Marie Pipet, one day being offended with a man, made him walk backwards and forwards one whole night between the Vauxbelets and St. Andrew’s Church.[359]
[354] Hure, Hurel, and Huret, all frequently met with as place-names in Guernsey, mean “rocky ground.”—Métivier’s Dictionnaire.
[355] The Guernsey people have a way of making plurals of many words ending in “et” or “ert” or “el,” by substituting “iaux,” as:—Pipets = Pipiaux, Robert (a very common surname) Robiaux, Coquerel = Coqueriaux, bouvet, bouviaux, touffet, touffiaux.
[356] In Guernsey the south side of our churchyard was “le bon côté.” The north side, (according to the old Norse mythology, where hell and its attendant demons were situated in the north) was reserved for criminals, suicides, etc.
[357] The “Cahouettes” or red-legged choughs, have always, according to Mr. Métivier (see his Dictionnaire, art. “Cahouettes”), played a prominent rôle in the Néo-Latin mythology. According to the Council of Nismes, 1281, witches and wizards metamorphosed themselves into “Cahouets” and “Cahouettes.” Raphaël, Archbishop of Nicosia, capital of the island, excommunicated all cahouets and cahouettes, as well as all who maintained and encourage games of chance.
[358] From Margaret Mauger, who also said that in her youth if one met an old woman in the town wearing red stockings, it was always said “V’là une des sorcières du Catioroc!” In Holbein’s Crucifixion, 1477, now at Augsberg, a devil which carries off the soul of the impenitent thief has the head of an ape, bat-wings, and flaming red legs.
[359] From Margaret Mauger.
The Wizard of Sark.
About the end of the eighteenth century there lived in Sark a very notorious wizard called Pierre de Carteret. An old Sark woman called Betsy Hamon, now Mrs. de Garis, has given Miss Le Pelley, whose servant she is, the following particulars concerning him:—
Pierre de Carteret, called “le vieux diable,” lived in Sark. He always worked at night, and when the fishermen passed by his house at night they heard him talking to the little devils who worked for him. They could not understand, for it was the devil’s language they talked. He built a boat in a barn in one morning, and the Sark people were amazed to see it launched in the Creux harbour. This was Black Art, for the boat was too large to go out of the door, and also his house was not quite close to the sea.