There are many stories still told and firmly believed by the country people, of Marie Pipet, who was a noted “sorcière“ of the early part of the nineteenth century. She came of a race of witches and wizards, thus described in Redstone’s Guernsey and Jersey Guide, by Louisa Lane Clarke, (Second Edition, 1844), p. 86.
“On the road past St. Andrew’s Church, one of the lanes to the right leads to the village called “Le Hurel,”[354] a collection of mere huts; rude, dirty looking cottages, but remarkable from the people who tenant it. They are a kind of half gipsy, half beggar race, bearing the name of Pipet; and kept totally distinct from every other family, because no person would intermarry with them upon any consideration. Their appearance and features are quite unlike the rest of the Guernsey peasantry, who are extremely good-looking, clean, and active; whereas those Pipets may be found basking in the sun, with anything but a prepossessing exterior. The country people consider them as wizards and witches, and, at certain times of the year, about Christmas, when they are privileged to go round and beg for their Noël, or “irvières” (New Year’s gifts), no one likes to send them away empty handed for fear of the consequences to themselves, their cattle, or their children.” Even to this day the country people have a great dread of “Les Pipiaux.”[355]
My father’s old nurse, Margaret Mauger, told me that the cook at old Mr. Fred Mansell’s, of the Vauxbelets, (about the year 1850), was a great friend of hers, and told her that one day Marie Pipet came into the Vauxbelets kitchen, and demanded some favour which was refused. “Tu t’en repentiras,” she said, and went out of the door and sat on the adjoining hedge to await developments. Meanwhile the sirloin which was being cooked for Mr. Mansell’s dinner refused to be cooked! For hours she turned it round and round on the jack in front of the fire. The heat had apparently no effect on it, and it was as raw as when she first put it there. Finally, in despair, the cook went to her master, and told him what had happened. So he sent for Marie Pipet, and told her if she did not disenchant his dinner she would spend the night in gaol, (he was a Jurat of the Royal Court). With a curtsey she replied that if he would go into his kitchen he would find his sirloin ready for eating, and, at that moment, the cook declared, it suddenly turned brown!
There are many stories told of Marie Pipet in St. Pierre-du-Bois. One old woman, Judith Ozanne, told Miss Le Pelley that Marie Pipet, “la sorcière,” once asked her grandmother, old Mrs. Ozanne, for some milk. This was refused her, so she prevented the cows from eating, and they were all pining away. So then her grandfather took his pitchfork, and, going straight to the witch, compelled her, under the fear of corporal punishment, to undo the spell.
Judith Ozanne also tells the following story of Marie Pipet, which she affirms is true. One day Marie took her corn to the Grands Moulins (the King’s Mills) to be ground. The two young men who were in charge of the mill said “Oh dear no, they were not going to grind her corn,” and so she returned home, but the mill-stones turned round and round and round so quickly that no corn would grind, and nothing would stop them, so they had to call back Marie Pipet and promise to grind her corn for her, and, as soon as her corn was put in, the millstones worked as usual.
Mr. Métivier gives a story of Marie Pipet which was current in his day, in his Souvenirs Historiques de Guernesey.
“The incomparable Marie, so dreaded by the millers of the King’s Mills, because she often amused herself by unhinging our mills, rests in peace on the good side (au bon côté) of the Castel churchyard.[356] It is firmly believed, and frequently told, how she, and other members of her family, could metamorphose themselves as “cahouettes”—red-legged choughs. One day, in the form of one of these birds, she was discovered in a cow stable, and run through the thigh by the proprietor of the stable, with his pitchfork. The bird managed to escape, but the woman Marie Pipet was obliged to keep her bed for six months with a terrible and mysterious wound in her leg, by which of course the metamorphosis was proved.”[357]
Possibly a bird of such evil omen, having red legs, accounts for the fact that to this day our country people tell you that all witches who go to dance at the Catioroc wear red stockings.[358]
All witches are supposed to be endowed with the faculty of keeping the person they have bewitched walking—walking, for hours perhaps, in a circle, to which they cannot find a clue.