On the birth of a child notice is usually sent to the nearest relations, and as soon as the mother is sufficiently recovered she receives the visits and congratulations of her friends. It is customary to offer cake and wine to the visitors on these occasions. The wine must on no account be refused, but the health of the child must be duly drunk, and the glass drained, for it is considered extremely unlucky to leave a drop behind. The christening feast still retains the ancient name of “Les Aubailles” from the white garment or alb—in French “aube”—with which, in the early church, the recipients of baptism were solemnly invested. It is customary for the sponsors to make a present to the child, which usually takes the form of silver spoons, or a drinking cup. Before the re-establishment of Episcopacy at the Restoration there appears to have been only one sponsor of each sex. Of course the rubric which orders that every boy shall have two godfathers, and every girl two godmothers, is now complied with, but the second is invariably styled by the people the “little” godfather or godmother, and is often a child or very young person evidently only put in to comply with the requirements of the church.
The excess of feasting at baptisms and churchings as well as at marriages and funerals seems to have reached to such an extent in the early part of the seventeenth century as to call for repressive measures on the part of the legislature, at that time deeply imbued with a puritanical spirit, and sumptuary laws of a very stringent nature were promulgated restricting the invitations on these occasions to the nearest relations, and prohibiting entirely all dancing, and even almsgiving.
After baptism the child is sent round to its nearest relatives, and the old women say that a present of some sort, preferably an egg, should be placed in the infant’s hands, while visitors to the child are always expected to put some money in the infant’s hand for luck, and as a token that it shall never want, the value of the gift being of little moment.
It is thought very unlucky to measure or weigh a child, such a proceeding being sure to stop its growth; and it is also supposed to be very unlucky to cover up a baby’s face when taking it to the church to be christened, until the ceremony is over.
It is considered peculiarly unlucky for three children to be presented at the font at the same time for baptism, as it is firmly believed that one of the three is sure to die within the year.[41]—Communicated by the Rev. C. D. P. Robinson, Rector of St. Martin’s.
[41] Editor’s Note.—This superstition still continues, and was told me in 1896 by Mrs. Le Patourel and others. The doomed baby is supposed to be the one christened second, or the middle one, and you still hear women say when their child has been christened with two others, “Oh, but mine was an end one.”
From the reign of Elizabeth to the Restoration of Charles II., the Presbyterian form of church government, with its rigorous discipline, prevailed in the Island, and the betrothal—“fiançailles”[42] of persons intending to take upon themselves the holy state of matrimony was a solemn act, performed in the presence of the ministers and elders of the church, and which by an ordinance of the Royal Court of the year 1572, was to be followed by marriage within six months at the latest. The legislature of that day evidently disapproved of long engagements. The promise was usually confirmed by a gift on the part of the bridegroom of some article of value, which was to be held by the bride as an earnest for the performance of the contract, and returned in case the match was broken off by mutual consent. Traces of this custom are still to be observed in the formal announcement of the engagement to relations, and in the visits paid to them by the young couple in order to introduce each other reciprocally to those with whom they are to be hereafter more closely connected, as well as in the importance attached to the presents, locally termed “gages”[43] (pledges) given by the young man to his affianced bride.
A round of entertainments usually succeeds the announcement of the intended marriage, at which in former days mulled wine used to be “de rigueur,” as indeed it was at all family merry makings and occasions of rejoicings.
Among the trading, agricultural, and labouring classes each party is expected to bring his or her portion of the articles necessary to set up housekeeping. The man, for example, provides the bedstead, the woman, the bed and the household linen, and very often the crockery and furniture. All, however, is looked upon as belonging to the wife, and is frequently secured to her by a regular contract entered into before marriage, so that in case of the husband getting into pecuniary difficulties, his creditors cannot lay claim to the household furniture. The handsomely carved oaken chests, or large leather-covered boxes studded with brass nails, which were formerly to be seen in almost all the old country houses, were used to contain the stock of linen, and appear to have been in early days almost the only piece of ornamental furniture of which the house could boast. This used to be brought to the bridegroom’s residence, with the rest of the articles provided by the bride, a day or two before the wedding, and with a certain degree of form, the bridegroom, or his best man, conducting the cart which contained them,[44] and the nearest unmarried female relative of the bride carrying the looking-glass or some other valued or brittle article. A similar custom still exists in Normandy and Brittany. It is considered highly unlucky for a bride to take any other way in going to the church to be married than that which she follows when going thither for her usual devotions. Flowers and rushes are invariably strewn in the path of the bride and bridegroom as they leave the church, and before the door of their future habitation.[45]
On the first or second Sunday after their wedding the newly-married pair appear in church attended by the best man and the bridesmaid, and it is a point of etiquette for the bride and bridegroom to read and sing out of the same book, however many books there may be in the pew. Among well-to-do people a series of parties in honour of the young couple ensue, which in the dialect of the country are called “reneuchons,” “neuches” being the local pronunciation of the French word “noces.”
