Guernsey Folk Lore: a collection of popular superstitions, legendary tales, peculiar customs, proverbs, weather sayings, etc., of the people of that islandMacCulloch, Edgar, Sir
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Guernsey Folk Lore: a collection of popular superstitions, legendary tales, peculiar customs, proverbs, weather sayings, etc., of the people of that island
MacCulloch, Edgar, Sir
Folklore -- Guernsey
“There is built into the wall of a house, on the Paysans Road, a
sculptured stone, which corresponds so exactly with what might have
been the Chapel of Lihou that I have, on the plan, restored the chapel
on those lines. All the principal features work in exactly, the tower,
the windows, the roof, etc.,--all except the door, of which there is
positively no trace; but possibly, in view of the various coats of
paint on the stone, it is merely a fancy of one of the many artists
who have retouched it. Of the ruins which remain there is sufficient
to show what its measurements once were. Of the tower, about twelve
feet is still standing, a large portion of the north wall, and several
smaller pieces; these all show that it consisted of a nave about
thirty-four by twenty-three feet inside measurement, and a choir or
sanctuary about thirty-four by twenty feet. There is enough of the
north wall still standing to shew where the spring of the vaulting
began, and thus, approximately, the height of the walls and roof. The
corner of the chancel arch pier is a Caen stone, with a plain beading
on it; there is also trace of a porphyry column on the south side of
the sanctuary, and under the site of the altar is a paving of Malachite
green and buff tiles, some of which still remain; they measure six and
a quarter inches square and were laid alternately.”
The lettering has been explained as standing for “H … Dominus Lihou
Mel,” “H … priest of Lihou Mel, (as Lihou was called in ancient times)
in 1114.”
[174] From Mrs. Savidan.
[175] From Dr. Lukis, to whom the story was told by an old woman at
l’Erée.
EDITOR’S NOTES.
A somewhat similar story was told me in 1896 by Mrs. Le Patourel, who
had heard it from her mother-in-law. A schoolmaster, either at St.
Pierre-du-Bois or at Torteval, was given to witchcraft, and owned one
of these “bad books.” He took it one day to his school and, by an
oversight, left it on his desk. It was a lovely day, and, impatient to
be out, he omitted to lock it up, and hurried home to get his dinner.
Whilst in the middle of eating it, quite suddenly a terrific storm
came on, such thunder and lightning as had never before been seen in
the country, and was most unaccountable in such a hitherto lovely
weather. It seemed to be at its worst just over the school. Terrified,
remembering the book he had left there, he rushed back and there he
found one of the boys reading this book out loud. He snatched the book
from his hand, and asked him to show him where he had begun, and where
he had read to, and then began at once to read _backwards_ from where
the boy had left off. As he read, the storm began to lull, and when
he reached the place where the boy had begun to read, the storm had
stopped as suddenly as it begun. (This is possibly another version of
the story of “Satan and the Schoolmaster,” related in the chapter on
the Devil.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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