A young man called John refuses to marry and joins Valerius in his hermitage on a mountain in Bierzo. They are attacked by robbers and separated. John goes back to the hermitage on the mountain, whereas Valerius is led forth to another place by the faithful who have helped him.
7. And when he [John] had regained his lost health, imperiled after these events, and was hastening to my service as before, anger hardened the hearts of the wicked men with diabolical jealousy so that in the end they would under no consideration permit him to share my lot. While I, as mentioned in the afore-named Ordo, was led by the Lord's guidance to the same place, the cell of blessed Fructuosus, he was not permitted to go. And because I departed from this mountain, the attentive crowd of people withdrew, but since from the manure of animals of the men coming here for some time, lush grass had sprung up in that place, fire coming from the desert through the same grass burned all the dwellings together with the church itself. After these things the aforesaid John constructed, with the Lord's help, below at the foot of the mountain a new monastery, in which the bishop ordained him a presbyter against his will.
(ed. C.M. Aherne 1949: 130, 132)
