noting that these elders themselves had very different opinions on gardnerian wicca, he also stated that the elders ceased providing him with new information in the early 1980s. he stated that these various elders had chosen him to disseminate the information because he had been involved in both hereditary witchcraft and gardnerian wicca and because he was based in new zealand, thereby making it hard for anyone to trace their identities. despite liddell claiming that the material he was putting forward came from various sources, the historian ronald hutton noted that it was all presented in a "single, dogmatic, authorial voice", with no indication of where the different pieces of information came from. hutton also asserted that liddell's changing claims would be entirely consistent with a single individual making up stories and changing them as they went along.