Here the legend is not only considerably enriched, but it has recovered much of its original tone. Michael Scot again appears rather as the mighty mage than as the adroit juggler which Dante had represented him to be. One would say Folengo had read the spell of Cordova, where a circle similar to that described by him is actually proposed. The use of magical images too, on which he insists, is the very art which the Arabian author of the _Picatrix_ professes to teach. These then, or such as these, must have been the ‘old wives’ tales’ spoken of by Dempster, who says that store of them passed current in his day.[310] He was, like Michael Scot himself, a Scotsman long resident in Italy, who taught in the universities of Pisa and Bologna at the commencement of the seventeenth century:[311] an origin and situation very favourable to the knowledge of these stories, both in their Italian and Scottish form. That they had at an early period become part of the romantic heritage of Scotland seems very certain. An anonymous author supplies us with the Italian view of the matter when he says that the great magician taught the Scots his art to such a degree ‘that they will not take a step without some magical practice,’ and adds that he introduced into Scotland the fashion of ‘white hose, and gowns with the sleeves sewed together.’[312] Perhaps the best known of these Scottish tales is that which relates how Michael Scot had a particular spirit as his familiar, and describes the difficulty he felt in discovering new tasks for his supernatural servant. Sir Walter Scott says that this story had made so deep an impression, that in his day any ancient work of unknown origin was ascribed by the country people either to Sir William Wallace, Michael Scot, or the devil himself.[313] But, as commonly told, the legend refers to certain outstanding features of the country which are natural and not artificial; a fact which may possibly account for its persistence and survival in this form and not in the others. Michael is said to have commanded his spirit to divide Eildon Hill into three.[314] The feat was accomplished in a single night, but, the magician’s instructions being very precise, and the spirit finding one of the peaks he had formed greater, and another less than the mean, accommodated the matter very skilfully by transferring what seems like a spadeful of earth, still visible as a distinct prominence on the sky-line of the hill. Next night brought the need for another task, and Michael gave orders that the river Tweed should be bound in its course by a curb of stone. The remarkable basaltic dyke which crosses the bed of the stream near Ednam is said to have been the result of this command. On the third night, finding his familiar still keen for employment, Scot bade him go spin ropes of sand at the river mouth. This task proved so difficult as to relieve the magician from further embarrassment. It is said to be still in progress, and the