St Serf’s Cave at Dysart, in Fife, derived its sanctity—as the town of Dysart has derived its name—from its having been the desertum or place of retirement of the saint during his seasons of meditation and prayer. The Aberdeen Breviary states that ‘once upon a time the devil tempted the blessed St Serf with divers questions in the cave at Dysart; but confounded by the divine virtue, he went away; and from that day the said demon has appeared to no one in that cave, although the place is still held famous in honour of St Serf.’ Andrew of Wyntoun, prior of St Serf’s monastery in Lochleven, as in duty bound, gives, in his Cronykill of Scotland, a circumstantial account of this disputation with the Evil One:
Quhill Saynt Serf in till a stede
Lay eftir Maytynis in hys bede,
The devil came in full intent
For til fand him with argument;
proposing to the saint many of the questions of high theological speculation which presented themselves to the cultivated minds of the fifteenth century, and receiving orthodox, and consequently unanswerable replies to them all:
Thane sawe the devil that he coud nocht,
With all the wylis that he socht,
Ourecum Saynt Serf; he sayd than
He kend hym for a wys man;