CHAPTER IX. The Legend of Michael Scot

THE LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT

Hitherto we have taken little notice of the fame by which Michael Scot is most widely known in literature; preferring to speak first of the authentic facts and real employments of his life, so far as these can now be ascertained. It would be improper, however, to close our investigation without taking some account of that darker reputation which has so long represented him to the world as a magician and dealer in forbidden lore. If we have deferred so long the consideration of this matter, the reason may be found in the fact that there seems to be no truth in such stories. They live only in legend, and in the literature of romance, and must therefore be held apart by a firm line from the domain of sober historical inquiry.

This conclusion, be it observed, is not based upon the prevailing opinion of the present day that such arts are impossible, nor has it thence been reached by way of the inference that because magic is impossible, therefore Michael Scot cannot have meddled in it. Such was not at all the view held in the thirteenth century. Then scholars as well as the unlearned, and clergy as well as laity, believed firmly in the possibility, nay, the reality, of what they regarded as an unwarrantable interference with the order of nature. This belief makes it a fair subject of discussion in regard to any one of that age whether or not he may have practised forbidden arts. The question in Scot’s case is a highly curious one, and, without further apology, we now proceed to examine it in detail.

The most famous schools of magic in those days were fixed by popular tradition in the Spanish cities of Toledo and Salamanca, especially the former. Magic, indeed, was generally spoken of as the scientia Toletana. The Morgante Maggiore of Pulci may furnish us with a fair example of the common belief:

‘Per quel ch’io udì gia dir, sendo in Tolleta Dove ogni negromante si racozza.’

and again:

‘Questa città di Tolleta solea Tenere studio di Nigromanzia. Quivi di magica arte si legea Pubblicamente, e di Piromancia E molti Geomanti sempre avea E esperimenti assai di Idromanzia.’

Caesar Von Heisterbach, the anecdote-monger of the century, relates more than one diverting tale of necromantic prodigies, the scene of which he lays at Toledo. The most remarkable of these stories tells how some Germans came thither to learn magic. Their teacher in this art called up certain spirits, who appeared first as armed men, and then in the form of lovely maids. One of the students was thereby allured and carried off. The others drew their swords and threatened the master with death, until, overcome by fear, he used his power to secure their companion’s return.

From the favourite locality of these legends we may infer that the magic then in vogue was that of the Arabs, which, especially in Spain, had now begun to supplant the ancient and primitive European superstitions. This magic was not a mere ritual of spells, such as that of the Chaldean monuments, but rather a complete theurgy, like the magic of Egypt; the corruption of an ancient and elaborate religious system. The Arabian mage pretended to bow the superior powers which other men could only worship, and boldly bade them do his will. It is hardly necessary to say that such a system did not originally belong to the Arabs, who had been, until the days of Mohammed, a rude and savage people. They learned it in Syria and Egypt, where the theories of Porphyry and Iamblichus still held sway. In their hands this magic became enriched with many new conceits, such as the nimble fancy of these children of the East knew well how to interweave with all that they touched. The stars, they held, were the centres of supreme influence, but had certain correspondences with earthly things; with herbs, with stones, and even with sounds. These were in a sort the offspring of heaven, for plants of power were precious things put forth by the sun and moon; the minerals were condensed and congealed by the same heavenly agency in a planetary hour, and earthly voices, even the cries of dumb animals, were but the far echo of the music heard in heaven, the music of the spheres.

So far, indeed, this was but common doctrine, shared by all the science of the time, and eminently expounded in every astrological system. The magic founded upon it began with the notion that this close correspondence between heaven and earth might carry an influence able to react in an upward, contrary, and unnatural direction. Plants and precious stones, rightly employed, might prove able to bind the stellar powers on which all depended. Names and forms of conjuration might control the superior spirits which the stars represented. Hence arose a whole system of magical practice, in which, from the circle of the sorcerer—a symbol representing on earth the motion of the upper spheres—the vapour of mingled herbs and minerals rose to heaven above the glowing brazier, accompanied by recited spells. It is curious to notice that when, after several ages, this essentially Eastern and theurgic necromancy gave place to the witchcraft of the North, with its dark demonolatry, the essential idea of the Arabian magicians still survived. Its influence may be traced in the importance always attached in popular belief to the reversal of natural practice, as a means of securing supernatural power and effect. Hence the bizarre details which crowd the witch trials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: how hags walked backwards, or withershins, that is, against the course of the sun, or changed a prayer into a spell by muttering it in a contrary sense.

