Of Cadoc, the Welsh King
Walter Map - The Courtier's Trifles
Bodl. MS. 851
II.x.
CADOC, King of Wales, heard the words of the Lord, ‘He who leaveth not all things for My sake is not worthy of Me,’ and leaving all things, he lived alone in a retreat, eating with a happy and healthy spirit of worship bread gained by the labour of his hands and by the sweat of his brow. It came to pass, after the passage of days and years, that his successor, who had been chosen by lot, journeyed into his neighbourhood and sent him word that he awaited, at the hermit’s hands, bread for himself and his soldiers. Cadoc answered that he had a bare pittance, not a plenty for so many, but that he would give this if it was asked for in God’s name. The other, however, sent back this word, ‘If he send, I shall receive it; but if not, his house and his bread and himself will be consumed in flame.’ Cadoc answered, ‘Better for him to have the bread than for all of us to burn, but may a curse fall on all who eat!’ While they ate with full knowledge of the anathema, but with no restraint, a knight named Iltut, standing in their midst, abstained himself, and begged them to abstain. While his stubborn fellows mocked him, they perished in a chasm which opened beneath them, but the ground remained under the feet of Iltut and thus preserved him. So much of Cadoc Brenin (King).
SOURCE:
Map, Walter. Master Walter Map's book, De nugis curialium (Courtier's trifles). trans. Frederick Tupper and Marbury Bladen Ogle. London: Chatto & Windus, 1924.