Page 9 - Scottish Alchemists

his power over spirits he caused one of them, for whom he had to find
constant employment, to build a cauld or dam across the Tweed at Kelso,
which was executed in a night, and which still does honour to the infernal
architect; and how by the same agency, and in the same short space of time,
he caused the Eildon Hill to be divided into the three picturesque peaks
which it now bears.

Notwithstanding the terrible powers which Michael Scot possessed, the
wizard was not deficient in human sympathies. In one of his singular books,
called the Mensa Philosophica, or the ‘Philosopher’s Banquet’, he states
that it is furnished not only with “a few dishes for health, but a large
discourse for pleasure.” These pleasurable discourses consist of “certaine
jests and merry conceits to exhilarate and solace our bodyes and mindes at
our tables, which are to be serued in like carrawaies at the end of our feast.”
It is interesting to remark that several of these jests seem to have been so
popular as to have been incorporated in the original edition of Joe Miller,
printed in 1739.

The fame of Michael Scot as an alchemist rests on more than tradition:
one of ten chapters in his Liber introductorius, is a “Quaestio curiosa de
natura Solis et Lunae.”1 This singular chapter has been incorporated into the

Theatrum Chemicum of Lazarus Zetzner, (5vols. 12mo, Strassburg 1622) a

work which contains the writings of the most celebrated alchemists. In it
Michael, while he expresses his belief in the existence of the Lapis
Philosophorum, chiefly endeavours to show the creative power of the sun
and moon upon gold, and speculates as to the reducing of that metal to its
first materials. He cautiously records his belief that the great difficulty in
making gold was the want of a proper place for so doing, because gold being
a perfect body requires an appropriate place for its generation, “Quia aurum
eo quod ipsum est corpus perfectum requirit sibi proprium locum suae
generationis, videlicet ventrem terrae vel venas, sicut vinum ventrem vitis,
ergo non potest fleri nisi in proprio loco.”

While the alchemical labours of Michael Scot may thus after all have
been limited to vague theories and conjectures, the investigations of
subsequent Scottish inquirers assumed a more practical character, and the

1 The names for gold and silver in the language of the alchemists were Sol and
Luna.
“So gold is, and Luna silver we threpe; Mars iron, Mercury quicksilver we clepe:
Saturnus lead, and Jupiter is tin, And Venus copper, by my father kin.”
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 16,294.

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