The heroic top part of Raphael’s 1506 painting St George and the Dragon, with St George as the hero obviously – hurrah! 

TOP 10 HEROES OF MYTHOLOGY (SPECIAL MENTION)

Few things are as fundamental to mythology as heroes – or as prolific.

I’ve counted down my Top 10 Heroes of Mythology but there’s more than enough heroes and heroism for my usual twenty special mentions per top ten, given all the various heroes of all the various mythologies.

Just a reminder of my criteria of heroism from my Top 10 Heroes of Mythology – firstly, there’s the scale of how heroic they are in their moral character or ethos, and secondly, there’s the scale of how powerful they are, ranging up to heroes capable of saving the world.

Finally, iconic status – and above all my idiosyncratic preference – tends to trump all, although of course iconic status is usually gained from other criteria in the first place, with the most morally good and powerful heroes being most iconic in popular culture or imagination. However, iconic status is qualified by my greater familiarity with European or Western mythologies, which might overshadow iconic status within non-Western mythologies.