CHAPTER XIII.
Story Telling.
“In winter tedious nights sit by the fire,
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales.”
—King Richard II.
When, in former days, neighbours were in the habit of meeting together on such occasions as “la grande querrue,” “la longue veille,” or the more ordinary “veillées,”—at which the women of the neighbourhood, young and old, used to assemble in turn at each other’s houses, and ply their knitting needles by the light of a single lamp and the warmth of a single hearth, thereby economising oil and fuel,—it was customary to break the monotony of the conversation by calling on each of the company in turn to relate some tale or anecdote. Most of these are simple enough, but in the mouth of a skillful story-teller are still capable of exciting a laugh among the unsophisticated audiences to whom they are addressed.
A favourite class of stories were those in which the inhabitants of the sister islands of Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, were held up to ridicule, and the following tales, trifling and absurd as they are, may suffice to give some idea of this sort of narrative.