A Few Posts Ago,

I mentioned a book called The Etymologicon,

this book entitled One in the Eye for Harold, is in a similar vein, myths and hand me down stories are scrutinized and the truth as is known is written about them to correct commonly held beliefs, for instance,


Columbus didn’t discover America, in fact he never set foot in America at all in any of his four voyages across the Atlantic, His inaugural 1492 trip took him to the Bahamas, His second voyage (1493–96) took him to Dominica in the Caribbean; his third (June–August 1498) even further south to Trinidad; and his final visit (May–June 1502) took him back to the Caribbean, this time to Martinique,


the Vikings never had horns on their helmets, none of the helmets unearthed from Viking archaeological sites have horns, these appeared as an illustration of Viking headgear only in the 19th century, thanks to Swedish artist Gustav Malmstrom, who used them in an edition of an ancient Scandinavian tale,


King Harold wasn’t shot in the eye, the number one date in British history is 1066 — the year of the Battle of Hastings when Harold was killed by an arrow through the eye, the only problem is that the arrow story was created more than a decade after the battle, thirty accounts in Latin, written immediately after the battle, make no mention of it, the accounts of those present, such as the Norman knight William of Poitiers, record Harold being killed by four of William the Conqueror’s knights, so why shot in the eye? an arrow in the eye was the punishment for perjury — the Norman invaders regarding Harold as a perjurer for breaking his promise to back William’s claim to the throne after Edward the Confessor’s death,

so if you find all of this type of thing interesting the book is on sale for £12.99 at Biteback Publishing.