The Cartulary of Landevennec

English trans. Erik Stohellou
© 2011 Erik Stohellou

t the same time, the fame of Gwenole flew up to king Gradlon, who of his sovereign scepter governed the country of the Cornubians, situated towards the West. A big country, the limits of which it had put off, was subjected to him. A diadem round his forehead, adorned with the wealth taken from the of the North, after the cruel wars where he had overwhelmed this enemy race, he surpassed in power all [his neighbors]. He had beheaded five of their leaders, took five of their ships, shone and triumphed in hundred battles. The river Loire had witnessed it, because it is on its edges that had been engaged these great battles

Thus, pressed by a deep desire to see Gwenole, the king moves shaking and falls prostrated [in front of him]: - "What presents can touch you, he said ? I have a great wealth, a great power, vast territories, treasures filled with gold and money, number of excellent clothes, and many other objects received in present. What I shall give you, nobody will touch it; nobody can alter my arrangements: you will enjoy for ever all my gifts, as if they were emanated from the heaven itself." The saint holding out the hand to him, raises him and with a smile replied: " 0 king, is it a trap that you wanted to tighten me, with your gifts? If I attached some value to all these vanities, would I have gone to bury myself in the desert, in the hollow of valleys and up to the bottom of caves? Would it not have been better to stay and live on the domains of my father that to tear the ground with the hoe, the body folded in two, to get a thin sustenance? No, I shall not be seduced by these perishable wealth, however plentiful they are: I know too much that the one who becomes attached to it runs big risk of being excluded from the eternal wealth."

Sources : A. de la Borderie, Annales de Bretagne, Tome IV - 1889