The Good Shepherd

The opening quote and loose plot come from Aesop's fable "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing".

The reverend says that in Spain, on the base of the Christopher Columbus statue, the country's motto "ne plus ultra" is inscribed. This is wrong in several levels. First of all, the actual words are "NON plus ultra" (lit. "no more beyond"), a Latin saying used in Roman and Medieval times to mean that there was no land west of the Iberian Peninsula; these are indeed on the base of the Columbus statue in Valladolid. However, Spain's national motto is actually the opposite, "Plus Ultra" ("More Beyond"): they were adopted under the reign of Charles I in reference to Columbus' travels, who had proved the old Latin saying wrong.