Some Problems of a Hagiographer

Extract

Legends are part of great events and if they help to keep I alive die memory of gallant self-sacrifice they serve their purpose.’ That is a quotation from Walter Lord's book A Night to Remember which describes the sinking of the Titanic when it struck an iceberg in 1912. The particular legend here referred to is that of the singing of ‘Nearer, my God, to thee’ as the ship went down. I have chosen it as an example with whicn begin this paper because it is a legend that I have been acquainte with personally and can vouch for as being in existence with four years of the event that it concerns; it was, in fact, curren very soon after the ship went down. It was totally untrue. If you examine this particular legend you will find that it contains all the elements of those popular legends connected with the saints including the fact of being untrue. There you have an example of the sort of problem confronting the writer of the lives of the saints.