The Arabian magic as understood in Spain during the thirteenth century is very fully expounded in a curious work called Picatrix. This book explains that the fundamental idea of the art was reaction leading up to transformation or magical change, adding that this reaction may be seen in three different regions of being; first among the elemental spirits themselves, next between these and matter, and, last, the reaction of one kind of matter upon another, as in alchemy. The second of these kinds of reaction admits the influence of earthly things upon the heavenly spirits, and is the foundation of that kind of magic which the Picatrix proceeds to expound, in details which are often much more curious than edifying. This book has special value as showing the intimate relation between magic and the ordinary studies of those times. Aristotle is often quoted in it, and the position of necromancy with regard to other branches of science is clearly defined. It is not hard to see that, when thus understood, this art must have allied itself closely with astronomy and astrology on the one hand, and with alchemy on the other. In the account given by Bacon of Avicenna’s philosophy, he says that the third great division of that author’s works, and one which had never appeared in Latin, was that devoted to the most hidden parts of natural philosophy. The science of those days left an acknowledged place for the occult and the mysterious among its doctrines. This place was filled by magic, a study forbidden indeed by the Church, but generally recognised as occupying a real though secret department among the other sciences and arts. The tradition we so often meet with that masters of necromancy actually taught the art of magic in Toledo, Salamanca, and perhaps Padua, seems but a reflection in later times of what was then the genuine belief of European scholars.

There is thus no reason why Michael Scot should not have devoted himself to what was the subject of actual and serious study during the times in which he lived, and especially so in the country where his chief literary labours were carried on. Were we to follow the mere likelihood of the case, his interest in astronomy and alchemy would lead us to think it very possible he might have studied an art that was so closely connected with these. But to change such a possibility into a certainty, or even a probability, something more convincing than any a priori argument must be found. If no actual proof of Scot’s magical practice be forthcoming we must be content to leave the matter where we found it; in the realm of dim and unsubstantial tradition.

The true criterion here must doubtless be sought in the evidence furnished by contemporaries regarding the fact alleged. In the case of Michael Scot such evidence is forthcoming, but we may say at once that it proves upon examination to yield a distinctly negative result. His fame in those days was such that he is mentioned by several important writers of his own age, such as Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Vincent of Beauvais. None of these has a word to say of Scot’s reputation as a necromancer. Some may urge that an argument from silence is unsatisfactory; but does it not gain great force from the consideration that two of these witnesses are decidedly hostile to Scot? Bacon, especially, seems to have lost no opportunity of blackening his character. To these men Michael Scot was a sciolist, a mere pretender to knowledge, ignorant even of Latin; the very charlatan of the schools. He was a plagiarist too; one who passed off the work of another man as his own; nay, darker than all, he was a heretic, or so Albert would make him; a philosopher who interpreted and exceeded the forbidden doctrines of Averroës. Is it not certain that, if Scot had really practised magic in spite of the prohibitions of the Church, we should have heard of this charge from these active and bitter detractors? Our conclusion from their silence is therefore neither far to seek nor hard to defend. These tales, we must hold, were not current in the lifetime of Michael Scot, nor for many years after. They had no foundation in fact, but were the fancies of the following generation, and thus passed into the settled tradition which has ever since persistently associated itself with the philosopher’s name.

But this conclusion raises another question. How did such a tradition arise, and what were the points of attachment to which these stories clung? The ground for the legend of Michael Scot would seem to have been prepared by the close connection between him and his master the Emperor Frederick II. Every student of those times knows well the storm of invective and the weight of calumny which fell upon that great monarch as the consequence of his feuds with the See of Rome. He was officially declared to be no Christian but the mystic Beast of the Apocalypse, vomiting blasphemies. He was accused of having produced the apocryphal work De Tribus Impostoribus. His private life became the subject of grave scandal and repeated censure. Men were taught to believe that he revelled in a harem of Saracen beauties, and was addicted to infamous immorality, as well as to forbidden arts. These accusations were current, not only in Frederick’s own lifetime, but long afterwards. They may be studied at large in the Papal Epistolaries, and a striking example of their current popular form is found in the following barbarous lines which we borrow from an obscure author who used his pen in the service of the Guelfs:

‘Amisit Astrologos, et Magos, et Vates, Beelzebub et Ashtaroth proprios Penates, Tenebrarum consulens per suos Potestates Spreverat Ecclesiam, et mundi Magnates.’

