In reality, the Igorrotes only ate dog meat on special occasions like weddings, funerals, and after a successful head-hunting foray, but Truman had a showman’s impulse not to let the facts interfere with a good story.

Iceland’s remoteness kept the missionaries at bay, and the Icelanders remained deeply superstitious (I haven’t even mentioned the giant worm that lives in Kleifarvatn, a 1,000-meter-deep volcanic lake; or that another monster lives in Lagarfljót, a lake in eastern Iceland; or that the Westfjords still have a reputation for witchcraft).

Then we began to see a transition from the common theme of “destroying the abnormal to preserve family and society” to the implication that family and society were themselves the abnormal and would destroy you. This new wave of horror was the one I grew up with,

The big beasts of Africa and Asia learned to avoid humans, so when the new mega-predator – Homo sapiens – appeared on the Afro-Asian scene, the large animals already knew to keep their distance from creatures that looked like it. In contrast, the Australian giants had no time to learn to run away. Humans don’t come across as particularly dangerous.