One of the lesser-known legends of medieval Europe is the story of Gerbert of Aurillac—a monk, scholar, and later Pope Sylvester II—who once hung beneath a bridge to escape being found by an astrologer. This tale, to the practiced eye of a Tarot enthusiast, radiates an unmistakable arcane significance. In William of Malmesbury’s “Gest Regum Anglorum” (c.1125), Gerbert steals a forbidden book from his Saracen teacher in Spain, with the help of the man’s daughter.
The legend claims that Gerbert, a brilliant scholar, traveled to Spain to study with a Muslim magician (sometimes referred to as a wizard or philosopher) and became his apprentice. Gerbert discovered that the magician’s true power lay in a locked book of spells. Gerbert plotted to steal the book, sometimes with the help of the magician’s daughter, whom he seduced. After stealing the book, Gerbert fled. When the master discovered the theft, he tracked his runaway pupil by reading the stars. He pursued him using a magical horse (which could run faster than the wind) and a magical dog (which could track anyone over, under, or through ground and water).
When Gerbert reached a bridge (often specified as the Devil’s Bridge at Martorell in Catalonia), he realized the dog would track him over land or water. In a desperate, clever move, he climbed over the side of the bridge and hung beneath it. Aware that astrology governs all who dwell within the elements, Gerbert suspended himself beneath a wooden bridge, thus avoiding contact with both earth and water, so that he became invisible to the heavens. Because he was hanging upside down, Gerbert was neither on the earth nor the water. This unique position broke the enchantment on the dog, causing it to lose the scent at the bridge. The frustrated magician eventually returned home. Once safe, Gerbert summoned a spirit who carried him and the stolen book back home to Gaul. He escaped with the forbidden knowledge.
The Liminal Bridge
In the pre-Christian cosmologies of Western Europe, the spaces known as “between-places” were considered true sanctuaries of power. The Celts made offerings in bogs and at river crossings, locations that were neither entirely land nor water. Similarly, ancient Greeks left coins at crossroads called herms, after Hermes (Mercury), the god who guides souls to the underworld. The intersection of roadways created portals to liminal spaces where transformation could occur. To dwell “between the elements” was to step outside the jurisdiction of fate.
Gerbert’s bridge acts as a threshold. Out of the astrologer’s view, he exists in a space beyond the web of stars. It is the same metaphysical gap that every magician, seer, and initiate seeks: the point beyond compulsion.
In this context, we can sense the echoes of ancient initiations—the Celtic druid who spends the night in a sacred tree, the shaman who journeys into the underworld, and the adept who works to attain a state of quintessence. Gerbert is no longer just a scholar; he transforms into the archetype of the seeker who dares to seize the fire of the gods and is reborn through his trials.
The Hanged Man’s Discovery
In the Tarot de Marseille, Le Pendu (The Hanged Man) hangs peacefully between heaven and earth, surrounded by a radiant glow. To the untrained observer, he appears to be passive or possibly punished; however, to the knowledgeable, he represents inverted illumination—the soul that has turned itself upside down to gain a clearer perspective.
Gerbert’s suspension beneath the bridge reflects this visual theology. Both figures transcend the constraints of the ordinary through inversion. The Hanged Man’s upside-down position is a voluntary ritual of surrender, while Gerbert’s state is desperate yet effective. Each one discovers safety and enlightenment by entering a state of stillness between worlds.
Just as the Hanged Man’s nimbus signifies enlightenment through paradox, Gerbert’s escape represents both a transgression and an initiation. He steals wisdom intended for someone else—echoing the stories of Prometheus, Odin, or Taliesin from ancient times—and faces the consequences of exile before rising to pontifical glory. His journey illustrates the lesson of the Hanged Man: that true knowledge requires observation, risk, and a temporary suspension of the self.
The Fire That Shouldn’t Be Stolen
Across cultures, the motif recurs:
- Prometheus steals fire from Olympus and is bound to a rock.
- Odin hangs nine nights on the World Tree to win the runes.
- Taliesin, after tasting the drops of Cerridwen’s cauldron, flees, shape-shifts through the elements, is swallowed, gestates, and is reborn as a poet-prophet.
