Lord Raglan, in The Hero (1936) has classified the parallel life-patterns of the mythical hero of tradition into twenty-two archetypal incidents, as noted below. The higher a particular hero scores, the closer he is to the UR-archetype of the sacred hero-king of prehistoric religious ritual; a historical hero is likely to share rather few of the mythical characteristics.

Let your favorite hero take the Lord Raglan Challenge!

The Scale
  1. The hero's mother is a royal virgin.
  2. His father is a king and
  3. often a near relative of the mother, but
  4. the circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
  5. he is also reputed to be the son of a god
  6. at birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
  7. He is spirited away, and
  8. reared by foster-parents in a far country.
  9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but
  10. on reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.
  11. After a victory over the king and or giant, dragon, or wild beast
  12. he marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor and
  13. becomes king.
  14. For a time he reigns uneventfully and
  15. prescribes laws but
  16. later loses favor with the gods and or his people and
  17. is driven from from the throne and the city after which
  18. He meets with a mysterious death
  19. often at the top of a hill.
  20. His children, if any, do not succeed him.
  21. His body is not buried, but nevertheless
  22. he has one or more holy sepulchres.

Undoubtedly historical personages always score lower than six, although Alexander the Great might be said to exceed that figure with a possible score of seven, depending on how one interprets some aspects of his life history. (Speaking of Alexanders, it might be interesting to see how much our little bundle of joy scores later on in life.) Generally, anyone scoring over seven or eight might be based on a historical person, but the higher on the scale, the less likely it is.

High Scores Club
Oedipus scores 21
Theseus scores 20
Moses scores 20
King Arthur scores 19
Jesus of Nazareth scores 19
Dionysus scores 19
Romulus scores 18
Perseus scores 18
Hercules scores 17
Llew Llaw Gyffes scores 17
Bellerophon scores 16
Gilgamesh scores 15
Jason scores 15
Mwindo scores 14
Robin Hood scores 13
Pelops scores 13
James T. Kirk scores 13
Sigurd scores 11.

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