Dominic Sandbrook

And Yoshitomo, I mean, he's not kind of peace and love.

He's very much the go out and kill all my enemies, kill all the Taira, have vengeance for my overthrow.

And Yoshitomo tells his son, you are going to grow up and you are going to become the greatest of all the samurai.

So you mentioned King Arthur.

I mean, there's definitely a kind of King Arthur dimension there.

The young boy who doesn't know his father, who gets adopted by a kind of great wizard and

He's kind of given swords and all this kind of thing.

But if you throw in the battle with Benkei on the bridge, which follow, he leaves the monastery and he goes out to find his fortune in the world and he runs into Benkei.

There is also a very strong element there of Robin Hood, because I'm sure that people would be reminded of Robin Hood meeting with Friar Tuck.

And I know that Friar Tuck is a friar, not a monk, but basically pretty much the same thing.

It is kind of mad that islands at the opposite end of Eurasia should both have these 12th century folk heroes who fight a kind of monk-like figure on a bridge.

I mean, more than a colonel, he is a very, very significant historical figure.

And in fact, he comes to rank as one of the greatest generals in the whole of Japanese history.

And although lots of the stories that are told about him and particularly about his youth are obviously fantastical,

they are hinting at aspects of his story that I think are genuinely mysterious.

They have evolved to try and explain things that admirers of Yoshitsune, once he'd become this great general, wanted to know where exactly he'd come from.

There were clearly all kinds of puzzles around it.

He clearly was spared as a baby despite being Yoshitomo's son.

And presumably then the story of him being sent to the monastery is true.

I mean, that does kind of make sense.