320 CHRONICLES OF CORNISH SAINTS, I. — S. CUBY, 



made their country, for a time at least, a very uncongenial field 

 for tlie labours of the messenger of jDeace. 



On leaving Cornwall, Cuby came, we are told, to the region of 

 Edelygion, where a certain King Etelic was living at the time. 

 " St. Cybi went down into his meadows and spread his tent there^ 

 " and King Etelic sent a cei^tain man to see who were the men 

 "who had got down to his meadow. The man returning said 

 "they are monks, and thereupon Etelic arose with his household 

 "to eject the monks from his land; and Etelic forthwith fell from 

 " his horse, and his horse immediately died, and Etelic with all 

 " his attendants were struck with blindness." They are, however, 

 restored by the prayers of the saint, "and the king gives him two 

 Churches, whereof one is Llangybi, and the other Llandaverguir." 

 At the latter place Cuby leaves his small parti-coloured hand-bell 

 — " parvum digiti sui cimbalum varium." After this, he goes to 

 Menevia, the city of his famous kinsman S. David ; and thence he 

 sails to the island of Arum, on the Irish coast ; where he resides 

 four years, and builds a Church to the honour of Almighty God. 

 " And his cousin Cyngar," the narrative proceeds, " being an old 

 "man, S. Cybi bought for him a cow with its calf, because on ac- 

 " count of his old age he could not take any other food besides milk ; 

 " and there his discij)les bravely cultivated the land." Then follows 

 a puerile account of squabbles with one Crubthir Fintam, a petty 

 chieftain, who persecutes the saint from place to place, with a view 

 to ejecting him from the island. At length Cuby and his disciples 

 build a boat, and escape to the island of Anglesey. There is, as 

 might be expected in such a document drawn up in the Middle 

 Ages, when miracles were regarded as the necessary credentials of 

 a saint, much of the supernatural element in the narrative. Almost 

 every uicident is accompanied by a miracle, and fiction is no 

 doubt abundantly mingled with fact. This voyage from Ireland to 

 Anglesey, e.g., is represented as taking place in a boat without a 

 skin covering, to prove to Crubthir Fintam that the saint and his 

 disciples were true servants of GoD. But the historical may be 

 easily separated from the fabulous ; and the outline of the saint's 

 life, divested of the marvellous stories in which it was clothed to 

 suit the taste of a superstitious age, is, with exception of the 

 blunder of his consecration by S. Hilary, perfectly consistent 

 throughout, and will bear any test of its accuracy which can be 



