Measuring cord

What the source describes

Chapter IX fastens one end of the cord to the quill knife planted at the centre of the chosen place. Pulling the free end around that fixed point describes the first circle, after which a sword or black-hilt knife marks the line. The cord is easy to overlook beside the inscribed blades, but it is the tool that supplies the figure's geometry.

Historical setting

The Key of Solomon survives as a family of manuscripts rather than one authorial master copy. Instrument names, drawings, preparation details and even which tools appear can differ between witnesses, so this page follows the cited edition and records its variants.

Common uses

It establishes a repeatable centre and radius before names or symbols are added. That practical sequence—centre, cord, circumference, quarters, further rings—shows that the circle is constructed in stages rather than merely copied as a finished emblem.

Form, materials and reconstruction

The measurements are textually unstable. Aub. 24 can be read as a four-and-a-half-foot cord producing a nine-foot diameter, while Additional MS 36674 and Sloane 3847 support nine feet on either side or a nine-foot radius. The app does not silently resolve that disagreement.

Element: No fixed element

This source does not assign this particular instrument a fixed element. Its materials or effects should not be turned into an elemental correspondence without a named source.

Sources and variations

This measuring cord belongs to the circle chapter. A different cord appears later in the parchment preparation, where it helps stretch a skin over a hazel hoop; the two jobs should not be collapsed into one universal 'magic cord.'

Primary account used here

Key of Solomon, Book II, Book II, chapter IX ↗

Further references

• Key of Solomon: introduction and contents ↗Editorial history and an overview of the manuscript-based edition.
• Hebrew Key of Solomon ↗A different witness with its own section on magical instruments and requisites.