"Maelgwn the King is dead!" they told David.
"Then is Gildas content!" said he. "Hasten we to Mynyw."
In Dyfed, for all his loving zeal, he could not dwell long, because of the Plague which followed him there. So David and all his surviving brethren and all the inhabitants of Pebidiog whom he could gather together set sail for Lesser Britain. There he laboured greatly for five years and more at Leon, Saint Ivy, and Loquivy, preaching the word of God and founding churches and houses of religion.
In the last year but one of the fifth century after Christ, when David was a very old man, Cynyr son of Cyngen, a scholar in Teilo's Côr upon the Taff, being unable to bear the stern rule of Teilo, fled from the college and wandered until he came upon Llywel the hermit of Selyf in Brycheiniog, who entertained him and kept him under his protection. And a little after Llywel died, and Cynyr dwelt still in the former cell of Llywel. That year was cold and frosty, and the fruits of the earth were nipped in the ear and in the bud. At the autumn equinox great storms of wind and rain arose, followed early by snow, and the flocks of the men of Brycheiniog were lost and starved for the most part. As soon as the thaw set in at the beginning of the next year, Llyr Merini, lord of Talgarth, laid claim to a cantref in the lordship of Rhaint son of Brychan, his wife's brother, as belonging to his own tribe, and publicly reproached King Rhaint with being the cause of the late disastrous weather through his harbourage of an apostate religious. The men of Llyr fell upon the lands of Rhaint, seized his men, broke their ploughs, and carried off the little grain they had ready to sow. Some of the seed-corn with which they could not escape they cast into the stony bed of the brook Cilieni. Rhaint and his people proceeded to fitting reprisals. And so things continued until the spring had come indeed. It was then that David of Mynyw, as he journeyed through Brycheiniog, declared his will to judge between the warring princes.
On the morning of the first of May, a white-robed monk, with horny hands, and a tanned face whose pointed nose and patient brown eyes made it resemble the face of a dog, stood in the dingle through which the Clydach flows. Upon a gradually-sloping bank, where primroses and small blue violets bloomed in the damp and mossy grass, he had just spread three sheep-skins, and was regarding their position with doubtful look. He appeared oblivious of two other persons who occupied the little glen at the same moment, though these were no less than Llyr Merini, lord of Talgarth, and his wife Gwen, daughter of King Brychan. At a seemly distance were their household attendants.
"O Lily, servant of David," said Llyr, "I have heard that he thy master holds the keys that do lock and unlock the portals of heaven!"
"Very righteous saint is David," replied Lily. He did no more than glance at the lord and lady.
"Surely he does consider that the perjury of one tonsured to God is of all things the most abominable?"
"David has a key to all of heaven that is in the world," David's servant continued. "Where he scattereth, there does the good corn spring. When the Yellow Plague had run its course, and we returned from Llydaw, a crushing labour was before him, for men were lax and weary, and religion wellnigh forgotten. But this task he fulfilled, for the blessing of God was upon him, and he and his disciples journeyed far afield, hither to Brycheiniog, and into Gwent, Ewyas, and Erging, and sowed the seed of the Gospel in plenty. Every holy thing does David foster and honour. And he reads plainly the hearts of men, and traces the springs of their actions. A fountain of justice is the heart of David."
"Many fair churches owns David. Loves he not gifts of gold, and silver, and polished jewels," said Gwen eagerly, "for the adornment of his foundations? They say that the praise of beauty is ever upon his lips."