GUERNSEY FOLK-LORE.

GUERNSEY FOLK-LORE

A COLLECTION OF
POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS, LEGENDARY TALES,
PECULIAR CUSTOMS, PROVERBS, WEATHER SAYINGS, ETC.,
OF THE PEOPLE OF THAT ISLAND.

FROM MSS. BY THE LATE
SIR EDGAR MacCULLOCH, Knt., F.S.A., &c.
Bailiff of Guernsey.

Edited by Edith F. Carey.

ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS PHOTOGRAPHS OF OLD PRINTS, ETC.

LONDON:
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
Guernsey: F. Clarke, States Arcade.
1903.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

Of late years the ancient superstitions of the people, their legendary tales, their proverbial sayings, and, in fine, all that is designated by the comprehensive term of “Folk-Lore,” have attracted much and deserved attention. Puerile as are many of these subjects, they become interesting when a comparison is instituted amongst them as they exist in various countries. It is then seen how wide is their spread—how, for example, the same incident in a fairy tale, modified according to the manners and customs of the people by whom it is related, extends from the remotest east to the westernmost confines of Europe, and is even found occasionally to re-appear among the wild tribes of the American Continent, and the isolated inhabitants of Polynesia. The ethnologist may find in this an argument for the common origin of all nations, and their gradual spread from one central point,—the philosopher and psychologist may speculate on the wonderful construction of the human mind, and, throwing aside the idea of the unity of the race, may attribute the similarities of tradition to an innate set of ideas, which find their expression in certain definite forms,—while the historian and antiquary may sometimes discover in these popular traditions, a confirmation or explanation of some doubtful point. Lastly, he whose sole object is amusement, and whose taste is not entirely vitiated by the exaggerated and exciting fiction of modern times, will turn with pleasure to the simple tales which have amused his childhood, and which are ever fresh and ever new.

Much of this ancient lore has already perished, and much is every day disappearing before the influence of the printing press, and the consequent extension of education. This would scarcely be regretted, if, at the same time, the degrading superstitions with which much of these old traditions are mixed up could disappear with them, but unfortunately we find by experience that this is not the case, and that these popular delusions only disappear in one form to re-appear in another, equally, if not more, dangerous.

A desire to preserve, before they were entirely forgotten, some of the traditional stories, and other matters connected with the folk-lore of my native island, induced me to attempt to collect and record them, but I have found the task, though pleasant, by no means easy. The last fifty years has made an immense difference here as elsewhere. The influx of a stranger population, and with it the growth and spread of the English tongue, has changed, or modified considerably, the manners and ideas of the people, more particularly in the town. Old customs are forgotten by the rising generation, what amused their fathers and mothers possesses little or no interest for their children, and gradually even the recollection of these matters dies away. There are good grounds for supposing that, although the belief in witchcraft attained its greatest development in the century which succeeded the Reformation, and was as much the creed of the clergy as of the laity, other popular superstitions were looked upon with disfavour, and especially all those customs which were in any way, even remotely, connected with the observances of the ancient form of religion. The rapid spread of dissent among the middle and lower classes of society within the last half century has certainly not had the effect of diminishing popular credulity with respect to the existence of sorcerers and their supernatural powers, but, by discouraging the amusements in which the young naturally delight, and in which the elders took part, it has broken one of the links which connected the present with the past.

Doubtless did one know where to look for it much might still be gleaned among the peasantry, but all who have attempted to make collections of popular lore know how difficult it is to make this class of people open themselves. They fear ridicule, and cannot conceive what interest one can have in seeking for information on subjects which—whatever may be their own private opinion—they have been taught to speak of as foolishness.

Some of the stories in the following compilation were related to me by an old and valued servant of the family, Rachel du Port, others were kindly communicated to me by ladies[1] and others, who had derived their information from similar sources, and whose names I have appended to them, and much is the result of my own research and observation. The subject matter of the following pages, having been collected at various times, and written down as it came to hand, is not arranged as it ought to be, and there are necessarily some repetitions. Whether, after all, the work is worthy of the time that has been spent on it, the reader must decide for himself. Suffice it to say that as far as regards myself it has afforded an occupation and amusement.

Edgar MacCulloch.

Guernsey, February, 1864.

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

Sir Edgar MacCulloch at his death, which occurred July 31st, 1896, bequeathed his manuscript collection of Guernsey Folk-Lore to the Royal Court of Guernsey, of which he had been for so many years Member and President.

This collection was subsequently handed over to me by Sir T. Godfrey Carey, then Bailiff, and the other Members of the Court, to transcribe for publication: it was contained in three manuscript books, closely written on both sides of the pages, and interspersed with innumerable scraps of paper, containing notes, additions and corrections; as Sir Edgar himself says in his preface, the items were written down as collected, local customs, fairy tales, witch stories, one after the other, with no attempt at classification. In literally transcribing them I have endeavoured to place them under their different headings, as recommended by the English Folk-Lore Society, and have inserted the notes in their proper places; and I am responsible for the choice of the quotations heading the various chapters. In every other particular I have copied the manuscript word for word as I received it. It took me over three years to transcribe, and was placed by the Royal Court in the printer’s hands in February, 1900.

