The Folklore of Discworld

she said.
    ‘Yeah?’ said Cohen, less impressed than the minstrel thought he ought to be. ‘And who are all the other chances?’
    ‘I am those, also.’
    Cohen sniffed. ‘Then you ain’t no lady.’
    ‘Er, that’s not really—’ the minstrel began.
    ‘Oh, that wasn’t what I was supposed to say, was it?’ said Cohen. ‘I was supposed to say, “Ooh, ta, missus, much obliged”? Well, I ain’t. They say fortune favours the brave, but I say I’ve seen too many brave men walkin’ into battles they never walked out of. The hell with all of it.’ [ The Last Hero ]
    Nothing, not even a marvel that has saved his own life, can persuade Cohen to give up his fury at the injustice of old age and inevitable death.
    Those who want a happy ending every time had better steer clear of epic poetry and heroic sagas, for the wages of heroism is death. True, there are a few legendary heroes who vanish into fairyland, but the great majority die by violence, and their deaths are at least as memorable as their lives. Some fall in battle against overwhelming odds, as did Charlemagne’s noble warriors Roland and Oliver facing a Saracen army at Roncevalles; some, like the Irish Cú Chulainn and the Danish Hrolf Kraki, die because the enemy host is strengthened by the spells of evil magicians and malevolent deities; some are murdered by the treachery of trusted relatives or comrades, as were Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer and Robin Hood.
    On the other hand, death is what offers a Hero the finest chance to display his mettle. An Anglo-Saxon poet put these words into the mouth of an ageing English warrior facing certain defeat and death in battle against Vikings at Maldon in Essex in 991:
    Our minds shall mount higher, our hearts beat harder,
    Our spirits grow stronger, as strength dwindles.
    Always at the last there is the burial mound, the funeral pyre, the death ship – which may be set on fire, or simply pushed out to sea, as was done for Scyld Scefing, a legendary Danish king:
    The prince’s ship with curving prow,
    Glinting with hoar-frost, eager to leave,
    Lay in the harbour. They laid their dear lord,
    Their ring-giver, in the ship’s bosom, beside the mast,
    And treasures too, from far-off lands.
    High over his head a banner hung,
    Gold embroidered. They let the waters bear him away,
    Trusted him to the ocean. Sad were their hearts. [ Beowulf ]
    Or, as Cohen puts it, remembering one of his old comrades,
    ‘Where would he have been if we weren’t there to give him a proper funeral, eh? A great big bonfire, that’s the funeral of a hero. And everyone else said it was a waste of a good boat!’ [ The Last Hero ]
    And where was the boat heading? Well, there was always the possibility of Valhalla or the Elysian Fields or the Happy Isles, but ancient epics and sagas have little to say on this point. What mattered far more was that the hero should be remembered . It was said of Sigurd that ‘his name will last as long as the world endures’, and the same was – or should be – true of every hero. As the Old Icelandic poem Hávamál puts it,
    Cattle die, kinsmen die,
    And each man too shall die.
    I know one thing that never dies,
    A dead man’s reputation.
    An eye-catching grave is useful publicity too; not for nothing did Beowulf’s people cover his ashes with a large mound, high on a headland where every passing ship would see it. But the centuries roll on, and memories fade. We can make a fair guess at who lies in the royal barrow at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, but there are dozens upon dozens ofmounds along the South Downs and on Salisbury Plain that were raised for men whose names and deeds are now utterly forgotten. Which is wrong. Which is why Cohen is found one day sitting on an ancient burial mound and refusing to come back into camp for dinner, because he ‘hadn’t finished’.
    ‘Finished what, old friend?’
    ‘Rememb’rin’,’ said Cohen.
    ‘Remembering who?’
    ‘The hero who was buried here, all right?’
    ‘Who was he?’
    ‘Dunno.’
    ‘What were his people?’
    ‘Search me,’ said Cohen. ‘Did he do any mighty deeds?’
    ‘Couldn’t say.’
    ‘Then why —?’
    ‘ Someone’s got to remember the poor bugger!’
    ‘You don’t know anything about him!’
    ‘I can still remember him!’ [ The Last Hero ]
    Time also creates a problem for the rare hero who does not die young. Is it fitting for him to settle down quietly, while Old Age, the enemy he can never conquer or outwit, advances