Brian Peters' last post seems to assume I was claiming that he failed to acknowledge that a theory is a theory or that he made false claims relating to his research into the history of The Wild Rover. May I just clarify that the remark was a general one, and in no way aimed at him.

This links to a broader point that I make from time to time that within writing about folk people sometimes too quick to claim as 'fact' stuff which is surmise, inference, or, to take a word from Jag's last post 'myth'.