In the district called Le Tort Càmp, near Paradis, was one of the principal Cromlechs at the Vale, now quarried away, called “L’Autel,” or “Le Tombeau du Grand Sarrazin.” Who “Le Grand Sarrazin” was, it is now impossible to say. He is also called Le Grand Geffroi, and his castle--from whence the name “Le Castel”--stood where the Church of Ste. Marie-du-Castel now stands. He must have been one of those piratical sea kings, who, under the various appellations of Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Northmen or Normans, issued from the countries bordering on the North Sea and the Baltic, and invaded the more favoured regions of Britain and Gaul. The name “Geffroy,” (_Gudfrid_, or “la paix de Dieu”) seems to confirm this tradition. As to the term “Sarrazin”--Saracen, although originally given to the Mahometans who invaded the southern countries of Europe, it came to be applied indifferently to all marauding bands; and Wace, the poet and historian, a native of Jersey, who lived and wrote in the reign of Henry II., in speaking of the descent of the Northmen on these islands, calls them expressly “La Gent Sarrazine.” Among the many Geoffreys of the North whom history celebrates, there is one, a son of King Regnar, who may be the one celebrated in our local traditions. Charles the Bald yielded to him “a county on the Sequanic shore.” At that time the coast of Gaul was divided into three sea-borders, namely, the Flemish, the Aquitanian, and the Sequanic, called “Sequanicum littus” by Paul Warnefrid, who places one of these islands near it. That his castle stood at one time on the site of the present church, is confirmed by the discoveries which have frequently been made in digging graves, of considerable masses of solid masonry, which appear to be the foundations of former outworks of the fortress. It is even possible that some portions of the walls of the church may be the remains of the earlier building. There are also in the neighbourhood “Le Fief Geffroi” and “Le Camp Geffroi.”[55]