SOURCE: "The Bowmen" (The Evening News, September 29, 1914)  by Arthur Machen

DESCRIPTION: "And as the soldier heard these voices he saw before him, beyond the trench, a long line of shapes, with a shining about them. They were like men who drew the bow, and with another shout their cloud of arrows flew singing and tingling through the air towards the German hosts." ("The Bowmen" by Arthur Machen)

NOTES: On August 22-24, 1914, British forces were forces to retreat after the Battle of Mons. During that action, phantom bowmen from the hosts of Agincourt (of a shining and cloudy nature) riddled the German lines with arrows.

The Retreat from Mons

HISTORY: Machen's tiny story in itself is hardly interesting. It is the furor that resulted from it that made history. Many believed the story (or fifth-hand versions of the story) to be true. An urban legend of sorts circulated for years in the occult press about the "Angels of Mons" that saved the British in 1914. Machen spent years denying the truth of the story. He writes in an introduction many years later: "...But in a few days from its publication the editor of The Occult Review wrote to me. He wanted to know whether the story had any foundation in fact. I told him that it had no foundation in fact of any kind or sort; I forget whether I added that it had no foundation in rumour but I should think not, since to the best of my belief there were no rumours of heavenly interposition in existence at that time. Certainly I had heard of none. Soon afterwards the editor of Light wrote asking a like question, and I made him a like reply. It seemed to me that I had stifled any 'Bowmen' mythos in the hour of its birth." Read the entire introduction here.