to take part in a battle there against the Saracens.  Douglas, seeing one of his friends being hard pressed by the enemy, went to his assistance and became surrounded by the Moors himself.  Seeing no chance of escape, he took from his neck the heart of Bruce, and speaking to it as he would have done to Bruce if alive, said, “Pass first in the fight as thou wert wont to do, and Douglas will follow thee or die.”  With these words he threw the king’s heart among the enemy, and rushing forward to the place where it fell, was there slain, and his body was found lying on the silver case.  Most of the Scots were slain in this battle with the Moors, and they that remained alive returned to Scotland, the charge of Bruce’s heart being entrusted to Sir Simon Lockhard of Lee, who afterwards for his device bore on his shield a man’s heart with a padlock upon it, in memory of Bruce’s heart which was padlocked in the silver case.  For this reason, also, Sir Simon’s name was changed from Lockhard to Lockheart, and Bruce’s heart was buried in accordance with his original desire at Melrose.

Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, who also lies buried in the abbey, flourished in the thirteenth century.  His great learning, chiefly acquired in foreign countries, together with an identity in name, had given rise to a certain confusion, among the earlier historians, between him and Michael Scott the “wondrous wizard and magician” referred to by Dante in Canto xxmo of the “Inferno.”  Michael Scott studied such abstruse subjects as judicial astrology, alchemy, physiognomy, and chiromancy, and his commentary on Aristotle was considered to be of such a high order that it was printed in Venice in 1496.  Sir Walter Scott referred to Michael Scott: 

  The wondrous Michael Scott
  A wizard, of such dreaded fame,
  That when in Salamanca’s Cave
  Him listed his magic wand to wave
  The bells would ring in Notre Dame,

and he explained the origin of this by relating the story that Michael on one occasion when in Spain was sent as an Ambassador to the King of France to obtain some concessions, but instead of going in great state, as usual on those occasions, he evoked the services of a demon in the shape of a huge black horse, forcing it to fly through the air to Paris.  The king was rather offended at his coming in such an unceremonious manner, and was about to give him a contemptuous refusal when Scott asked him to defer his decision until his horse had stamped its foot three times.  The first stamp shook every church in Paris, causing all the bells to ring; the second threw down three of the towers of the palace; and when the infernal steed had lifted up his hoof for the third time, the king stopped him by promising Michael the most ample concessions.

A modern writer, commenting upon this story, says, “There is something uncanny about the Celts which makes them love a Trinity of ideas, and the old stories of the Welsh collected in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries include a story very similar about Kilhwch, cousin to Arthur, who threatens if he cannot have what he wants that he will set up three shouts than which none were ever heard more deadly and which will be heard from Pengwaed in Cornwall to Dinsol in the North and Ergair Oerful in Ireland.  The Triads show the method best and furnish many examples, quoting the following: