Michael Scot
Michael Scot is a folk hero from Scotland and northern England; however, he's pretty obscure now. Hence, I wanted to make a post about him - also it would be funny for a fan of the US version of The Office to come across a post about British folklore.
The real Michael Scot (1175-1232) was a Scottish court intellectual for the Holy Roman Empire [1], but the folkloric Michael Scot was something else. Born in Kirkcaldy, Fife [2] but living in Oakwood, Selkirkshire [3], he was famous for magically binding (and outwitting) the Devil. In a typical story, he was flying on the Devil's back over the sea when the Devil asked him "what is the first thing good wives say in the morning". The correct answer was "God bless us a' this morning", which by invoking the name of God would cause the Devil to vanish and thus make Scot drown. He realised the trick, and snapped "mount, Devil, and fly!" [4].
The majority of Michael Scot stories are meant to explain geographic features. In a story variously set at Durham in County Durham, Carlisle in Lancashire or Morpeth in Northumberland, the town asked Scot to make it into a seaport, and so he cast a spell by which a runner or horse-rider would lead along demons who would pull the sea in, but the spell would break if they looked back - which they did, leaving the town near but not at the sea [5]. In Scotland, he split Eildon Hill into three peaks, dammed the River Tweed [6] and created the promontory at Fortrose, Cromartyshire - he was tired of his demons begging him for work, so he made them build a road over the sea (which he thought was impossible), and when they succeeded he had them dismantle it except for a promontory to show what had happened, and them set them to work spinning ropes of sand, which actually was impossible [7]. He is also invoked to explain certain built features - for example, in Northumberland he was credited with Hadrian's Wall and several Roman roads [8], in Inverness with building a bridge [9] and in Penrith, Cumberland with creating the stone circle of Long Meg and Her Daughters by turning a coven of witches to stone [10].
There are also patriotic Michael Scot stories. In one, it was said the Pope enslaved people by keeping the formulas for calculating the date of Lent secret, and he stole them by flying to Rome and learning them [11], and in another he drove off French privateers by using his demonic horse to chase them away and destroy the French king's palace [12].
He gained his power when he was travelling to Edinburgh through the Grampians, and his two companions fled at the site of a large white serpent. He used his staff to split it in three, and the woman they were staying with (who was a witch) asked for pieces of it, and received the end and middle parts. Michael Scot fell sick at this point, and noticed her cooking with it at night, and that when he dipped his finger into her pot, the house’s cockerel started crowing. He discovered it was the Philosopher’s Stone, and gained his full magic from this. In another story, he used magic to send an enemy to Hell, but because the Devil hated Scot for enslaving him, Old Nick showed the man the torments waiting for Michael Scot in Hell and sent him back to earth. Hence, on his deathbed he ordered his heart to be placed on a pole, where a raven and a dove would fight over it, to show the fate over his soul - the dove won, but only after a long and vicious fight [13] and he was buried in his hometown of Oakwood with his spellbook, the Book of Might [14].
Bibliography
Jeremy Harte, 2022, Cloven Country: The Devil and the English Landscape, Reaktion Books, p.144
Raymond Lamont-Brown, 2024, Scottish Folklore, Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd., p.103
Jo Bourne (editor), 2009, The Most Amazing Haunted and Mysterious Places in Britain, The Reader's Digest Association, p.222
Harte 2022 p.144
Harte 2022 p.142-143
Bourne 2009 p.222
Alison Galbraith, 2023, Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales, Flame Tree Publishing, p.279
Harte 2022 p.145
Janet Bord, 1997, Fairies: Real Encounters with the Little People, Michael O'Mara Books, p.160
Bourne 2009 p.169
Katherine Briggs, 1976, A Dictionary of Fairies, Penguin Books Ltd., pp.441-442
Lamont-Brown 2024 pp.104-105
Galbraith 2023 pp.277-280
Bourne 2009 p.222