It appears from an ordinance of the Royal Court of 1625, when the puritanical spirit, which had come in with the Genevan discipline, was at its height, that the poor at that time were in the habit of soliciting alms at weddings, baptisms, and burials. This practice, as tending to keep up superstition and as dishonouring to God, was expressly forbidden by the legislation under pain of corporal punishment to the beggar, and a fine to the giver of alms.[46]
[43] Editor’s Note.—Usually consisting of half-a-dozen or a dozen (according to the bridegroom’s means) silver spoons, and a pair of sugar tongs, marked with the initials of bride and the customary “bague de fiançailles.”
[44] Editor’s Note.—Besides this it was customary amongst farmers for the parents of a bride to give her a cow, and the animal in this case followed the cart.—From Mr. J. de Garis, Rouvets, St. Saviour’s, 1901.
[45] Editor’s Note.—Les “gllajeurs”—the wild marsh iris—was always one of the favourite flowers for strewing in front of the bride, and all the water-lanes and marshes were ransacked for it. The wedding festivities generally lasted for two or three days. The house on the wedding day was decorated with wreaths and crowns of flowers, and, as usual, the festivities began with dinner, for which the usual fare was roast beef, roast mutton, a ham, plum pudding, and, of course, “gâche à corînthe,” washed down with cider. Then came games, songs, etc., till tea time, and then the tables would be cleared for dancing, while mulled wine, cheese, and Guernsey biscuits would be handed round at intervals. All the relations, friends, and neighbours of course partook of these festivities. A few songs were sung, “Jean, gros Jean,” being a “sine quâ non” in the country parishes, and then the mulled wine was handed round in cups, especially at midnight, as the clock struck. The correct formula before beginning to drink was
Very frequently at weddings people who knew what this formula led to put hanging beams from the “pôutre,” or central rafter for the men to hold on to! “À mon beau laurier qui danse” was of course always danced at the weddings, “ma coummère, et quand je danse” was another very favourite dance, the steps going to each syllable when sung, and they also danced “Poussette,” which entirely consisted of the different inflections of the word “Poussette,” “Pou-set-te,” alternately chanted smoothly or jerkily. This feasting and dancing was kept up till five or six the next morning, and very often for the next night as well, while on the third day all the old people and non-dancers were asked in to finish up the feast in peace.—From Mrs. Mollet, Mrs. Marquand, and Mrs. Le Patourel.
There are certain gifts from a man to his fiancée which are supposed to be most unlucky to accept, as by so doing it would mean that the wedding would probably never take place. They are a watch and chain, a brooch, and a Bible, and if he should present her with a knife or a pair of scissors the only way to avert the ill-luck is to pay a penny for them. Should a girl upset a chair before the wedding her marriage will be delayed for a year. If a girl wishes to dream of the man she is to marry she must take some of the wedding cake on the day of the wedding, pass it through a married woman’s wedding ring, or, if possible, the bride’s, (a widow’s is of no avail) and put it under her pillow, and dream on it for five consecutive nights, and the last dream will come true.—From Fanny Ingrouille.
A correspondent sent the following query in 1857 to “Notes and Queries”:—“A month or two back a family, on leaving one of the Channel Islands, presented to a gardener (it is uncertain whether an inhabitant of the island or no) some pet doves, the conveyance of them to England being likely to prove troublesome. A few days afterwards the man brought them back, stating that he was engaged to be married, and the possession of the birds might be (as he had been informed) an obstacle to the course of true love remaining smooth.” This was put in the shape of a query, but no answer appeared. Doves and wild pigeons in Guernsey are supposed to be most unlucky birds to have in a house, so probably the gardener had been told that they would bring ill-luck on his future “ménage” if he accepted them. The country people carry their distrust of them so far that they say that their wings, worn in a hat, bring misfortune, and they are among the birds whose feathers in the pillows of the dying prolong the death agony.
“CHEVAUCHERIE D’ANE.”
