[55] Editor’s Note.—Referring to “Le Grand Sarrazin,” Dupont says in his Histoire du Cotentin et ses Iles, Vol I., p. 140-41:—“Le personnage ainsi désigné ne peut être que l’un de ces avanturiers Norses qui furent souvent confondus avec les Sarrazins. Wace lui-même appelle les envahisseurs des îles les “gent Sarrazine.” Le “Grand Geffroi” était, selon toute vrai semblance le célèbre Jarl Godefrid ou Godefroy fils d’Hériald. Son père, après avoir détruit l’eglise du Mont Saint Michel fut assassiné par les comtes francs, et pour le venger, il se jeta sur la Frise et sur la Neustrie. Après trois ans de ravage il se fit, en 850, concéder par Charles-le-Chauve une certaine étendue de terre, que le savant danois Suhne conjecture avoir été située dans nôtre province. L’histoire générale, on le voit, confirme donc singulièrement la tradition conservée à Guernesey, en lui donnant une date précise; et cette tradition elle-même rend à peu près certain le fait fort intéressant, et si souvent obscur, d’un établissement permament des Normands en Neustrie, plus d’un demi-siècle avant sa prise en possession par Rolle; elle prouve, enfin, le rôle important que les îles du Contentin remplirent durant ces époques calamiteuses.”
“L’Autel de Déhus.”
Quite close to where “Le Tombeau du Grand Sarrazin” was situated, close to the Pointe au Norman, in the environs of Paradis,[56] in the Vale parish, and bordering on the Hougues d’Enfer, is the Pouquelêh de Déhus. This spot, as well as some fields in the Castel parish called “Les Déhusets” or “Les Tuzets,” are supposed to be favourite resorts of the fairies.
M. de Villemarque, in his Barzas-Breiz, the work so well known to folk-lorists, tells us that the Bretons gave the imps or goblins, whom they call pigmies, amongst others the name of “Duz,” diminutive “Duzik,” a name they bore in the time of St. Augustine; and he also says that they, like fairies, inhabit Dolmens. Mr. Métivier explains the name “Déhus” or “Dhuss” as the “God of the Dead, and of Riches,” the Dis of the Gauls in the time of Cæsar, Théos in Greek, Deus in Latin—le Dus, or le Duc. He says “Our Dehussets are nothing but Dhus i gou, spirits of the dead and goblins of the deep.”
The exterior circle measures sixty feet in diameter, by forty in length, and the direction is from east to west. The enormous block of granite which serves as a roof to the western chamber is the most striking part of it. At the extremity of this chamber is a cell, the outer compartment eleven feet in length by nine in width. The adjoining one is of the same length. On the northern side a singular appendix in the form of a side chamber joins the two smaller rooms just described. There has also been discovered a fifth cell, the roof of which was formed of granite resting on three or four pillars, at the corner of the northern chamber. But the most interesting discovery of all was that of two kneeling skeletons, side by side, but placed in opposite positions, that is to say, one looking towards the north, the other towards the south. Besides these, bones of persons of both sexes and all ages, a stone hatchet, some pottery and limpet shells, were also found inside this place of sepulchre. It was long supposed to be haunted by fairies, imps, and ghosts, perhaps the same spirits who, in the haunted field of “Les Tuzés,” are reported to have removed the foundations of the intended Parish Church of the Castel to its present site. There is also a “Le Déhuzel” in the neighbourhood of the Celtic remains near L’Erée.
[56] Editor’s Note.—Près de Louvigné-du-Désert, est un groupe de dix à douze blocs gigantiques de granite. On a aussi donné le nom de “Rue de Paradis, du Purgatoire, et de l’Enfer” aux intervalles étroits qui séparent ces énormes blocs.—Traditions de la Haute Bretagne, par Paul Sebillot, T. I., p. 34.
“Le Trépied, or the Catioroc.”
This Cromlech is on a rocky promontory, south-west of Perelle Bay, in the beautiful parish of St. Saviour’s. The derivation of its name, “Castiau-Roc”—as it is properly—is from the “Castelh Carreg” “Castle Rock” of the Gauls. As one approaches it one is struck by the vestiges of Cromlechs with their circles, and bits of “Longues Roques.” In olden days, before so much of the surroundings were quarried away, this must have been only one among many other conspicuous objects down there. The names “La Roque Fendue,” “La Roque au Tonnerre,” “Plateau ès Roques,” “La Pièche des Grandes Roques du Castiau-Roc,” which are mentioned in various “Livres de Perquages,” are all that remain of these ancient remains. Much to be regretted is the disappearance of the “Portes du Castiau-Roc,” which might perhaps have helped us to define with some exactitude where this problematic castle once stood, and perhaps identify it with the fortified mounts of the Celts and Irish. It is noted in our island annals for being the midnight haunt of our witches and wizards. In the trials for witchcraft held under Amias de Carteret in the beginning of the seventeenth century, it was there that his trembling victims confessed to having come and danced on Friday nights, in honour of the gigantic cat or goat with black fur, called “Baal-Bérith” or “Barberi,” nowadays “Lucifer.” Near this rock was the “Chapel of the Holy Virgin” on Lihou Island, now in ruins, and it is said that the witches even defied the influence of “the Star of the Sea,” shouting in chorus while they danced,
“Qué, hou, hou,
Marie Lihou.”