Wordplay Wednesday
Last week we enjoyed a rousing round of 21 questions, history style, and learned some unusual facts about famous personages. This week we will be airing our historical dirty laundry and revealing which incorrect, pervasive ideas about history bug us the most! In her post earlier this week, Shona mentioned a myth about Queen Anne that has stood the test of time and is still repeated today. Which historical myths do you feel are most irritating? Why do they continue to be passed on? Join us in the comments!
Especially relevant here in Scotland.
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I was reading Marvel 1602 recently and was struck in the face by a myth that annoys me: King James VI and I as a fanatical witch-hunter. While this is partly true in his reign in Scotland (although the witch-hunts that he instigated there were more focused on treason and the belief that witches were trying to kill him – the hunts got out of his control and he wasn’t directly involved in much of it beyond the North Berwick trials), once he came to England in 1603 he was actually influential in exposing frauds rather than hunting witches. Kind of sucked for Shakespeare, who had written Macbeth (with its witches) to appeal to the new king’s known tastes.
My favourite story (which is probably a myth in itself) involves James going to visit a possessed teenager. The teenager was wailing around doing the kind of thing that possessed people do. After talking to the boy, James ran at him with his sword – in a panic, the boy flailed and declared that he wasn’t really possessed. Satisfied, James continued on his way.
Just looked it up, but Witch Hunts in Europe and America: An Encyclopedia by William E. Burns has a section summarising James’s involvement in the witch trials. It’s on Google Books!
Myth about Henry VIII: He died of syphilis. This is not true, if he had then one of his children and/or wives would have also contracted this disease as well as anyone else who caught his wandering eye!
On the syphilis theme, what about all those sexy Johnny Depp pirates? Let’s add some STDs, fleas, missing teeth and scurvy to that picture!
Yes indeed! They did give him some gold teeth but apart from that I don’t think an accurate portrayal has been given for children at all!
On the other hand, I am much happier to look at Johnny Depp’s unmangled, only mildly dirty face! I will sacrifice historical accuracy in a set of films featuring walking skeletons and giant Kraken!
But how far should we be willing to go in sacrificing historical accuracy? For example the Tudors were wearing Elizabethan costumes; in Kingdom of Heaven Eva Green uses a pair of scissors- in the Crusades! Unless someone would like to point out to Ridley Scott that scissors used such as that in his film were invented by Leonardo Da Vinci
The thought of there being a time before scissors were invented just completely blew my mind. Whoa.
I found this link on Cracked and thought that it fit nicely into this topic: http://www.cracked.com/article_18487_6-ridiculous-history-myths-you-probably-think-are-true.html
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