We all have heard them -- the improbable, impossible, false on their face, stories -- that somehow are truer than the reality. (Hell, the campfire has about six a week that just should be true but clearly aren't among an even larger number of red herrings of no merit at all.)

One of my favorite powerful myths of this ilk comes from from the first WW I British Expeditionary Force battle with the Huns at Mons. Afterward, some myth-maker with a sense of place and a knowledge of history reported that some of the German dead were found with English long bow arrows in them.

Mons is within spitting distance of Agincourt where, about 500 years earlier, a vastly outnumbered force of English long bow men cut down a superior French army with clouds of lethal arrows.

1B

Santa Claus tops the list. Though that guy that died and later seen walking around is pretty scarey and made lots of movies.

Not heard that particular one, but the Angel of Mons is another such myth from that terrible era.