The Daily Fulton
Date: June 12, 2022
Headline: “The Peril of Ignorance: A Rebuttal to Mr. Drake”

From the archives. Contributor: Spence Hutchins, Curator of the Fulton Hills Historical Society. Republished with written permission from C.W.H.

Fulton County has long been a land of contradictions. We are a community steeped in history yet quick to dismiss it, proud of our resilience yet prone to hand-waving away uncomfortable truths. Nowhere is this contradiction more evident than in Mr. Huxley Drake’s recent article, in which he reduces the Dun Maylock to a footnote of drunken ramblings and lazy police work. While his wit is sharp as ever, his reasoning is dulled by an unwillingness to confront an unpleasant reality: evil thrives when we turn to ignorance because it is easier.

The Comfort of Skepticism

I cannot deny that skepticism has its comforts. To believe in nothing is to absolve oneself of accountability. If the Dun Maylock is “nothing,” as Mr. Drake so assuredly declares, then we need not investigate further. We can laugh off bloody handprints and cryptic notes, dismiss them as drunken tricks or youthful antics. We can let every tragedy—every drowning, every unsolved murder, every sinister whisper—fall neatly into the box marked “coincidence.”

But is this not the very ignorance that allows true evil to persist? History shows us again and again that when people close their eyes to the darkness, it does not vanish. It grows. And often, it grows unchecked until it is too late to stop.

The Dun Maylock Is More Than a Myth

Mr. Drake would have us believe that the Dun Maylock is a legend built on convenience, a figment of our collective imagination born of one drunken Scotsman’s slurred words. But the evidence he dismisses so easily tells a different story.

Consider the bloody handprint, a mark that has appeared not just once, but repeatedly across centuries and continents. Mr. Drake mocks this as a “convenient signature,” yet offers no explanation for its consistency. Are we to believe that generations of pranksters conspired to maintain this motif without ever being caught or revealing themselves? Is it not far more plausible that the handprint represents something enduring—something real?

Or take the coded messages left for men like Amos Bellamy. Mr. Drake waves them off as business rivalries and mere happenstance, ignoring the deeper patterns. The Dun Maylock does not strike at random. Their targets are chosen, often men of influence or power whose sins may be hidden to the public but glaringly obvious to those who watch from the shadows.

Evil Thrives in Willful Ignorance

By dismissing the Dun Maylock as “nothing,” Mr. Drake commits the very sin he so gleefully accuses others of: laziness. It is far easier to scoff at superstition than to confront the possibility that we are not in control, that forces beyond our understanding may be at work.

This willful ignorance is what allows evil to flourish. When the librarian rearranges her books to drive attendance (as Mr. Drake so smugly suggests), we laugh and move on. But when the handprint reappears, when a man drowns under suspicious circumstances, when a coded message speaks to hidden debts—how long do we continue laughing before we recognize the pattern?

Evil does not announce itself with trumpets and banners. It works quietly, in the margins, relying on skeptics to dismiss it and cynics to ignore it. It thrives because people like Mr. Drake would rather reduce it to nothing than admit it might exist.

The Danger of Hubris

Mr. Drake’s cynicism, while clever, reeks of hubris. To believe in nothing is to place oneself above everything—to declare, “I alone see the truth, while all others are deceived.” Yet history warns us against such arrogance. Those who scoff at the darkness are often its first victims.

I do not claim to know the full truth of the Dun Maylock. Perhaps they are not a “cult” in the traditional sense. Perhaps they are something stranger, more elusive. But I do know this: when we dismiss the uncomfortable, when we refuse to question and investigate, we invite darkness to take root.

So, let Mr. Drake laugh at his own cleverness. Let him dismiss centuries of evidence with a sneer and a quip. But let the rest of us remain vigilant. For it is not belief in the Dun Maylock that threatens Fulton County—it is the denial of their existence.

C.W.H.
Seeker of Truth, Bearer of Light