When we remember that Michael Scot was the man whom Frederick loved to consult and employ, we understand what effect this depreciation of the master’s fame must have had on that of his servant. If the Emperor made Beelzebub and Ashtaroth his gods, Scot must soon have been recognised as the go-between in this infernal business.

Such an impression would naturally be heightened by the recollection of the years which had been spent by Michael Scot at Toledo and Cordova. We have already noticed the dark reputation which attached to the former of these places. It is only needful here to add that Scot’s ecclesiastical character would by no means hinder the unfavourable inference that must have been drawn from his lengthened residence in the chief seat of magical study. St. Giles before his conversion, and Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II., were commonly reported to have learned the black art at Toledo. As to Cordova, the Picatrix mentions the discovery of a magic book in the Church there, which shows that the supernatural fame of Toledo attached itself also to this city.

It is far from improbable that the nature of Scot’s studies in these places may have inclined men to believe in the stories told of him as a necromancer. He spent his time upon Arabic texts, and, with the fanatical clergy, not to speak of the common people whom they taught, the Moors and all their works were accursed. No one could meddle much with them save at the cost of such accusations of diabolic dealing. Nor was it merely the language but also the very subject of Scot’s studies that was suspicious. Since the days of the Alexandrian school there had grown up round the name of Aristotle a strange legend which represented him as a magician; none other than the great sorcerer Nectanebus of Egypt, the true father, by an infamous sleight, of Alexander of Macedon.

Nectanebus, so the tale ran, was King of Egypt, and learned in all the magic arts of that mysterious land. When war threatened he would fill a vessel with water and float upon it enchanted ships of clay. Thus could he divine the success or failure of his country’s arms. One day, however, as he was busy in this spell, the old gods appeared to guide the craft he had designed as models of the hostile fleet. Nectanebus gave up all for lost, shaved his head, and in the disguise of a philosopher, fled to Pella in Macedonia, where he lived by practising the arts of an astrologer and prophet. Olympias consulted him to know whether she might hope to give an heir to her husband Philip, then absent from his capital. Nectanebus bade her expect the honour of a visit from Jupiter Ammon himself, and, dressing in the horns and hieratic robe proper to the character he assumed, became, by her whom he seduced, the father of Alexander the Great. The child was born amid thunder and lightning, and was soon committed to the care of Nectanebus who became his tutor: a clear point of connection with Aristotle, who really filled that office. One day tutor and pupil walked on the edge of a cliff, when the philosopher uttered a prophecy to the effect that Alexander was fated to kill his own father. The boy, who fancied that Philip was meant, took the words so ill that he flung his tutor over the rock, and thus instantly fulfilled the prediction. This tale can be traced from its appearance in the Pseudo-Callisthenes through the series of Byzantine chroniclers—Syncellus, Glycas, John Malala, and the author of the Chronicon Pascale—to the later romances where it is repeated and amplified. The whole Middle Age believed it. Not till the fourteenth century did a doubt of its truth appear, and that it was current in the west of Europe at the time of which we write appears plainly in the preface to the Secreta Secretorum, which has the following significant remark, ‘which Alexander is said to have had two horns.’ The real meaning of the legend probably lay in a patriotic desire to vindicate for Egypt, though subdued by Alexander, the honour of having originated the Greek philosophy. The thirteenth century, however, knew nothing of such explanations; cherishing the tale rather on account of the wild mystery which it breathes. No wonder then if the labours of Michael Scot as an exponent of Aristotle gave some force to the popular idea that he dealt in forbidden arts.

Need we point out that the same may be said of his fame as a Master in astrology and alchemy? We have seen how close was the relation in which these sciences stood to the magic of the day. As to mathematics, for which Scot was so renowned, it is to be observed that the kind of divination called Geomancy, which was performed by casting figures in a box filled with sand, was remarkably like the method of working sums which is still practised among the Moors. We may add that the facility with which difficult problems could be solved by the new methods of calculation borrowed from that people must have seemed little less than supernatural to those as yet unacquainted with the secrets of algebra.