If after marriage a couple do not agree well together, they are admonished by their neighbours by what, in England, is called “rough music.” In Métivier’s Dictionary he describes two young people, boy and girl, back to back on a donkey, representing the guilty husband and wife. They were followed by all the idlers of the district singing a scurrilous rhyme, and surrounding the house of the offending pair, where the song and its accompaniments were kept up all night.—Métivier’s Dictionary, p. 23.
Nowadays putting the man and woman back to back on the donkey seems to be discontinued, but in St. Peter’s-in-the-Wood, Miss Le Pelley, a resident in the parish, writes “If the young men of this parish find out that a man has beaten his wife they form two parties on opposite sides of his house, at about a distance of one hundred yards from it, and blow conch shells, first one and then the other in answer. They keep this noise up for a long time so that the married couple may feel ashamed of themselves. I have not heard them just lately (1896), but one year it was very frequent, and such a nuisance.”—See in Brand’s Antiquities, Vol. 2, p. 129, the articles on “Riding the Stang” in Yorkshire, said also to be known in Scandinavia.
As soon as a death occurs in a family a servant or friend is immediately sent round to announce the sad event to all the nearest relatives of the deceased, and the omission of this formality is looked upon as a great slight, and a legitimate cause of offence. If any person enter a house where a corpse is lying it is considered a mark of great disrespect not to offer a sight of it, and it is thought equally disrespectful on the part of the visitor if the offer is declined, as the refusal is supposed to bring ill-luck on the house. When the day is fixed for the funeral a messenger is sent to invite the friends and relatives to attend, and in times gone by if those to be invited resided at any distance it was considered proper that this messenger should be mounted on a black horse. Formerly the funeral feast was universal, of late years it is seldom heard of except in some of the old country families of the middle classes, among whom ancient customs generally abide longer than among the classes immediately above or below them.
The lid of the coffin is not screwed down until all the guests are assembled, and the person whose business it is to see to it, comes into the room where they are met, and invites them to take a last look. Hearses are almost unknown, even in cases where the distance from the house to the cemetery is considerable. The coffin is almost invariably borne on the shoulders by hired bearers, but in former days it was only persons of a certain standing in society who were considered entitled to this honour; the poor were carried by their friends, three on each side, bearing the coffin slung between them. Care was always taken that the corpse was carried to the church by the way the deceased was in the habit of taking during his lifetime.[47]
The custom of females attending funerals, which was formerly universal, has disappeared entirely from the town, but in the country it is still occasionally observed, the mourners being attired in long black cloaks with hoods that almost conceal the face. The funeral feast, when there is one, takes place when the cortège returns to the house of mourning. A chair is placed at the table where the deceased was wont to sit, and a knife, fork, plate, etc., laid before it as if he were still present.[48] Tea and coffee, wine, cider, and spirits, cakes, bread and cheese, and more especially a ham, are provided for the occasion. The last-named viand was, in bygone days, almost considered indispensable, and where they kept pigs,—and almost everyone then kept pigs—every year, when the pig was killed, a ham was put away “in case of a funeral” and was not touched till the next pig was killed and another ham was put in readiness; and from thence it comes that “màngier la tchesse à quiqu’un”—“to eat a person’s ham”—is proverbially used in the sense of attending his funeral. The first glass of wine is drunk in silence to the memory of the departed, whose good qualities are then dilated upon, but the conversation soon becomes general, and it not unfrequently happens that more liquor is imbibed than is altogether good for the guests. In fact the mourners had generally to be conveyed home in carts.[49]
From ancient wills it seems that money was sometimes left for the purpose of clothing a certain number of poor, and from the ordinances of the Royal Court prohibiting begging at funerals, or even the voluntary giving of alms on these occasions, it is not improbable that the custom of distributing doles was, at one time, almost general. There is no trace of it in the present day.
Till within the last few years it was almost an universal custom, even among the dissenters, for the members of a household in which a death had occurred, to attend their parish church in a body on the first or second Sunday after the funeral, and the custom is still kept up to a certain extent. If they are regular frequenters of the church they occupy their usual seats, if not, they are placed, if possible, in some conspicuous part of the building, where they remain seated during the entire service, not rising even during those portions of the service in which standing is prescribed by the rubric. This is called “taking mourning,” in French “prendre le deuil.” Widows remain seated in church during the whole of the first year of their widowhood.
