The places called “La Bataille[231]” and “La Ruette Meurtrière” have already been mentioned as the spots where the great battle took place. The “Rouge Rue,” leading down the hill to the westward of St. John’s Church, is said to derive its name from the blood spilt on this occasion. If this really be the origin of the name, we may suppose that the islanders, retreating towards the Vale Castle, or perhaps the Château des Marais, were overtaken there, and that a second engagement took place. But there is reason to believe that the tradition relates to another locality in quite a different direction, which in times gone by bore also the name of “La Rouge Rue,” but which has long ceased to be so called. We speak of the upper part of Hauteville, sloping southwards towards the valley of Havelet. According to the late Miss Lauga, who died at the advanced age of eighty-five, her mother, who had inherited from her ancestors property in this neighbourhood, always spoke of it as “La Rouge Rue,” and said that a sanguinary battle had been fought in ancient days on this spot. And, indeed, this name appears in the old contracts and title-deeds, by which property in the neighbourhood is held. The consequence of its having ceased to be known popularly by its ancient appellation would naturally be that the traditionary tale of the name being derived from the blood spilt there would be transferred to another and better known locality, which chanced—perhaps simply from the colour of the soil—to bear the same name.
Firearms were of such recent invention that it is scarcely to be supposed that any had as yet found their way to Guernsey. If, however, any faith can be placed in tradition, their use and construction were not totally unknown in the island, for it is said that the trunk of a tree was hollowed out and bound round with iron hoops, but that when this deadly weapon was loaded, no one could be found bold enough to fire it, until a child, ignorant of the risk he was incurring, was induced, by the promise of a cake, to perform the dangerous feat.
It is also said that the women of the island contributed all their ear-rings and other jewels to buy off the invaders; and it was very generally believed that a peculiar breed of small but strong and spirited horses—now unfortunately extinct—was derived from those that had escaped during the battle, and so had remained in the island after the Spaniards left.
The tradition, which confounds Ivon’s forces with the fairies, relates how all the islanders were killed, except a man and a boy of St. Andrew’s parish, who concealed themselves in an oven, over the mouth of which a woman spread her black petticoat, and so escaped; and how the conquerors, who are described as a very diminutive race, married the widows and maidens, and so re-peopled the island. The small stature and dark complexion of some families are occasionally appealed to as proofs of this origin.
Perhaps this tradition may be an indistinct recollection of a far earlier invasion and possession of the island by some of the piratical hordes from the North, that began to infest the coasts of the Channel as early as the beginning of the fifth century. These were not unlikely to have subjugated the men of the island, and to have taken forcible possession of their wives, and any tradition of the event might very naturally be transferred from one invasion to another, and come finally to be fixed on the last and best known.
The ballad, of which an English translation is attempted, has evidently suffered much from the defective memory of reciters, and the carelessness of transcribers, so that some of the stanzas appear to be almost hopelessly corrupt. The main incidents of the story are, however, tolerably well defined. It seems to have been composed originally in French, and not in the Norman dialect used in the island. The stanzas consist of the unusual number of seven lines, of which the first and third rhyme together, and the second, fourth, fifth and sixth—the seventh rhyming occasionally with the first and third, but more frequently standing alone. In some verses assonances take the place of more perfect rhymes, which may be adduced as a proof of the antiquity of the ballad. Perhaps it would not be impossible, by comparing the various copies, choosing the readings which appear least corrupt, altering here and there the position of a line in the stanza, or the arrangement of the words that compose it, or even sometimes changing a word where the exigencies of the rhyme seem to require it, to produce a copy that would offend less against the rules of prosody; but this is a process which would require great care, and which respect for antiquity forbids us to attempt.
We must take the ballad, with all its faults and imperfections, as we find it.
Evan of Wales, or the Invasion of Guernsey in 1372.
Part the First.
I.