Note 649 — INDEX TO THE NOTES.

necromancer’s hall. Warton supposes that Milton here thought of a magician’s castle which has an enchanted hall invaded by Christian knights, as we read of in the romances of chivalry. Necromancer, lit. one who by magical power can commune with the dead (Gk. νεκρός, a corpse); hence a sorcerer. From confusion of the first syllable with that of the Lat. niger, black, the art of necromancy came to be called “the black art.”