"Thus I have given," continues Mr. Clark, "the best account I can procure of this wonderful appearance; let others determine what it was. This country, like every other where cultivation has been lately introduced, abounds in the _aniles fabellæ_ of fairies, ghosts, and apparitions; but these are never even _fabled_ to have been seen by more than one or two persons at a time, and the view is always said to be momentary. Speed tells of something indeed similar to this as preceding a dreadful intestine war. Can something of this nature have given rise to Ossian's grand and awful mythology? or, finally, Is there any impiety in supposing, as this happened immediately before that rebellion which was intended to subvert the liberty, the law, and the religion of England; that though immediate prophecies have ceased, these visionary beings might be directed to warn mankind of approaching _tumults_? In short, it is difficult to say what it was, or what it was not." Sir David Brewster, in his work on _Natural Magic_, after quoting this narrative from Mr. James Clark, which he describes as "one of the most interesting accounts of aerial spectres with which we are acquainted," continues--"These extraordinary sights were received not only with distrust, but with absolute incredulity. They were not even honoured with a place in the records of natural phenomena, and the philosophers of the day were neither in possession of analagous facts, nor were they acquainted with those principles of atmospherical refraction upon which they depend. The strange phenomena, indeed, of the _Fata Morgana_, or the _Castles of the Fairy Mor-Morgana_, had been long before observed, and had been described by Kircher, in the 17th century, but they presented nothing so mysterious as the aerial troopers of Souter Fell; and the general characters of the two phenomena were so unlike, that even a philosopher might have been excused for ascribing them to different causes."