Category: British Myths

• The Angels of Mons

  This theory holds that supernatural protectors—most commonly described as angels, shining beings, or the ghostly bowmen of Agincourt—appeared above or near the British Expeditionary Force during the retreat from Mons in August 1914 and helped save it from destruction. The legend became one of the best-known supernatural stories of the First World War. Its historical development is closely tied to wartime morale, religious language, grief culture, and the circulation of Arthur Machen’s fictional story “The Bowmen,” which many readers later treated as eyewitness truth.