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
EDITOR’S NOTE.--See in _Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute
Bretagne_ par Paul Sebillot, Tome I., p. 10 and 11, etc.:--“Les Roches
aux Fées qui sont vers Saint-Didier et Marpiré (Ille-et-Vilaine) ont
été elevées par les Fées; elles prenaient les plus grosses pierres du
pays et les apportaient dans leurs tabliers.… Près du bois du Rocher
en Pleudihan, sur la route de Dinan à Dol, est un dolmen que les
fées, disent les gens du pays, ont apporté dant leurs ‘devantières’
(tabliers).”
[61] From William Le Poidevin.
EDITOR’S NOTES.--These two traditions are still told by the country
people in 1896.
“LA ROQUE DES FAÏES.”
A little beyond the village called “Le Bourg de la Forêt” there stood
formerly an upright stone, which was known by the name of “La Roque des
Faïes,”--the fairies’ stone. It was unfortunately destroyed when the
road was improved. The people in the neighbourhood were rather shy of
passing it at night, as it was believed that the place was haunted, and
that fairies held their nightly revels there. Like other stones of a
similar nature it was said to have been placed there by the elves to
serve as a goal or mark in their games of ball or bowls; and, according
to some accounts, the “Longue Roque” at “Les Paysans” in the adjoining
parish of St. Pierre-du-Bois was the other boundary. It is not at all
unlikely that these stones may really have served for such a purpose
in days of yore, if not for the fairy-folk, at least for mortals. What
is more probable than that the peasantry of the islands should have
had the same games as existed until lately in Cornwall under the name
of “hurling,” and in Brittany under the name of “La Soule,” as well as
elsewhere, in which the young men of the neighbouring districts met
at certain seasons on the confines of their respective parishes, and
contended which should first bear a ball to a spot previously fixed on
as the goal in each?
It is said that the spot where the stone in question stood was
originally fixed on as the site of the Parish Church of the Forest; but
that, after all the materials had been got together for the purpose of
laying the foundations of the sacred edifice they were removed in the
short space of one night by the fairies to the place where the church
now stands, the little people thus resenting the intrusion on their
domain.[62]
[62] From Mrs. Richard Murton, born Caroline Le Tullier.
“LE GIBET DES FAÏES.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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