 McPherson, published his findings and theories in his "Primitive Beliefs in the North-East of Scotland" (1929), in which he outlined the idea that it was a survival of an ancient pagan cult that had been persecuted in the witch trials in the Early Modern period.Such ideas were supported by the folklorist Thomas Davidson in an article of his published on the subject of the Horseman's Word (1956), and then by George Ewart Evans, who purported the theory in four books of his published in the 1960s and 1970s.Neither Davidson nor Evans had examined the Horseman's Word through the original Scottish sources, while McPherson had only relied upon observations made in the late nineteenth century.