[59] Editor’s Note.—This is still believed, for in 1896, when my aunt, Mrs. Curtis, bought some land on Mont Saint, and built a house there, the country people told her that it was very unlucky to go there and disturb the fairy people in the spot where they dance.
My cousin, Miss Le Pelley, writes in 1896 from St. Pierre-du-Bois, saying “The people still believe the Creux des Fées and ‘Le Trepied’ to have been the fairies’ houses, and as proof one woman told me that when they dug down they found all kinds of pots and pans and china things.”
“La Longue Roque” or “Palette es Faïes.”
In a field in the parish of St. Pierre-du-Bois, on the way to L’Erée and in the neighbourhood of the secluded valley of St. Brioc and the woody nook in which the ancient chapel dedicated to that Saint once stood, stands one of those Celtic monuments, many of which are still to be seen in Brittany and Cornwall, and which are known in those countries by the name of “Menhir.” This word in the Breton tongue, and in its cognate dialect the ancient language of Cornwall, signifies “long stone.” The name which similar monuments bear in Normandy and Brittany in this island is “longue pierre” or “longue roque,” a literal translation of the Celtic name. There must have been at one time many “longues roques” in Guernsey. Another still stands in a field near the road at Richmond. There was in 1581 “la pièche de la longue pierre, la pierre séante dedans,”—a part of the Fief ès Cherfs, at the Castel. There was also “la Roque Séante dans le courtil de la Hougue au Comte,” and the “Roque-à-Bœuf dans le Courtil au Sucq du chemin de l’église,” near St. George, but these latter have long since disappeared, though a house near the field still bears the name.
Antiquaries are very much divided in opinion as to the original destination of these singular masses of rock; it is not wonderful that they should prove a puzzle and a source of wonder to the unlettered peasantry. How were such immense blocks placed upright, and for what purpose? The agency of supernatural beings is an easy answer to the question, and some such cause is usually assigned for their origin by the tradition of the country. Sometimes they are the work of fairies, sometimes of giants and magicians, and sometimes they are said to be mortals changed into stone by an offended deity for some sacrilegious act, or heroes petrified as a lasting testimony of their exploits.
The Menhir at St. Peter’s-in-the-Wood stands in a field at Les Paysans, so called from the name of the extinct family who once possessed it. It is over ten feet in height, and about three feet wide, and the people’s name for it, “Palette ès faïes”—the fairies’ battledore,—describes it exactly. Tradition says that in former days a man who was returning homewards at a very late hour of the night, or who had risen before the lark to visit his nets in Rocquaine Bay, was astonished at meeting a woman of very diminutive stature coming up the hill from the sea-shore. She was knitting, while carrying in her apron something with as much care and tenderness as if it had been a clutch of eggs, or a newly-born babe. The man’s curiosity was excited, and he determined to watch the little woman. He therefore concealed himself behind a hedge and followed her movements. At last the woman stopped, and great was the astonishment of the countryman when he saw her produce a mass of stone of at least fifteen feet in length, and stick it upright in the midst of the field, with as much ease as if she were merely sticking a pin into a pincushion. He then comprehended that the unknown female could be no other than a denizen of fairy-land, but what could be her object in erecting such a monument? The people are at a loss in finding an answer to this question. Some say the stone was placed there by the fairies to serve them as a mark when they played at ball.[60]
There is another story told to account for “La Palette ès Faïes.” It is well known that Rocquaine and its environs was the abode par excellence of the fairy folk, and in the valley of St. Brioc two of these fairies once lived. Whether they were father and son, or what other relationship existed between them, is not known, but among the human inhabitants of the valley they went by the names of Le Grand Colin and Le Petit Colin. They were fond of sports, and occasionally amused themselves with a game of ball on the open and tolerably level fields of Les Paysans. On one occasion they had placed their boundary marks, and had played some rounds, when Le Grand Colin struck the ball with such force that it bounded off quite out of sight. Le Petit Colin, whose turn it was to play, called out to his companion, with some degree of ill-humour, that the ball had disappeared beyond the bounds, on which Le Grand Colin struck his bat with force into the ground, and said he would play no more. The bat still remains in the centre of the field, and the ball—an enormous spherical boulder—is pointed out on the sea-shore near Les Pezeries, fully a mile and a half off.[61]
[60] From Miss Lane, afterwards Mrs. Lane-Clarke.
Editor’s Note.—See in Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute Bretagne par Paul Sebillot, Tome I., p. 10 and 11, etc.:—“Les Roches aux Fées qui sont vers Saint-Didier et Marpiré (Ille-et-Vilaine) ont été elevées par les Fées; elles prenaient les plus grosses pierres du pays et les apportaient dans leurs tabliers.… Près du bois du Rocher en Pleudihan, sur la route de Dinan à Dol, est un dolmen que les fées, disent les gens du pays, ont apporté dant leurs ‘devantières’ (tabliers).”
[61] From William Le Poidevin.