It seems probable indeed that at least one starting-point of Michael Scot’s legendary and romantic fame may be looked for in the very quarter to which we have just begun to direct our attention. There is in the author’s possession a manuscript which promises to throw some light on the obscurity of this matter. It consists of sixteen quarto pages written on parchment in a hand of the seventeenth century, and contains a short preface, followed by two distinct works. One of these professes to be an Arabic original, and the other a version of the same in Latin, said to come from the pen of Michael Scot. The title of the work deserves special attention. It is as follows: ‘Almuchabola Absegalim Alkakib Albaon; i.e. Compendium Magia Innaturalis Nigrae.’ Now, although the so-called Arabic of the manuscript quite defies the best efforts of scholarship to decipher it, this word almuchabola is perfectly authentic, familiar even, being the common term in that language for what we call algebra.

This then seems to afford an actual example of the way in which the Moorish science of numbers might be mistaken for something magical. When we examine the manuscript more closely the suggestion which its title affords becomes still stronger. Here and there, amid the strange characters of an unknown tongue, are designs of a curious kind; parallelograms enclosed in bounding lines of red, and containing erratic figures also in red, that show luridly against the black background with which the outlines are filled. The Latin version explains that these are the signs of the demons whom the accompanying spells have power to summon or dismiss. No one, however, who compares them with the graphic statements of mathematical problems in the margin of the Liber Abbaci can fail to be struck with the resemblance. The one book seems, in regard of these figures, but a degenerate copy of the other, made by some scribe who did not understand the matter he had in hand, and who darkened the ground of his designs to heighten the fancied terrors of the subject.

It would not be easy to miss the meaning of this mistake. Michael Scot had probably written or translated a treatise on algebra. We may remember how well such a conjecture agrees with the tone of Pisano’s dedicatory letter to him, in which he submitted the Liber Abbaci to Scot’s revision, and acknowledged him as a supreme master in this branch of science. It is difficult to account for this fame save by supposing the existence of an unknown work by Michael Scot on the veritable Almuchabola, of which this pretended treatise on magic is all that now survives. The mistake that gave it so corrupted a form could hardly have been made as late as the seventeenth century, when such things were well understood. The manuscript, though dating from that time, is probably only a copy of one much older. The preface, indeed, mentions the year 1255 as the epoch of translation, and, although Michael Scot had then lain more than twenty years in his grave, this date would suit well as the birth-hour of a legend which, though certainly later than Scot’s own day, had yet made considerable progress in the popular mind before the close of the century. This explanation of the matter receives some indirect support from a remark of Bacon’s. ‘It is to be noticed,’ he says, ‘that many books are taken for magical works which are in reality nothing of the kind, but contain true and worthy wisdom.’ He adds that there are several ways of concealing one’s doctrine from the vulgar, such as the use of Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic characters, and the Ars Notoria or shorthand. There is much reason to think it was in this very way that Michael Scot had suffered. A mistake like that indicated by Bacon was probably the real origin of his mysterious reputation as a magician.

As soon as the mistake had once been made, and the notion of Scot’s magical powers had fairly taken possession of the popular mind, it was greatly reinforced by the association of his name and memory with the still living and adaptable Arthurian legend. Alain de l’Isle, who lived as late as 1202, says that the tales proper to this romantic cycle were so heartily believed in Brittany that any one casting doubt upon Arthur’s return would have been stoned by the people. From the Trouvères the legend passed to the Troubadours of the south of France. When the Normans established themselves in Sicily, these latter poets, represented, it is said, by Pietro Vidal, and Rambaldo di Vaqueiras, carried to this new home of their race the materia poetica which had so long engaged the best talents of France. The religious war which desolated Provence in the beginning of the thirteenth century completed the dispersion of the Troubadours. Many found a refuge in Italy and Sicily. They communicated an emotional impulse which led to the formation of the Italian language as a means of literary expression. Through them the inheritance of the Arthurian tales was secured to the people of the South, who soon began to localise the chief incidents of this romantic cycle in the island of Sicily.

Gervase of Tilbury tells us that near the town of Catania lies the burning mountain of Etna, called by the people Mongibello, and famed among them as the abode of King Arthur, who, they said, had lately been seen there. The matter fell out thus. The Bishop of Catania’s palfrey escaped one day from his groom, and was lost. The man sought his charge everywhere, and at last ventured to enter an opening he perceived in the hollow part of the hill. Here he found a narrow winding path which led to a pleasant land within Etna, and to a palace, the home of Arthur. He entered the palace and found the King lying on a royal couch. Arthur bade him welcome, listened to his story, and called for the steed to be brought that the Bishop might have his own again. He further told his visitor that, having been wounded in battle with Modred and Childeric king of Saxony, he had come to this retreat that he might heal him of his mortal sickness. Gervase adds that Arthur, not content with restoring the horse, paid tithe to the Bishop as one of the dwellers in his diocese, ‘which was a wonder to all that heard it.’