It will be noticed that three sizes of type have been used throughout the book; Sir Edgar MacCulloch’s subject matter has been printed in the largest, the Author’s notes to his own text being in the medium, while the notes printed in the smallest type contain additional legends and superstitions, which have been told me, or collected for me, by and from the country people, and which I have added, thereby making the collection more complete. Also, at the end of the book, is an appendix containing a few of the legends collected by myself, which were too long to insert as notes, and a small collection of old Guernsey songs, which I have written down from the lips of the older inhabitants, and which, in one of the last conversations I had with Sir Edgar MacCulloch on the subject, he strongly recommended should be included in any collection of Guernsey Folk-Lore that should ever be published.

I was well aware of the difficulties of the task which I undertook, and how unworthy I, a mere novice, was to edit the work of so eminent an antiquary as the late Sir Edgar MacCulloch; but it was represented to me that I was one of the very few who took any interest in the fast vanishing traditions of the island, that I understood the local dialect, and that I had had many conversations and much assistance from Sir Edgar MacCulloch during his lifetime on the subject; and, more especially, that if I did not do it no one else would undertake it, and thus the result of Sir Edgar’s labours would be lost to the island. This, I trust may be my excuse for assuming so great a responsibility. I feel I should never have accomplished it without the unfailing assistance and kindness of H. A. Giffard, Esq., the present Bailiff of Guernsey, and John de Garis, Esq., Jurat of the Royal Court, members of the Folk-Lore Committee, who have, in the midst of their own hard work, gone through all the proofs in the most untiring manner, and have helped me in every possible way.

The illustrations are from photographs, collected by myself, of old pictures and views illustrating the Guernsey of which Sir Edgar MacCulloch wrote, and which is now so sadly changed, and it will be noticed that in various instances where Sir Edgar writes of “wooded valleys and cornfields, etc.,” in 1864, now (1903) there are nothing but quarries or greenhouses.

I am very grateful to Mr. Grigg, of High Street, for allowing me to use the photographs, taken by his grandson, Mr. William Guerin, of original pictures of Guernsey in his possession; also to Mr. Edgar Dupuy, of the Arcade, and Mr. Singleton, photographer, for the use of photographs done by them of Guernsey scenery.

I cannot conclude without thanking the many friends who have helped me by collecting folk-lore and songs, especially I must mention my cousin, the late Miss Ernestine Le Pelley, who gathered many traditions for me from the west coast of the island, and who, alas! never lived to see the book, in which she took so great an interest, in print. The late Miss Anne Chepmell, who died in 1899, also gave me most valuable assistance, and so have also Mrs. Le Patourel, Mrs. Charles Marquand, Mrs. Mollet, Miss Margaret Mauger, Mrs. Sidney Tostevin, and many others in St. Martin’s parish, who have racked their brains to remember for me “chû que j’ai ouï dire à ma gran’mère.”

Edith F. Carey.

Le Vallon, Guernsey, April, 1903.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Arms of Guernsey, illustrated on the cover, are from a sketch by Sir Edgar MacCulloch himself, drawn many years ago, and then described by him as from the most ancient seal of the island to be found among the records at the Greffe.

ERRATA.

Part I.
Times and Seasons,
Festivals and Merry-makings.

CHAPTER I.
Festival Customs.

The observance of particular days and seasons, and of certain customs connected with them, has been in all countries more or less mixed up with religion. Many of these customs have, it is well known, descended to us from pagan times. The Church, unable altogether to eradicate them, has, in some cases, tacitly sanctioned, in others incorporated them into her own system. At the Reformation some of these observances were thought to savour too strongly of their pagan origin, or to be too nearly allied to papal superstitions. Accordingly we find that in a country like Scotland, where reformation amounted to a total subversion of all the forms which had hitherto subsisted, even such a festival as Christmas was proscribed, and of course with it have fallen all the joyous observances which characterize that season in England. In Guernsey, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to the Restoration of Charles II., the Presbyterian form of Church government reigned supreme, and the ministers seem to have set their faces strongly against anything which in their estimation could be looked upon as superstitious. In the reformed churches of Geneva and France, whose discipline the islands had adopted, all Saints’ days had been abolished, and, although the greater festivals of Christmas and Whitsuntide were retained, there were those in the insular congregations who would gladly have seen these also discarded. Dr. Peter Heylin, who visited the islands in 1629, tells us how “the Ministers were much heartened in their inconformity by the practice of De La Place, who, stomaching his disappointment in the loss of the Deanery of Jersey, abandoned his native country, and retired to Guernsey, where he breathed nothing but confusion to the English Liturgy, the person of the new Dean (David Bandinel), and the change of government. Whereas there was a lecture weekly every Thursday in the Church of St. Peter’s-on-the-Sea, when once the feast of Christ’s Nativity fell upon that day, he rather chose to disappoint the hearers, and put off the sermon, than that the least honour should reflect on that ancient festival.”

