Virgilius the Sorcerer

Virgilus the Sorcerer is a fairy tale. Andrew Lang included it in "The Violet Fairy Book".

Medieval legends attributed magical powers to the poet Virgil, but even among these legends, this tale attributes a very high level of power to him.

ynopsis

A Roman knight and his wife had a son, Virgilus . His father died when he was young, and his family robbed them. To protect her son from them, his mother sent him to the University of Toledo. One holiday, he walked far, and came to where an evil spirit was trapped; it offered him magical books to free him. He demanded the books, and the knowledge how to use them, first; then he freed the spirit. It grew to an enormous size. Virgilus declared he did not believe it came out of the hole, and the spirit, to prove it, went back in. Virgilus trapped it again.

He studied magic for many days. His mother sent for him, because she was ill and could no longer look after their affairs. He went, and his rich relatives were not pleased to see him, because his presences meant they could no longer rob him. They were, however, related to the emperor, who put off the matter of giving Virgilus his due. His enemies attacked him, and Virgilus used his magic to drive them off. The emperor himself went, and although at first his plight was desperate, a magician came, and he hired him. Virgilus had a hard time fighting him, but reached the emperor and agreed to stop the fight if he could have justice. The emperor agreed.

Virgilus then fell in love with a woman named Febilla. She told him that she would let him visit her by drawing him up in a basket to a tower. He got in the basket, and she lifted it only half way, and left him there to the crowd's ridicule. The emperor ordered his release, but the next day, no fire in Rome would light. Virgilius told them to bring Febilla to a scaffold in the market place and take fire from her. Fire started about her, and she had to stand there until everyone had re-lit their fires. The emperor threw Virgilius, resolving to kill him, but when he was brought up, Virgilius asked for a pail of water and jumped into it, saying he was going to Sicily.

The fairy tale says that it is unknown how he reconciled with the emperor, but he next made statues of the gods of every country, including Rome, with bells in their hands, and the bells would ring if they intended treachery toward Rome, so the Romans would send their armies against them. A country that hated them sent men to Rome; they claimed to be diviners and to have dreamed of gold, and then, with the Senate's permission, dug up the gold they had buried the night before. The third time, they told the Senate it was under the Capitol and they would dig for them, for their generosity; they undermined the Capitol and stole away, and the statues fell and were ruined.

This caused much crime in the city. Virgilus had a copper horse and rider made and ordered all men indoors. Only the honest obeyed, and the horse trampled those it found outside. The next day, the surviving thieves tried to use ropes and grapples to stop it, and used rope ladders to escape it. Two copper dogs were added, to jump up and bite them to death.

Virgilus fell in love with a foreign princess, the daughter of a sultan, and carried her away from her father. She was a guest in his house, wondering at the marvels, until she wished to return to her father. Virgilus brought her back, but the sultan ordered his death. Virgilus cast a spell on him and his court and carried the princess away again. Then, thinking Rome not fine enough, he built a marvelous city for her, and it was Naples.

Commentary

The technique of tricking spirit is a motif also found in "The Spirit in the Bottle" and with genies in "The Fisherman and the Jinni".

The legend that he had been trapped in a basket was a common medieval tale, warning of the power of love to make fools of men.

References

* [http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/050.htm "Virgililus the Sorcerer"]