I believe Raglan demonstrably wrong in arguing that all heroes that fit his profile are unhistorical. It is demonstrable that historical figures tend to be fitted into the same legendary pattern. Also,some items in his list of hero traits do not fit most of his sample heroes; I believe they were included to strengthen his unstated parallel with the life of Christ. ( )

The author reveals and links the parallel life-patterns of "great men" to each other to show how often what is believed about each of them seems to fit an archetype. In the patterns of association linked to all "heroic" men, he concludes that the greater the man, the more the myth and the fewer the facts.
Scholars have utilized Raglan's 22 archetypal "Incidents which occur with regularity in hero-myths of all cultures" to weigh historicity. For example, Professor Thomas J. Sienkewicz for his students in CLAS230 Classical Mythology at Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois; toms@monm.edu.
The higher a particular hero scores, the closer he is to the UR-archetype of the sacred hero-king of prehistoric religious ritual; a historical hero is likely to share rather few of the mythical characteristics. ( )