Michael Scot in Walter Scott's 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'

How many people nowadays would read a long narrative poem? Students of literature, compelled by reading lists? Maybe people interested in history? Seems likely such poems are a minority taste nowadays but when Walter Scott published The Lay of the Last Minstrel in 1805 it was an instant best seller. With the further poems that followed it generated wealth and fame on the scale of a bestselling airport novelist nowadays.

We studied some poetry in school, of course. I enjoyed Tam O'Shanter but The Lay of the Last Minstrel is much longer. I don't believe I've ever read such a long story in rhyming form before - quite a new experience for a scientist. However it's the starting point for much of the more modern Michael Scot lore so I felt more or less obligated. A visit to the Old Bank Bookshop in Wigtown yielded a lovely old volume of Scott's poetry and I was set to go. There are digital versions available online but a physical book seems much more ... amenable. And look at that beautiful gothic font!

The Lay of the Last Minstrel tells a story of romance and conflict in the 16th century Scottish Borders, with added supernatural elements. It borrows heavily from real events and characters so Scott provided detailed notes fleshing out the historical underpinnings. I believe these notes have become a Michael Scot starting point for many people. They also include Scot stories and legends of the Border country. Some of these lack any written source. Where exactly Scott knew them from is unclear, at least to me. Perhaps they were stories everybody knew at that time, or that he heard from old people. I guess he may have invented some of them himself. I believe he was eager to see this renowned character as a forbear. Perhaps he wasn't above embroidering the historical tales in a way that suited his purposes.

In James Hogg's novel, Three Perils of Man, Scot is a major character, physically present, malign, powerful in magic, scary. In The Lay of the Last Minstrel, set a couple of centuries later, he's less a character, more of an all-pervading presence. He has two well-defined appearances. The first occurs fairly early when he is more or less dead, lying in 'a secret nook' in Melrose Abbey. We shouldn't open any coffin but his is particularly forbidding:

Within it burns a wondrous light,
To chase the spirits that love the night:
That lamp shall burn unquenchably,
Until the eternal doom shall be.

In the Notes Scott recalls old tales of such 'eternal lamps, pretended to have been found burning in ancient sepulchres.'

Dead for centuries, he is nonetheless remarkably well-preserved:

Before their eyes the Wizard lay,
As if he had not been dead a day.
His hoary beard in silver roll'd,
He seemed some seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapp'd him round,
With a wrought Spanish Baldric bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea;
His left hand held his Book of Might;
A silver cross was in his right;
The lamp was placed beside his knee:
High and majestic was his look,
At which the fellest fiends had shook,
And all unruffled was his face:
They trusted his soul had gotten grace

Michael Scot - the real Scot, not the 'wizard' - first appears unambiguously in history in Toledo, Spain. He had joined the group of scholars translating works of classical Greece from Arabic into Latin and thus making them accessible to Christendom. Perhaps his garb here makes contact with this historical reality, hinting at years spent acquiring esoteric knowledge on mainland Europe. In the poem he is supposed to have died within living memory, an impossibility that Scott freely admits in the Notes: 'By a poetical anachronism, he is here placed in a later era.'

Why trouble this long-dead mage? His 'Book of Might' has been buried with him to keep it safe from all prying eyes, 'save at his Chief of Branksome's need.' The coffin is opened by the Abbott and the knight Deloraine to retrieve this book, at the request of the Lady of Branksome who believes it will help her divine the outcome of the forthcoming conflict. Here Scott is connecting Michael Scot to his personal family mythology, of the Border Scotts. It seems likely that 'Michael Scot' is just 'Michael the Scot', his origin distinguishing him from other Michael's among the scholars and savants of his time. There is no sound reason to believe he is related to anybody in Scotland with the surname Scott, or indeed that he would have regarded any high Lord or Lady in Branksome tower as his 'Chief'.

Anyway the scenes in Melrose Abbey are spectacular. Nowadays we might suspect Scott of writing with the film adaptation in mind. Deloraine takes the book from the dead wizard - 'He thought, as he took it, the dead man frown'd' - and it is free to play its role in subsequent events.

Michael Scot's second appearance, late in the poem, is equally insubstantial but also accompanied by dramatic scenes, thunder and lightning, apocalyptically dark clouds and blackness - a substantial damper on a happy wedding celebration.

It was not eddying mist or fog,
Drain'd by the sun from fen or bog;
Of no eclipse had sages told;
And yet, as it came on apace,
Each one could scarce his neighbour's face,
Could scarce his own stretch'd hand behold.

Gilpin Horner, the Earl of Cranstoun's mischievous goblin page, has sneakily taken possession of the Book of Might earlier in the tale. He is now zapped by a lightning bolt, heard across the whole of the Border country, and disappears completely. Some wedding guests think they glimpse an insubstantial presence:

Some heard a voice in Branksome Hall,
Some saw a sight, not seen by all;
That dreadful voice was heard by some,
Cry, with loud summons, 'GYLBIN, COME!'
And on the spot where burst the brand,
Just where the page had flung him down,
Some saw an arm, and some a hand
And some the waving of a gown.

The knight Deloraine glimpses beyond doubt the same wizard from whom he had taken the book in Melrose Abbey; a chilling experience. Poor Deloraine, implacable warrior though he is, doesn't have a good poem.

(An aside: I was sure some bored student of Scottish literature would have created a 'Gilpin Horner' internet presence. The malevolent goblin page is amusing, possibly even a role model for some anarchic characters, and I felt sure he would have caught somebody's imagination. But there is no Gilpin Horner on Twitter even although most Harry Potter characters, for instance have accounts; there are several Vanessa Ives; etc. Cthulhu of course is all over the place, a cult no longer. Facebook and Instagram are similarly Horner-free. I think this confirms my feeling that these long narrative poems of Scott's are very little read nowadays.)

There's less to say about Michael Scot than for Three Perils of Man because there is much less of a characterisation. There's no interaction with this Scot; he has more of the character of a feature of the natural world, something bigger than humans and with untameable power. Nonetheless his appearance in this - hugely popular - tale clearly caught many people's imaginations, no doubt contributing to an awareness of this medieval scholar, skewed possibly, that persists to the present day. The Notes certainly underlined this awareness. The folk tales are fun, even if their origins are obscure. They show how famous Scot still was in Scotland hundreds of years after his death. But Scott confounds the astrologer Michael Scot (~1175 - ~1235) with Michael Scot of Balwearie who flourished later in the 13th century and, unlike our Michael Scot, played a significant role in Scottish affairs.

I was wary of this tale but I mostly enjoyed reading it. Some of the most atmospheric scenes gain greatly from the poetic retelling. Again, what we learn about the real Scot is strictly limited, provisional, but I think it would make a great cult movie!