“La Roque Balan” was situated at the Mielles, in the Vale parish. It is supposed by some to have taken its name from Baal, Belenus, (the Sun God), the Apollo of the Gauls, whom the Thuriens, a Grecian colony, called _Ballen_, “Lord and King,” and to whom they dedicated a temple at Baïeux. The custom of lighting fires in honour of Bel or Baal continued in Scotland and Ireland almost to the beginning of this century. In Guernsey, at Midsummer, on the Eve of St. John’s Day, June 24th, the people used to go to this rock and there dance on its summit, which Mr. Métivier describes in 1825 as being quite flat. The refrain of an old ballad proved this: _“J’iron tous à la St. Jean_ _Dansaïr à la Roque Balan.”_ Some people conjecture this rock to be the base of a balancing, or Logan stone, and others again that it was the site where Dom Mathurin, Prior of St. Michel, weighed in the _balances_ the commodities of his tenants. But the most probable supposition is that it was named after the _Ballen_ family, former residents of this neighbourhood. Near this rock stood “LA ROQUE QUI SONNE.” This was the name given by the peasantry to a large stone which formerly stood on the borders of L’Ancresse, in the Vale parish. There is no doubt that it formed part of a Cromlech, and it is said that when struck it emitted a clear ringing sound. It was looked upon in the neighbourhood as something supernatural, and great was the astonishment and consternation of the good people of the Clos du Valle, when Mr. Hocart, of Belval, the proprietor of the field in which it stood, announced his intention of breaking it up in order to make doorposts and lintels for the new house he was on the point of building. In vain did the neighbours represent that stone was not scarce in the Vale, and that there was no necessity for destroying an object of so much curiosity. No arguments could prevail with him, not even the predictions of certain grey-headed men, the oracles of the parish, who assured him that misfortune was sure to follow his sacrilegious act. He was one of those obstinate men, who, the more they are spoken to, the less will they listen to reason, and finally the stone-cutters were set to work on the stone. But now a circumstance occurred which would have moved any man less determined than Hocart from his purpose. Every stroke of the hammer on the stone was heard as distinctly at the Church of St. Michel du Valle, distant nearly a mile, as if the quarrymen were at work in the very churchyard itself![52] Orders were nevertheless given to the men to continue their work. The stone was cut into building materials, and the new house was rapidly approaching completion without accident or stoppage. Hocart laughed at the predictions of the old men, who had foretold all sorts of disasters.