperson|1885|p=119}}</ref> Another source states that Barbarossa took his wrath upon every able-bodied man in the city, and that it was not a fig they were forced to hold in their mouth, but excrement from the donkey. To add to this debasement, they were made to announce, ''"Ecco la fica"'' (meaning "behold the fig"), with the feces still in their mouths. It used to be said that the insulting gesture (called fico), of holding one's fist with the thumb in between the middle and forefinger came by its origin from this event.<ref>{{harvp|Novobatzky|Shea|2001}}</ref>

Frederick's legend was further reinforced in the early twentieth century, when [[Adolf Hitler]] named [[Nazi Germany]]'s [[Operation Barbarossa|invasion]] of the [[Soviet Union]] after him.