[47] Editor’s Note.—Mr. Allen told me (1896) that attending a short time ago at a funeral in the Mount Durand, the corpse was to be carried to Trinity Church, to which of course the shortest route was down the hill, but the widow of the deceased remonstrated so vigorously, saying that she could not allow anything so unlucky to happen to her husband, as that he should start for his funeral down hill, that, in deference to her wishes they went up the hill and round by Queen’s-road.
[49] Editor’s Notes.—Unless the forehead of the corpse is touched after death the ghost will walk. When you go into a house of mourning and are shown the corpse you should always lay your hand on its forehead.—From Fanny Ingrouille, of the Forest Parish.
The same idea prevails in Guernsey which we meet with in Yorkshire and many of the Eastern Counties of England that, having your pillow stuffed with pigeons’, doves’, or any wild bird’s feathers will cause you to “die hard.”—See Notes and Queries, 1st Series, Vol. IV.
It is also said that it is unlucky to keep doves in a house, but if they are kept in a cage and anyone dies in the house, unless a crape bow is placed on the top of the cage they will die too.
The country people also believe that no one ever dies when the tide is rising. Frequently when talking of a death they will say, “the tide turned, and took off poor —— with it.”—From Fanny Ingrouille and many others.
The island of Guernsey still contains many of those rude and ponderous erections commonly known by the name of Cromlechs, or Druids altars. The upright pillar of stone or rude obelisk, known to antiquaries by the Celtic name of Menhir also exists among us. Many of these ancient monuments have no doubt disappeared with the clearing of the land and the enormous amount of quarrying, and many have doubtless been broken up into building materials, or converted into fences and gateposts. But the names of estates and fields still point out where they once existed. Thus we find more than one spot with the appelation of “Pouquelaye.”[50] “Longue Rocque,” or “Longue Pierre,” and the names of “Les Camps Dolents,” “Les Rocquettes,” and “Les Tuzés” indicate the sites of monuments which have long since disappeared.
The researches carried on with so much care and intelligence by Mr. Lukis have clearly proved that the Cromlechs were sepulchral; perhaps the burial places of whole tribes, or at least of the families of the chieftains. This does not preclude the popular notion of their having been altars, for it is well known that many pagan nations were in the habit of offering sacrifices on the tombs of their dead.
The following is a list of the principal Druidical structures, etc., which we can identify, with an account of the traditional beliefs attached to them of their origin, etc.:—
The large Cromlech at L’Ancresse called “L’Autel des Vardes.”
The smaller Cromlech in the centre of L’Ancresse, with a portion of another similar structure to the east of it.
A small portion of a Cromlech at La Mare ès Mauves, on the eastern base of the Vardes, almost in front of the target belonging to the Royal Guernsey Militia.
“L’Autel des Vardes” at L’Ancresse.
“La Roque Balan.”
“La Roque qui Sonne” (destroyed).
“Le Tombeau du Grand Sarrazin,” in the district called Fortcàmp (destroyed).
“L’Autel de Déhus,” near above.
Small Cromlech at “La Vieille Hougue” (destroyed).
“Le Trépied” or the “Catioroc.”
“Menhir” or “Longue Pierre” at Richmond.
“Creux ès Fées”[51] in the parish of St. Pierre-du-Bois.
“La Longue Roque” or “Palette ès Fées” at the Paysans.
“La Roque des Fées” (destroyed).
“Le Gibet des Fées” (destroyed).
“La Chaire de St. Bonit” (destroyed).
In the Island of Herm there are six or eight mutilated remains of Cromlechs. In Lihou, none are left. In Sark, none are left.
It will be seen that the druidical stones are believed to be the favourite haunt of the fairy folk, who live in the ant hills which are frequently to be found in their vicinity, and who would not fail to punish the audacious mortal who might venture to remove them.
[51] Editor’s Notes.—In Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute Bretagne, M. Paul Sebillot, says:—“En général les dolmens sont appelés grottes aux fées, ou roches aux fées; c’est en quelque sorte une désigation générique (p. 5). Les noms font allusion à des fées, aux lutins, parfois aux saints ou au diable. Comme on le verra dans les dépositions qui suivent, c’est à ces mêmes personnages que les paysans attribuent l’érection des Mégalithes (p. 8.), etc.”
In Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France, par Laisnel de la Salle, he says, Tome I., page 100:—“Les fées se plaisent surtout à errer parmi les nombreux monuments druidiques … ou se dressent encore les vieux autels, là sont toujours présentes les vieilles divinités.”