Caesar von Heisterbach has the same tale in his collection, but repeats it with some variations. In his pages the pleasant land of Avalon, with its peaceful palace, becomes a dark abode of fire, answering more nearly to the actual phenomena of the mountain. Arthur hence issues a dread summons to the owner of the palfrey, who in this tale is a Canon of Palermo, bidding him appear in that infernal region within a fortnight. The churchman obeys by dying at the time appointed. The terror which enters into this form of the story is even heightened by Stephen of Bourbon when he comes to repeat it. On the other hand the easy, pleasant, semi-pagan tone observed in Gervase of Tilbury lives again in the French romance of Florian and Florete. Here we see the kingdom within Etna before Arthur came thither, and find it a land of faery, where the King’s sister Morgana holds her flowery court. The Fata Morgana, as she is called, is still remembered on these southern coasts. When the mirage appears in the Straits of Messina, and houses and castles are seen hanging in thin air, the people call them by the name of that mysterious princess. They think that the sides of Etna have become transparent, and that what they behold is the realm of faery with the Fata Morgana’s palace in the midst.

These legends show that Avalon, first dreamed of in the far North, had by this time been carried southward to find a new locality under Etna, and that already the mystic king, who dwelt with his court in the land of shadows till he should again return to earth, had taken a firm hold of the southern fancy. It was but a step more then, and one very easily taken, when men began to see in the Princes of the Hohenstaufen, and the chief figures of their court, the heirs of this legend in some of its most important features. Frederick Barbarossa, for example, was commonly said to pass the ages between death and life in a hollow hill. The Germans identified this abode with the Kyffhauser, and expected the Emperor’s return in the spirit of the tales told of Wodan, Frau Holda, and Frau Venus, in their national mythology. It was even reported that a bold shepherd armed with the mysterious key-flower had forced the secret, entering these recesses of the hill and beholding Barbarossa as in life, with his red beard growing through the marble table at which he sat asleep. The romantic heritage next fell upon Barbarossa’s grandson Frederick II. It was long before the adherents of the Empire who had staked so much upon their great champion’s bold defiance of the Papacy could bring themselves to believe that he was really dead. In 1250 his corpse was carried in solemn procession from Fiorentino, where he died, to Palermo, the place appointed for his burial. There he soon lay in the ancient sarcophagus brought from Cefalù; his robe embroidered about the hem with Cufic characters, and the sceptre and apple of empire in his powerless hands; but still the Ghibellines could not give up the hope that one day he would wake again, and lead them to the victory they looked for.

This expectation was much strengthened by a prophecy then current under the name of the Abbot Joachim. ‘There cometh an Eagle, at whose appearing the Lion shall be destroyed: yea a young Eagle who shall make his nest in the den of the Lion. Of the race of the Eagle shall arise another Eagle called Frederick. He shall reign indeed, and shall stretch his wings till they touch the ends of the earth. In his days shall the chief Pontiff and his clergy be despoiled and dispersed.’ On the other side a Guelf poet, whose name we do not know, associated Frederick II. with Arthur in the following lines:

‘Cominatur impius, dolens de jacturis Cum suo Britonibus Arturo Venturis.’

The collection called the Cento Novelle Antiche reflects this myth very plainly; for, in the strange tales then told of Frederick and his court, we seem to see these personages already transported to a kind of fairyland, where the laws of earthly life no longer hold good. The scene is unmistakably laid in the Avalon of Arthur and amid his shadowy court.

