A strange animal, and perhaps only for those who want to explore the lesser-known lanes of 19thC Fantastic fiction. If it’s Gothic it’s a very Scottish sort; the Devil in person tramps about these pages, and Michael Scot, the famous wizard, tests himself against Roger Bacon, polymath (who also features in John Cowper Powys' The Brazen Head, which is as peculiar a book).

He’s a cheeky writer who cobbles a story together from disparate elements and laughs at himself for his rambling plot. Any complaints you have are forestalled by the heckles of the listeners when they sit around telling Canterbury tales. I enjoy this sense of fun.

Strongest for me was the siege of a border castle, English versus Scots. They follow a daft chivalry but I believe they were self-consciously chivalric in this age. Alongside that he presents atrocities in quite a bold way for a novelist. I thought this whole early part at the siege a Shakespeare pastiche: from the two captains inside and out ratcheting up the atrocities and driving each other picturesquely mad – to the improbable plot of their ladyloves turning up at the event in male disguise. In short, I liked the mad scenes and that intensity of story at the siege. Unfortunately, when he returns to the siege after his half-book excursion into the witchcraft story, he wraps things up quickly and weakly, and happily.

There’s a lot of humour – hit or miss with me – a lot of Scottish dialect (but where it defies understanding he’s pulling your leg), and a sheer love of storytelling, with several short stories of different types inserted. An endearing book on the whole, unafraid to be silly; can be tiresome. Monty Python meets Titus Andronicus and the Malleus Maleficarum. There you go. ( )