I was thinking this evening about mythical characters from the modern era as opposed to ancient Greek mythology etc. By that I mean individuals rather than mythical species/groups (such as bigfoot).
The only mythical characters I can think of are:
Springheeled Jack,
Mothman,
Sweeny Todd,
The Golem of Prague?
Can anyone else think of a mythical character/person?
I am replying to the opening post as a way of acknowledging the initial intention of the post, because I know I'm going off on a few tangents.
Until very recently, I honestly thought Sweeney Todd was a real historical figure. He was just one more serial killer along with other names from my childhood like The Boston Strangler, Jack the Ripper and, later, the Yorkshire Ripper, and the Black Panther. It was only when I looked him up a couple of years ago that I found that Sweeney Todd was entirely fictional.
@Ringo seems to be thinking of the "modern era" in fairly broad terms, contrasting it with the "ancient" era. Springheeled Jack, for example, was a Victorian phenomenon. However, the Victorians were "recognisably like us" in a way that perhaps the ancient Greeks weren't.
The obvious example of a modern myth, which others have already pointed out, is Slender Man. Slender Man's fictional origins are will known and well documented, yet some people appear to believe in him, there are occasional reports of sightings. Also, of course, there was the horrible stabbing incident less than 10 years ago in Wisconsin, perpetrated "in his name".
It is not quite what
@Ringo means, but I sometimes think of "the tax man", "the VAT man" and "the insurance man" (
&c.) as having a mythical status. "The Tax Man" is in one sense merely a shorthand expression encompassing an entire department of the Civil Service, and a complex web of legislation and regulations. However, when someone uses the expression, they tend to attribute personal characteristics to "The Tax Man" including a degree of malice or vindictiveness, and often a set of legal powers that the real "Tax Man" doesn't possess. The Tax Man becomes a sinister individual.
As a former insurance claims investigator, I have met countless people who have told me in great detail what insurance companies do and think, and how insurance companies behave, and I can tell you that the majority of what people believe is fundamentally untrue. I dare say it's the same for people working in tax, VAT, and any other branch of officialdom.
There is also the case of a known historical (or even still living) person who has had untrue "facts" attached to them. Ozzy Osbourne will forever be known as the man who"bites the heads off bats" as a result of one misunderstood and misreported incident that "grew in the telling". There is also the legend of Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, and the Mars Bar: everyone "knows" it happened, although none of us can possibly
know in the proper sense of the word.
Mods: the following two paragraphs are posted in good faith but I will understand if you edit them out.
In some cases, this attachment of myth, legend, or distorted fact has been attached to individuals in a way that has affected their whole careers.
I will give two examples from politics, but not because I am commenting either for or against the individuals or their political views:
Enoch Powell never used the expression "rivers of blood" in that famous speech; and Norman Tebbit never said "On your bike." The actual expression he used included the word "bike" but meant something very different. In both cases, the individual's subsequent career and public perception of them was largely dictated by what they were assumed to have said, rather than what they had actually said.
I absolutely am not inviting debate about the politics of this, but merely citing these as two examples of where the "myth" has had more effect on subsequent events than the reality.
However, although all of the above touches on the fringes of what I think
@Ringo had in mind, it is not quite the same — save perhaps the case of Slender Man.
There is one further phenomenon that I feel is somehow linked to this: the wealthy tramp. There may be one in every city, I don't know. In Nottingham, UK, there was one chap who was a well known local character. He walked for miles every day, and wore clothes that were ripped and torn, excessively soiled, and which accentuated his outsider status.
I am sure he could have found more suitable clothes had he chosen to do so: he was resourceful enough to feed himself and survive the harsh rigours of a vagrant lifestyle for decades, and it would not have been beyond him to steal clothes, or beg them from charity shops, or even find them discarded. However, he chose to wear the same ripped and filthy clothes for years.
"Everyone knew" (although no one knew how they "knew") that he was a rich man. He had a whole back story of unrequited love, family disagreements and so on. Some people believed that he had a large and well appointed house that he chose not to visit.
I see a similarity here to the discussion on the "past lives" thread: just as a disproportionate number of people who remember past lives were either famous people or their maids/servants,
perhaps a disproportionate number of tramps are widely rumoured to come from very wealthy backgrounds rather than a more typical working class background.
My point is that in a sense there were two tramps: the real flesh and blood one, possibly with a mundane back story, and mental health issues, whom we all saw striding around the city and suburbs, and the mythical one with the tragic unrequited love story, and the choice he made to reject his wealth and privilege and live a life on the road.
There is a direct comparison here with more conventional legendary or mythical figures: the dichotomy of an actual historical person who lived and breathed, and the legendary or mythical
version of that person with all their detailed associations and attributions.
King Arthur may well have existed as a dark age war leader, but the King Arthur with the sword Excalibur, the round table, the Holy Grail, etc. is the one we all think about.
Robin Hood may well have been an actual mediaeval outlaw, but not if we define Robin Hood as the leader of a band of merry men, who stole from the rich to give to the poor, who tormented and antagonised the Sheriff of Nottingham, and yet was a loyal subject of King Richard. Most of us would agree that there was probably an historical
Jesus: a preacher, teacher and holy man, but if we define Jesus as the literal son of God, who performed the various miracles attributed to him, then the consensus breaks down into those who believe and those who don't.
In fact, on
@Ringo 's broad definition of "modern", I have finally worked my way around to an example that may fit his definition:
Merlin.
Merlin was a fictional character who first appeared in the writings of a 12th century author, Geoffrey of Monmouth. Like many fictional characters, Merlin combined some of the attributes of earlier characters. However, he was a fictional construct. Despite this, Merlin is now widely assumed to have been an authentic ancient mythical character, or possibly, by some people, an historical personage: a case of a fictional creation who has become part of a far wider mythology.