In fact, James had showed up just in time. What he lacked in life he made up for in bones. He failed as a human being but succeeded brilliantly as a corpse. Despite being a headless fisherman with just nine conversions to his name, he appeared to the Spanish army as a heavenly warrior at the battle of Clavijo in 844, when Ramiro I of León defeated the Moors. Our hero had major spin applied; Jimmy the Fish became Santiago Matamoros, the Moor-slayer, a sort of Donald Rumsfeld in holy orders.

— The year we seized the day by Elizabeth Best, Colin Bowles