We find that in the year 1622 the Clergy of the Island complained to the Royal Court of the practice that existed in the rural parishes of people going about on the Eve of St. John and on the last day of the year begging from house to house—a custom, which, in their opinion, savoured much of the old leaven of Popery, and which, under the guise of charity, introduced and nourished superstition among their flocks; whereupon an ordinance was framed and promulgated, forbidding the practice under the penalty of a fine or whipping.

A little later, begging at Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials was prohibited on like grounds, and about the same time sumptuary laws were passed controlling the expenses on these occasions, and limiting the guests that might be invited to persons in the nearest degrees of consanguinity. Dancing and singing were also forbidden, and any persons convicted of these heinous crimes were to perform public penance in their parish church, barefooted and bareheaded, enveloped in a sheet, and holding a lighted torch in their hand.

It is not therefore to be wondered at if many observances and customs, innocent in themselves, came to be forgotten, and this would be more especially the case with such as were connected with the festivals of the Church. Still some few observances and superstitions have survived, and of these we will now endeavour to give the best account we can. We would, however, previously remark that the Guernsey people are an eminently holiday-loving race, and that, notwithstanding their long subjection to Presbyterian rule, and the ascetic spirit of modern dissent, the love of amusement is still strong in them. Christmas Day and the day following, the first two days of the year, the Monday and Tuesday at Easter and Whitsuntide, Midsummer Day and the day after, are all seasons when there is an almost total cessation of work, and all give themselves up to gaiety—and the household must be poor indeed where a cake is not made on these occasions.

But before launching into a description of their ceremonies, festivals, and superstitions, perhaps it might prove of interest if we here attempt to give a slight description of the dress of our island forefathers at different periods, during the last three hundred years, drawn from various sources.

We will begin by an extract from a letter written by Mr. George Métivier, that eminent antiquary, historian, and philologist, to the Star of June 20th, 1831:—

A Guernseyman Three Centuries Ago.

“Suppose we conjure up a Guernseyman in his winter dress—a specimen of the outer man, such as it appeared on high-days and holidays ‘sighing like a furnace to its mistress’ eye-brow’ in the reign of the most puissant King Henry VIII., and under the long dynasty of the five Westons—(James Guille, the son-in-law of one of them, was then Bailiff). It is probable that the insular gentleman, in the highest sense of that important word, copied the dress of his English and Norman friends, as well as their manner, whether in good or evil.

“Similitude excludes peculiarity: we have therefore nothing to do with Monsieur le Gouverneur, or Monsieur le Baillif, or the most refined in wardrobe matters of his learned assessors. It is certain, however, that the generality of our ancestors—‘l’honnête’ and sometimes ‘le prudhomme’—derived the materials and cut of their raiment from St. Malo’s—whence their very houses were occasionally imported—ready built. We are indebted to a writer of the Elizabethan era for the source of the following portrait.

“Le cadaû,[2] the chief article of a Guernseyman’s winter costume, exactly resembled, both in name and form, the primitive Irish mantle. Generally composed of wool, or of a kind of shag-rug, bordered with fur, it descended in ample folds till it reached the heels. A surface of such extraordinary dimensions might have exposed the wearer to some inconvenience in stormy weather: but our fathers, no novices in the art of cloak-wearing, knew how to furl and unfurl this magnificent wrapper, and suit its folds and plaits to all changes of the season. In the first Charles’ reign, the Jersey farmers, who still ‘bartered the surplusage of their corn with the Spanish merchants at St. Malo’s,’ were far better acquainted with that long-robed nation than we can now pretend to be. To the cadaû was attached a carapouce[3]—an enormous hood. If made of serge or good cloth, it was still a carapouce; if the material was coarse—such as friars wore through humility, or mariners and fishermen from motives of economy—the carapouce degenerated into a couaille. The sea-farer’s top-coat affords an instance, not yet quite obsolete, of this island’s former partiality for Armorican tailors, dresses, and names—a Tardif and a Dorey will show you their grigo.[4]

“The residence of mind—for our ancestor, this ‘fine fleur de Norman,’ probably had one—was not forgotten. Muffled up in a voluminous hood, like that of a Spanish frayle, it was further protected by the native wig—‘la perruque naturelle’—and kept warm by a bonnet, part of the cadaû uniform, yclept la barrette. The original biread—a lay mitre, not then peculiar to Ireland—was a conical cap, somewhat resembling the foraging military bonnet.…

“His Grace, or Holiness—we are a bad hand at title dealing—the Right Reverend Primate of Normandy, having once preached a most godlie and comfortable sermon against long bushy perriwigs, descended from his pulpit in the Cathedral of Rouen, scissors in hand, then doing merciless execution therewith on King Henry I. and all the princely and noble heads committed to his charge, exhorted them to perpetrate a crime for which that traitor deserved to lose his own.”