The Civil War's most overrated spy, or, as Carl Sandburg wrote, someone who "could have been legally convicted, shot at sunrise, and heard of no more?" Such rhetorical musings, while contributing to her myth, also miss the point of why it has endured; Belle Boyd isn't remembered today for the efficacy of her spying, but for the way she went about it.
It contributed to the myth that this crisis was not about abuse at all, but mad or bad professionals, zealots, who saw abuse everywhere.
Making pictures on star-filled movie sets and sun-drenched beaches, Mr. Gowland contributed to the myth of California as a postwar paradise.
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Monday March 26 2007 By suggesting in this article that Napoleon was only about 4ft 5in tall we contributed to the myth of his diminutive stature.
His notes on the subordination of the portraits to the conception as a whole, and the lack of light in the painting, have contributed to the myth of Night Watch being rejected and of Rembrandt's subsequent "fall".
But the images of a hoarse Ruth, perpetuated in audio and videotapes on the Internet, in movies and in sports broadcasts, in addition to his well-known smoking and drinking proclivities, have contributed to the myth that Ruth had throat cancer, which is generally taken to mean cancer of the larynx, or voice box.
Such views contributed to the myth that 19th-century nation-states were composed of ethnic groups that had remained unchanged and had occupied the same territory for long periods (or had once occupied territory that was now inhabited by other nation-states).
