Saint Christopher
St. Christopher is known for quite a bit of trades. He’s the patron saint of travelers, surfers, epileptics, and dealers. He is adored by many and his talisman is very popular for believers and tourists. There is small issue, however. He may not have been a saint or a real person for that matter.
LA Times explained that many scholars believe he isn’t real and they’ve thought that for a long time. Even if he was real, everything about him that was saint related was likely based off of a myth. As opposed to a man who accepted Christ and converted 40,000 pagans to Christianity prior to being killed for it, he may have been just a normal guy who was murdered for being a Christian. People from church named him Christopher since his real name isn’t known and it just so happened that Christopher meant “bearer of Christ” so it was very fitting.
Lady Godiva’s Ride Without Clothes
You may or may not be familiar with the story of Lady Godiva, the wife of Leofric, who was the lord of Coventry, England. The lady felt bad for the tax burden placed on the peasants in the town so her husband told her that he would lower taxes if she rode naked throughout town, which she decided to do. The villagers stayed inside while she rode through town out of respect except for one naughty boy named Tom who decided to take a peek at Godiva and simultaneously inspiring the well-known phrase “peeping Tom.” We’re not sure how chocolate fits into this tale, though.
Well, it turns out most of this story is all wrong. The woman’s name was Godifu (her name in Latin was Godiva), and she was the wife of Leofric, the real count of Coventry. Historians did not mention that Godifu rode through the town without any clothes on, and if that indeed happened you would think that would have made its way in a history book somewhere.
Two centuries later some monks wrote this legend down, perhaps as a way to explain why Leofric was generous. Later the tale made its way into poems and artists, as we know, began to paint women without clothing on. Fancy that!