This consists of five enormous blocks of granite, laid horizontally on perpendicular piles, as large as their enormous covering. Around it, the remains of a circle of stones, of which the radius is thirty-three feet, and the centre of which coincides with the tomb. Mr. Métivier says in his “Souvenirs Historiques de Guernesey” that this “Cercle de la Plaine,” in Norse Land Kretz, on this exposed elevation, could not fail to attract the attention of the Franks, Saxons, and Normans, and thus gave its name to the surrounding district.
In it were found bones, stone hatchets, hammers, skulls, limpet shells, etc., etc.
It is perhaps to this latter fact that we must attribute the idea which is entertained by the peasantry that hidden treasures, when discovered by a mortal, are transformed in appearance by the demon who guards them into worthless shells.
“La Roque Balan” was situated at the Mielles, in the Vale parish. It is supposed by some to have taken its name from Baal, Belenus, (the Sun God), the Apollo of the Gauls, whom the Thuriens, a Grecian colony, called Ballen, “Lord and King,” and to whom they dedicated a temple at Baïeux. The custom of lighting fires in honour of Bel or Baal continued in Scotland and Ireland almost to the beginning of this century. In Guernsey, at Midsummer, on the Eve of St. John’s Day, June 24th, the people used to go to this rock and there dance on its summit, which Mr. Métivier describes in 1825 as being quite flat. The refrain of an old ballad proved this:
Some people conjecture this rock to be the base of a balancing, or Logan stone, and others again that it was the site where Dom Mathurin, Prior of St. Michel, weighed in the balances the commodities of his tenants. But the most probable supposition is that it was named after the Ballen family, former residents of this neighbourhood.
Near this rock stood
This was the name given by the peasantry to a large stone which formerly stood on the borders of L’Ancresse, in the Vale parish. There is no doubt that it formed part of a Cromlech, and it is said that when struck it emitted a clear ringing sound. It was looked upon in the neighbourhood as something supernatural, and great was the astonishment and consternation of the good people of the Clos du Valle, when Mr. Hocart, of Belval, the proprietor of the field in which it stood, announced his intention of breaking it up in order to make doorposts and lintels for the new house he was on the point of building. In vain did the neighbours represent that stone was not scarce in the Vale, and that there was no necessity for destroying an object of so much curiosity. No arguments could prevail with him, not even the predictions of certain grey-headed men, the oracles of the parish, who assured him that misfortune was sure to follow his sacrilegious act. He was one of those obstinate men, who, the more they are spoken to, the less will they listen to reason, and finally the stone-cutters were set to work on the stone.
But now a circumstance occurred which would have moved any man less determined than Hocart from his purpose. Every stroke of the hammer on the stone was heard as distinctly at the Church of St. Michel du Valle, distant nearly a mile, as if the quarrymen were at work in the very churchyard itself![52] Orders were nevertheless given to the men to continue their work. The stone was cut into building materials, and the new house was rapidly approaching completion without accident or stoppage. Hocart laughed at the predictions of the old men, who had foretold all sorts of disasters.
At last the day arrived when the carpenters were to quit the house. Two servant maids,—or, as others have it, a servant man and a maid,—were sent at an early hour to assist in cleaning and putting things to rights for the reception of the family, but at eight o’clock in the morning a fire broke out in the house, and its progress was so rapid that the poor servants had not time to save themselves, but perished in the flames. Before noon the house was one heap of smoking ruins, but it could never be discovered how the fire had originated.
Hocart’s misfortunes, however, were not at an end. Some part of the rock had been cut into paving stones for the English market, and the refuse broken up into small fragments for making and repairing roads. In the course of the year the one and the other were embarked for England on board of two vessels in which Hocart had an interest as shareholder, but, strange to say, both vessels perished at sea.
Hocart himself went to reside in Alderney, but was scarcely settled there when a fire broke out and destroyed his new dwelling.
Smith Street, A.D. 1870.
