I am reminded of the story of King Canute, the arrogant monarch who tried to stop the tide from coming in by commanding it to turn.

The story was more nuanced by that: Canute was quite a humble man, and tired of the sycophants of his court praising him to the skies.

To demonstrate that even he had limits to his powers, he sat at the sea and dommanded the tide to turn to demonstrate that fact and shut up the sycophants.

That little bit was lost on the world, the legend is that of the arrogant king defeated by the tide…