All are variations on the same Indo-European initiatory pattern:
- Contact with forbidden knowledge,
- Pursuit or punishment by a cosmic power,
- A liminal suspension—between life and death, matter and spirit,
- Rebirth in an illumined state.
Gerbert’s bridge, Odin’s tree, Taliesin’s womb, the Hanged Man’s rope—they are all instruments of the same mystery. The aspirant who steals the fire of divine intellect must hang in the void until transmutation completes itself.
The Alchemy of Suspension
In Hermetic and alchemical terminology, this state is called the “suspensio” or “sublimation,” where the material of the work rises between elements for refinement. The adept separates from the four elemental spheres to reveal the quinta essentia—the fifth element, which signifies pure spirit.
The Tarot’s Hanged Man symbolizes a specific moment: the alchemist’s mercury on the verge of transformation and the mystic caught between opposing forces. Gerbert, hanging beneath his bridge, becomes an unintended alchemist. His suspended state represents not just a physical hold but also a metaphysical one—a retreat from the cosmos that makes him invisible to determinism yet receptive to inspiration.
After the Bridge
When the chronicler states that Gerbert “called up a demon who bore him into Gaul,” we can interpret this not as an indication of dark sorcery, but as an allegory. In Platonic thought, the daemon serves as an inner intermediary between human and divine intellect. Having crossed the threshold, Gerbert is now accompanied by this inner guide—the same radiant intelligence that leads the Hanged Man to a state of serenity. The original ancient Greek word “daemon” referred to a divine spirit or even an abstract concept. This was later turned into “demon” by the Catholic Church, as they sought to regulate individual spiritual experience as a means of mass control. In retelling the legend and using the term “demon,” medieval storytellers made the point to the average person that Gerbert was toying with dark forces to be avoided. They reinforced fears of foreigners and their ways.
Why this myth exists
The historical Gerbert of Aurillac was an exceptionally brilliant scholar who introduced groundbreaking Arabic/Islamic knowledge of mathematics, the abacus, and astronomy to Europe. To be clear, he reintroduced knowledge because, as the early Pagan Roman Empire collapsed, the Catholic Church rose to take its place and destroyed much of the empire’s scholars’ and scientists’ knowledge. Learning and discovery still existed, but it was cloistered in the monasteries. Much of it was kept secret from even Church authorities. In the uneducated and ignorant atmosphere of the 10th century, his knowledge was so advanced that people found it inexplicable.
Therefore, the legends were created to:
- Explain his great and sudden success (by attributing it to a pact with the Devil).
- Discredit him (especially by his political and theological opponents, who were wary of his secular learning and his foreign knowledge). Fear of the Middle East amongst Europeans and their colonial descendants, particularly fear of Islam, is not new.
The chronicler intended this as a moral tale about the dangers of excessive curiosity. However, for an informed reader familiar with occult tradition and practices, the symbolism is quite clear. Gerbert’s action is not simply an act of escape; it represents an initiation. The moment he hangs suspended between earth, water, and sky, he enters a liminal space; an in-between realm where transformation and revelation take place.
Conclusion: The Knowledge Between Worlds
For experienced Tarot readers and mythic thinkers, the legend of Saint Gerbert goes far beyond a simple medieval superstition. It represents the initiatory journey depicted in Le Pendu: a conscious turning of the soul, a temporary departure from everyday life, and the ultimate rebirth of consciousness, freed from its limitations.
The bridge, the tree, the womb, and the rope—all represent the same threshold. Every card reader, at some point, must find themselves hanging there: neither on land nor in water, neither sinner nor saint, waiting for the stolen fire to turn into light.
Suggested Reading & Sources
William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum II.167 (ed. R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford, 1998).
Nancy Marie Brown, The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages (Basic Books, 2010).
Miranda Green, The Gods of the Celts (Sutton Publishing, 1986).
Hávamál 138–139, in The Poetic Edda, trans. Carolyne Larrington (Oxford World’s Classics, 2014).
Hanes Taliesin in The Mabinogion, trans. Sioned Davies (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Julius Evola, The Hermetic Tradition (for the alchemical “suspension” phase).
Sallie Nichols, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey (for the Hanged Man’s psychological inversion).
Philippe Camoin & Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot (Marseille interpretations).
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