Note 6 — Chapter III

Osborn, on whose writings most of this chapter is based, comments that Scotland was “a country which the Mayor evidently considered so remote that his observation would probably not be gainsaid.” This important fact, that the faker could not be contradicted, probably was responsible for many of the absurdities published. However, when we examine the general state of knowledge at that time, we are forced to admit that this is not the whole explanation. Without much question, many of these writers were at least partly serious, and actually believed the impossible tales which they printed, just as they believed they had seen witches and ghosts.