Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/138

 124 who forwards it is now the Cardinal Johannes Toletanus, and the date of the prophecy is now 1229. This Cardinal Johannes has been, if I may say so. rediscovered by Professor Grauert, who published quite recently a monograph on Meister Johannes von Toledo (Munich, 1901), and who studied this letter in extenso in connection with the Cardinal John. To this monograph I must refer for the bibliographical notes referring to the Letter. Curious to know who the author of this remarkable writing could be, Professor Grauert has succeeded in unearthing a large number of variants, but he has neither traced its origin nor perceived its bearing on other questions. He is forced to own that the first appearance of the Letter preceded by thirty or more years the life of the Cardinal. This Cardinal John was of English origin and had also studied in Toledo. We are not interested here to follow up his political activity, and to relate his fight against the Emperor in favour of the Pope. His dabbling in alchemy brought down upon him the suspicion of nigromancy and astrology, which went hand in hand in popular imagination. He is credited, therefore, with the authorship of this Letter, in which also a prophecy is inserted about the death of a mighty Emperor in the East, and the appearance of an "Emperor over the whole universe." His contemporary Michael Scott, of the same school, is credited with the authorship of another prophecy in favour of the Emperor Frederic II. against the Pope (about 1244). He is mentioned by Dante as a nigromancer (Inferno, cant. xx., v., 116 ff.). We see now what had happened to the old Letter. In spite of the fact that the planetary conjunction was no longer tenable, it is still repeated as a justification of the events which are foretold; merely the date of the occurrence is altered to suit changed circumstances; and instead of the old and forgotten name, a new one, very much like the old one, also Johannes Toletanus, is substituted. Whilst in the former case it was Johannes David Hispalensis, it is now another pretended Spaniard of the same name, but