One of the most striking incidents which marked the long funeral procession of Frederick II. through the southern provinces of Italy was furnished by the grief of a faithful band of Saracens, who, with dishevelled hair and cries of sorrow, accompanied the body of their great benefactor to its last resting-place. It is probable indeed that these people, of whom Frederick had not a few both in Sicily and in various colonies on the mainland, may have joined very heartily with their Christian neighbours in giving currency to the latest application of the Arthurian legend. In all essential features it must already have been familiar to them as a form of myth long known in the East. Even the romance of Nectanebus already noticed had a certain historical basis. In the fourth century before Christ a king called Nekhtneb reigned in Egypt. He was defeated by the Persians, and fled into a distant province of Ethiopia. Thus the ancient national dynasty of the Pharaohs came to an end, but the people long refused to believe that their king was dead. They consulted an oracle, which told them he would return, as a young man, to conquer the enemies of his country. This prophecy was engraved on the base of the royal statue and served long to sustain the national hope. The same dreams appeared in connection with the much more recent Mohammedan power. The Shi’ah and Sunnee sects of Islam held firmly to the idea that the twelfth Imam was not really dead, but would return to earth. This mysterious person was El Mohdy, the last incarnation of the Deity, as they supposed. He was said to dwell in a cave near Bagdad, whence he would one day reappear to oppose Ed Dejal, the Moslem Antichrist, in a time of great trouble, when he would overthrow him and his ally the earth-beast in final conflict near Aleppo. Mohammed himself was said to have retreated with Abu Bekr to a cave, where they lay concealed behind a spider’s web, as the Scottish tale says Bruce did before his decisive appearance and victory. The influence of these myths may be seen even during the lifetime of Frederick II., when the extravagant hopes of his followers led them to use language regarding the Emperor which was applicable only to the Deity. We may see in this an anticipation by hyperbole of the apotheosis granted him by the Ghibellines after his death.

As for Michael Scot himself, it was a very natural progress of the popular imagination which made him play Merlin to the Emperor’s Arthur. That this place in the growing legend was actually his, seems probable from the fact that, in the romance of Maugis (or Merlin) and Vivien, the hero is made to study his art in Toledo, where Scot had notoriously been. Mysterious caves, the refuge of slumbering heroes, were spoken of as existing both near that city and Salamanca. It may be that we here touch on the origin of Scot’s legendary connection with the Eildon Hills in his own borderland. That the Scottish Avalon lay beneath these there can be little doubt. Sir Walter Scott repeats a traditional tale which reminds us unmistakably of those given by Gervase of Tilbury and Caesar von Heisterbach. A countryman of Roxburghshire had sold a horse to an old man of the hills. Payment was appointed to be made at midnight, on Eildon, at a place called the Lucken Howe. When the coin, which was of ancient and forgotten mintage, had been duly handed over, the old man invited the other to view his dwelling. They passed within the hill, where the stranger was surprised to see ranks of steeds ready caparisoned: a silent cavalier in armour standing by the side of each. ‘These will wake for Shirramuir,’ said his guide. In the cave hung a sword and a horn. ‘The sound of this horn,’ the old man told him, ‘will break the spell of their slumber.’ The countryman caught it to his lips and blew a blast. The horses neighed, pawed the ground, and shook their trappings, while the knights stirred, and the place rang again with the sound of their arms. He dropped the horn in fear, and heard a voice which said: ‘Woe to him who does not unsheathe the sword ere he has blown the horn.’ He was then carried back again to the hillside, and could never more discover the entrance to that subterranean realm.

An English form of the same tale has been preserved, and is worth notice as containing what may possibly be a reference to Michael Scot’s prediction regarding Frederick’s death ‘at the iron gates.’ The story says that ‘in the neighbourhood of Macclesfield, on Monk’s Heath, is a small inn known by the designation of ‘The Iron Gates,’ the sign representing a pair of ponderous gates of that metal opening at the bidding of a figure enveloped in a cowl, before whom kneels another, more resembling a modern yeoman than one of the twelfth or thirteenth century, to which period this legend is attributed. Behind this person is a white horse rearing, and in the background a view of Alderley Edge. The story is thus told of the tradition to which the sign relates:

