Here they landed. Negotiations were entered on with Brégart, the Prior or Commissary of St. Michel du Valle, a dependency of the famous Abbey of Mont St. Michel in Normandy, and Ivon laid siege to the Vale Castle, whither Aymon Rose, the Governor of the island, whom we hear of for the first time, had retreated and entrenched himself.
Summoned by Ivon to surrender, he refused, but agreed to sanction an arrangement which Brégart had made with the people, and which seems to have had for object to buy off the invaders by payment of a sum of money.
The ballad assigns this as the origin of the charge on land called “champart,” but it is certain that this species of tithe existed long before this time.
Most of the copies end here, but some have a second part, of which we have already spoken, and which was probably written at a later period.
It is difficult to account for the discrepancy between the local account and that of Froissart and others as to the name of the Castle into which the Governor, Aymon Rose, retired, unless by the supposition that the historians knew Castle Cornet by name as a fortress deemed impregnable, and assumed, without further inquiry, that it must be the one in which the Governor entrenched himself.
Houses formerly facing West Door of Town Church.
An event of so much importance was well calculated to make a lasting impression on the people. And to this day “Les Aragousais” are spoken of, and various traditions relating to them are repeated. It is singular, however, to find that with the lapse of time they have come to be looked upon as a supernatural race—in fact, to be confounded with the fairies. The form which this traditional remembrance of them has taken will be found on page 204, and tends in some degree to confirm the idea entertained by some writers on fairy mythology that many of the tales related of those fantastic beings may be accounted for by the theory that they refer to an earlier race of men, gradually driven out by tribes more advanced in civilisation.