David Carter has pointed out the major flaw in The Sandman's argument. In researching any event in history a vast array of sources written from different perspectives are studied in detail - the "Establishment and Official history" represents only ONE of those perspectives.

"Folk History IS RELATED BY THE PEOPLE WHO WERE THERE, and who do not have a vested interest in using it as government propoganda, and in my experience is less unreliable than the Establishment official history."

Robert Burns wrote a song that recalls the events relating to the Battle of Sherrifmuir fought in November 1715. Burns actually talked to two people who fought in the battle (One who fought on the Government side and the other who fought on the Jacobite side), he also talked to someone who had stood and watched the battle from afar (This was a battle that Rob Roy MacGregor "sat out" having arrived too late to take part in it). Those three people that Burns talked to "WHO WERE THERE" all gave markedly different accounts of what they saw and experienced as individuals. Go to the location of the battle and you can instantly see why. The perceptions were that the right flank of the Jacobite Army defeated to left flank of Argyll's Army, the right flank of Argyll's Army absolutely trounced the left flank of the Jacobite Army, the action fought by the centres of both was very inconclusive as neither side could determine what was happening to their respective rights and lefts. So from the song written on the accounts of people WHO WERE THERE tells you nothing, so this particular piece of FOLK HISTORY is not so much unreliable as being totally useless.

See further up in the comparison between "The Warlike Sailor" and "The Nottingham & Mars". Many examples exist illustrating horrendous errors in folk history as portrayed in song. I have yet to come across any lyric of any folk song that corrects history.