Pigeons had nested in the church of St David at Llanfaes, just across the river from Brecon, and a boy climbed up to take the young birds. He leaned on a stone to reach the nest, and his hand stuck fast to it. He could not pull it away.
His parents and friends came. For three days and three nights they prayed in front of the altar, the boy with them, attached to the wall. On the third day the hand came free as suddenly as it had been caught. People said St David had protected the birds that had taken refuge in his church.
Gerald of Wales, writing about his tour of Wales in 1188, says he later met the same boy, by then an old man, at Newbury in England. The man came before David, bishop of St Davids, and swore that the story was true, since it had happened in the bishop's own diocese. Gerald adds that the stone was still kept in the church among its relics, and that the marks of five fingers could be seen pressed into the flint as if it had been wax. That is the kind of detail that makes a relic, and it was presumably shown to visitors for as long as the church kept it.
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