Mael, a scion of a royal family of Cambria, was sent in his ninth year to the
Abbey of Yvern so that he might there study both sacred and profane learning.
At the age of fourteen he renounced his patrimony and took a vow to serve the
Lord.  His time was divided, according to the rule, between the singing of
hymns, the study of grammar, and the meditation of eternal truths. 

A celestial perfume soon disclosed the virtues of the monk throughout the
cloister, and when the blessed Gal, the Abbot of Yvern, departed from this
world into the next, young Mael succeeded him in the government of the
monastery.  He established therein a school, an infirmary, a guest-house, a
forge, work-shops of all kinds, and sheds for building ships, and he compelled
the monks to till the lands in the neighbourhood.  With his own hands he
cultivated the garden of the Abbey, he worked in metals, he instructed the
novices, and his life was gently gliding along like a stream that reflects the
heaven and fertilizes the fields. 

At the close of the day this servant of God was accustomed to seat himself on
the cliff, in the place that is to-day still called St.  Mael's chair.  At his
feet the rocks bristling with green seaweed and tawny wrack seemed like black
dragons as they faced the foam of the waves with their monstrous breasts.  He