QUOTE (Turin Machine @ Apr 28 2017, 11:58 AM)
Just as, Henry Viii, Elizabeth 1st and many other stalwarts of British history are emblematic of true 'Britishness' whilst also being mere products of their time. But then this is true of any nation, any group or sect. Everyone always reveres those in history who often have the bloodiest hands, even the blessed saint Edmund was guilty of ordering the savage and brutal slaying of Danish prisoners, something conveniently passed over by both the church and by most historians. Not everything is as black and white as it often appears.
Yes, I wouldn't dispute the thrust of that, though as I understand it the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had almost nothing to say about Edmund save for the manner of his death and that was the only near-contemporary evidence that he ever existed and even then was written twenty years after his death.
But heroes aren't people, they're ideals, personifications of some characteristic that the story-tellers want to promote, be they Nelson, Jesus, Achilles, Hazel, or Winchcombe. It's really just a matter of choosing what characteristics we want to promote and what we hope to get out of it.
I'm not so very much into the ideal of some martial zealot killing dragons in Syria, whereas the allegory of a Saxon King accepting death rather than bowing to tyranny speaks to me.