Turning Back the Tide

In brief, Canute was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. We are told that, flattered endlessly by his courtiers he showed them that he was powerless to turn back the waves with a live demo. The image of this has long captured my imagination, but my boy is considerably less mature than Canute was when he engaged in this experiment. So it is not accurate, but is based on the image I retained from my schooling