I did a course on the history of the Christian Crusades back in college, right when Operation Desert Storm was going on. The professor said that due to an essentially oral history tradition, they talked about the Crusades as something that had happened relatively recently, like to their great-grandparents.

American parents will warn their children that if they misbehave, "the boogeyman" will come for them at night. I was told that the Middle Eastern analogue was "Richard will come and get you" — as in Richard the Lion-Hearted. (I have no idea if this is true or not… it sounded like a fun anecdote back in college, now it sounds slightly ridiculous to me, but who knows?)