Canute showed people can’t control nature

Re: King Canute’s climate lesson, letters, Dec. 2

R. Patrick Gannon Sr. got almost all of the details of King Canute the Great wrong.

First, he wasn’t Anglo-Saxon. His father was Danish and his mother Norman. As a Dane, he ruled over England, Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden.

Second, the myth of his battle with the waves is likely untrue.

Third, it had the opposite moral: The king wanted to demonstrate man’s inability to control the forces of nature.

ALBERT GJEDDE

Brabrand, Denmark