‘A farmer from Mobberly was riding on a white horse over the heath which skirts Alderley Edge. Of the good qualities of his steed he was justly proud, and while stooping down to adjust its mane previously to his offering it for sale at Macclesfield, he was surprised by the sudden starting of the animal. On looking up he perceived a figure of more than common height, enveloped in a cowl, and extending a staff of black wood across his path. The figure addressed him in a commanding voice: told him that he would seek in vain to dispose of his steed for whom a nobler destiny was in store, and bade him meet him when the sun was set, with his horse, at the same place. The farmer, resolving to put the truth of this prediction to the test, hastened on to Macclesfield fair, but no purchaser could be obtained for his horse. In vain he reduced his price to half; many admired, but no one was willing to be the possessor of so promising a steed. Summoning, therefore, all his courage, he determined to brave the worst, and at sunset reached the appointed place. The monk was punctual to his appointment. “Follow me,” said he, and led the way by the Golden Stone, Stormy Point to Saddle Bole. On their arrival at this last-named spot, the neigh of horses seemed to arise from beneath their feet. The stranger waved his wand, the earth opened and disclosed a pair of ponderous iron gates. Terrified at this, the horse plunged and threw his rider, who, kneeling at the feet of his fearful companion, prayed earnestly for mercy. The monk bade him fear nothing, but enter the cavern, on each side of which were horses resembling his own in size and colour. Near these lay soldiers accoutred in ancient armour, and in the chasms of the rock were arms and piles of gold and silver. From one of these the enchanter took the price of the horse in ancient coin, and on the farmer asking the meaning of these subterranean armies, exclaimed: “These are caverned warriors preserved by the good genius of England, until that eventful day when, distracted by intestine broils, England shall be thrice won and lost between sunrise and sunset. Then we, awakening from our sleep, shall rise to turn the fate of Britain. This shall be when George, the son of George, shall reign. When the forests of Delamare shall wave their arms over the slaughtered sons of Albion. Then shall the eagle drink the blood of princes from the headless cross (query, corse?). Now haste thee home, for it is not in thy time these things shall be. A Cestrian shall speak it and be believed.” The farmer left the cavern, the iron gates closed, and though often sought for, the place has never again been found.’

Arthur, the King of Faery, has dropped out of these legends in the course of their transmission to modern times, but in another story, told of the Eildon Hills, his sister, the Fata Morgana, still lives and reigns; for she is no doubt the Faery Queen with whom Thomas Rhymer spent so many years underground ere he returned with the gift of prophetic truth. In the Scottish legend, which makes Michael Scot have much to do in forming these hills to their present shape, we seem to see him occupying his natural place in the myth as that Merlin whose art composed and maintained the magic kingdom of Avalon, where Arthur sleeps with Morgana till the hour of his return.

The fertile fancy of these ages ran to the formation of other points of likeness. Merlin had his Vivien, who betrayed him to his loss of life and power by a spell of his own composing. So Michael was said to have loved a beautiful woman, who, Delilah-like, left him no peace till he told her the poison which alone had power over his charmed life: the broth of a breme sow, of which accordingly he died, taking it confidently from his false leman’s hand. Michael too, like Merlin, had his Book of Might; for the same fancy which materialised Frederick’s heretical tendencies, and made them objective in the supposed work De Tribus Impostoribus, soon did the like by those diabolical arts in which Scot was said to have excelled. It is possible that some reference to this may have been intended in the book which is held by the magician in the S. Maria Novella fresco. The plan of these paintings in the Spanish chapel at Florence was drawn out with great care by Fra Jacopo Passavanti, a learned monk of that convent. He has left a series of Lenten sermons, collected and enlarged by himself, and published under the title of Lo Specchio di vera Penitenza. The last two chapters of this work are devoted to the reproof of magical arts; a subject which the author would seem to have studied closely. He may have been influenced in this direction by S. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, which he translated into Italian. More than one passage of the Specchio may be cited as illustrating the frescoes of the Spanish Chapel. He tells us, for example, that the devil is said to be able to teach science to his disciples in an incredibly short space of time, however rude and ignorant they may be. For this purpose he has given them a book called the Ars Notoria, the same which is so severely condemned by Aquinas. Now, as Aquinas, with open book of heavenly doctrine, is figured in the chief position on the opposite (north) wall of the chapel, it is no unreasonable conjecture which finds in the magician’s book on the south wall a pictorial representation of the Ars Notoria as it was conceived by Passavanti. Elsewhere in the volume he again returns to the subject of magical works. Zoroaster, he says, first learned the art from demons, and caused it to be written on two columns, one of marble to survive the floods, and one of terra-cotta to resist the fire. This diabolic teaching, thus preserved, flourished among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Indians, and other Oriental nations who remained its chief exponents, ‘though perchance,’ adds Passavanti, ‘it may be more studied among ourselves than we are ready to believe.’ This passage may serve to show why the artist of the Spanish Chapel was directed to draw his Magus in the fashion of the East, and helps us to understand the prejudice which Michael Scot’s outlandish costume must have raised against him. It is in any case certain that the stories of his supernatural power became both memorable in substance and rich in details by association with the tales of Arthur.