They explain the flaws away. The leaf, we are now told, has been peeled off and replaced with dross in a time of need; the ink has been overwritten to preserve the manuscript; the vellum reveals the existence of a new trade route of which we were previously unaware; the writing evidently belongs to a young scribe perhaps fleeing some destruction, and this is his personal record of a story his masters told; he left spaces for the illustrations and copied them later, when he had access to different materials from those used in contemporary works; he came back subsequently and added text to give himself the appearance of foresight. There were other documents which told this story, but they were destroyed by fire.