He then determined on returning to Guernsey, but when close to land a portion of the rigging of the vessel on board which he sailed, fell on his head, fractured his skull, and he died immediately.[53]
There is another instance given of the ill luck which waits on those who interfere with the Cromlech and disturb the repose of the mighty dead[54] in the “Legend of La Haye du Puits,” which is drawn from an ancient chronicle and published in versified form by “M. A. C.,” with extracts from Mrs. White’s notes. The legend runs thus:—
In the reign of Henry II. of England Geoffrey of Anjou raised a rebellion against him in Normandy. Not wishing to be a rebel, Sir Richard of La Haye du Puits, a noble Norman knight, fled from thence to Guernsey, and landed in Saints’ Bay. He settled in Guernsey and proceeded to build himself a house, which he named after his Norman mansion “La Haye du Puits.” Unfortunately for himself, in so doing he destroyed an old Cromlech. All the inhabitants told him that he would in consequence become cursed, and a settled gloom descended upon him. Nothing could cheer him; he felt he was a doomed man. At last he thought that perhaps by resigning the house and dedicating it to God he might avert his fate. So he gave it to the Church, and turned it into a nunnery, making it a condition that the abbess and nuns should daily pray that the curse might be removed from him.
He then set sail from Rocquaine Bay, for France, the rebellion being over, and his wife, Matilda, awaiting him in their old home. But on his way his ship was captured by Moorish pirates, and he was taken as prisoner to Barbary. When there, his handsome presence made so much impression on the governor’s wife that she entreated he might be allowed to guard the tower where she resided with her maidens.
What was his astonishment when one of them looked out, and, recognising a fellow countryman, called out and told him that she was Adèle, daughter of his old friend and neighbour, Ranulph. She also had been taken prisoner by these pirates, by whom her father had been killed; she implored him to effect her escape. She handed him her jewels, and with these he bribed their jailers, and he, she, and her nurse Alice, all managed to escape to France. He took her to the Norman “Haye du Puits,” and there, according to the old chronicle, he found his wife, Matilda, and all “in a right prosperous and flourishing condition.” From there Adèle married a Hugh d’Estaile, a young Norman knight, high in the favour of King Henry.
But the spirits of the Cromlech were not yet appeased. Sir Richard could not shake off the brooding care and haunting night-mares which always oppressed him, though he tried to propitiate heaven by building two churches in Normandy, “St. Marie du Parc,” and “St. Michel du Bosq,” “for the deliverance of his soul,” but it was of no avail, and he died, a wretched and broken-down man. Even the nuns in the Convent of the Haye du Puits were so harassed and distressed, that finally they decided to leave it; it is said that one unquiet nun haunts the house to this day. Since then it has passed through many hands, but tradition says that for many years it never brought good fortune to its possessors.
[54] Editor’s Note.—In Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute Bretagne, Vol. I., p. 32, M. Sebillot says: “En beaucoup d’endroits, on pense qu’il est dangereux de détruire les pierres druidiques, parceque les esprits qui les ont construits ne manqueraient pas de se venger.” See also “Amélie Rosquet, p. 186 of La Normandie Romanesque.”
In the district called Le Tort Càmp, near Paradis, was one of the principal Cromlechs at the Vale, now quarried away, called “L’Autel,” or “Le Tombeau du Grand Sarrazin.” Who “Le Grand Sarrazin” was, it is now impossible to say. He is also called Le Grand Geffroi, and his castle—from whence the name “Le Castel”—stood where the Church of Ste. Marie-du-Castel now stands. He must have been one of those piratical sea kings, who, under the various appellations of Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Northmen or Normans, issued from the countries bordering on the North Sea and the Baltic, and invaded the more favoured regions of Britain and Gaul. The name “Geffroy,” (Gudfrid, or “la paix de Dieu”) seems to confirm this tradition. As to the term “Sarrazin”—Saracen, although originally given to the Mahometans who invaded the southern countries of Europe, it came to be applied indifferently to all marauding bands; and Wace, the poet and historian, a native of Jersey, who lived and wrote in the reign of Henry II., in speaking of the descent of the Northmen on these islands, calls them expressly “La Gent Sarrazine.” Among the many Geoffreys of the North whom history celebrates, there is one, a son of King Regnar, who may be the one celebrated in our local traditions. Charles the Bald yielded to him “a county on the Sequanic shore.”
At that time the coast of Gaul was divided into three sea-borders, namely, the Flemish, the Aquitanian, and the Sequanic, called “Sequanicum littus” by Paul Warnefrid, who places one of these islands near it.
That his castle stood at one time on the site of the present church, is confirmed by the discoveries which have frequently been made in digging graves, of considerable masses of solid masonry, which appear to be the foundations of former outworks of the fortress. It is even possible that some portions of the walls of the church may be the remains of the earlier building. There are also in the neighbourhood “Le Fief Geffroi” and “Le Camp Geffroi.”[55]