Page "Margaret Murray" Paragraph 15

: Her manipulation of sources is sometimes so blatant as to be naive, for even a cursory reader can spot what is going on.

At one point she is arguing that witches went to their meetings on foot or on horseback in a quite non-magical way, and quotes from the well-known confession of Isobel Gowdie: " I had a little horse, and would say ' Horse and Hattock, in the Devil's name!

'"-but without mentioning that the " horse " Isobel was talking about was a magic wisp of straw ( Murray 1921, 99-100 ).

Then, five pages later, she quotes the same passage again, but this time in full, straw and all, to show how witches had hallucinations of flight ( Murray 1921, 105-6 ); she does not realise that she has thereby wrecked her previous rationalistic interpretation of the passage.