114 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



to determine the direction of Scot's journey. 

 Twenty years had not passed, we must remember, 

 since the body of Averroes was laid in its last 

 resting-place. What if those who directed and 

 composed the solemn funeral procession from 

 Morocco to Cordova had brought with them the 

 books which the philosopher was engaged in com- 

 pleting at the time of his death ? The hope of a 

 great literary discovery could hardly have been 

 absent from the mind of Michael Scot as he travelled 

 southward to seek the white walls of the Moorish 

 city. 1 



There is no reason to think that the story of 

 the spell framed by Scot at Cordova was literally 

 and historically true ; it seems to belong rather to 

 the department of his legendary fame as a necro- 

 mancer. Yet, read as a parable, this conjuration is 

 not without interest and perhaps importance. It 

 professes to compel the appearance of spirits from 

 the nether deep, and to command an answer to 

 any question the sage or student might choose to 

 ask. A slight effort of fancy will find here the 

 picturesque representation of Scot's mental and 

 physical state while at Cordova, and especially under 

 the stress of the illness from which we are assured 

 he then suffered. 2 What wonder if, in the vertigo 

 of fever, he felt prisoned with swimming brain in 

 magic circles ; or is it strange that one so intent 

 upon the doctrine of the departed Averroes should, 

 in the height of his delirium, have planned to force 



1 This inquiry was afterwards interpreted to Scot's disadvantage 

 and in a way that heightened his necromantic fame. See infra, ch. ix. 



2 See Appendix, No. i. Averroes had maintained in opposition 

 to Galen that the best of all climates was that of the fifth terrestrial 

 region : that in which Cordova was situated. Colliget, ii. 22. Michael 

 Scot can hardly have shared this opinion. 



