Upon which both were heard to quit the house as if in anger, and were never again known to revisit it.[107]
Editor’s Notes.
Compare in Amélie Bosquet’s book La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse, p. 130-131, Le Lutin ou le Fé Amoureux and Webster’s Basque Legends, p. 55-56.
Paul Sébillot also gives a somewhat similar story, in Traditions et Superstitions de La Haute Bretagne, Tome 1., p. 116-117. “Il y avait à la Ville-Douélan, en la paroisse du Gouray, une bonne femme qui tous les soirs mettait son souper à chauffer dans le foyer; mais pendant qu’elle était occupée à filer, les fées descendaient par la cheminée et mangeaient son souper. Elle s’en plaignit à son mari, qui était journalier et ne rentrait que pour se coucher. Il lui dit de le laisser un soir tout seul à la maison. Il s’habilla en femme et prit une quenouille comme une fileuse, mais il ne filait point. Quand les fées arrivèrent, elles s’arrêtèrent surprises dans le foyer et dirent, ‘Vous ne filez ni ne volez, vous n’êtes pas la bonne femme des autres soirs.’ L’homme ne répondit rien; mais il prit une trique et se mit à frapper sur les fées, qui, depuis ce temps-là, ne revinrent plus jamais.”
In times long past a young couple occupied a cottage in the neighbourhood of L’Erée. They were in the second year of their marriage, and little more than a fortnight had elapsed since the wife had presented her husband with his first-born son. The happy father, who, like most of the inhabitants of the coast, filled up the time in which he was not otherwise occupied, in collecting sea-weed or fishing, returned one morning from the beach with a basketful of limpets. There are various ways of cooking this shell-fish, which, from the earliest times, appears to have formed a considerable article of food among the poorer inhabitants of the sea-shore, and one of the ways of dressing them is by placing them on the hot embers, where they are soon baked or fried in their own cup-shaped shells. Cooked in this manner they form an appetizing relish to the “dorâïe,” or slice of bread-and-butter, which forms the ordinary mid-day meal of the labouring man.
A good fire of furze and sea-weed was flaming on the hearth when the man entered his cottage, and, having raked the hot embers together, he proceeded to arrange the limpets on the ashes, and then left them to cook while he went out to finish digging a piece of ground. The wife in the meanwhile was occupied in some domestic work, but casting a look from time to time on her new-born babe, which was sleeping quietly in its cradle. Suddenly she was startled by hearing an unknown voice, which seemed to proceed from the child. She turned quickly round, and was much surprised to see the infant sitting up, and looking with the greatest interest at the fire-place, and to hear it exclaim in tones of astonishment:—
She had heard old wives tell how the fairies sometimes took advantage of the absence of the mother or nurse, to steal away a sleeping child, and to substitute one of their own bantlings in its place, and how the only way to cause them to make restitution was to throw the changeling on the hearth, when the fairy mother, unable to withstand the piteous cries of her offspring, was sure to appear, and bring back the stolen infant with her.
She lost no time therefore in catching up the fairy imp, who, knowing the fate that awaited him, set up a fearful yell. Immediately, the fairy mother, without stopping to lift the latch, leaped over the “hecq” or half-door, and, restoring to the trembling housewife her babe uninjured, snatched up her own squalling brat, and departed by the same way she had come.[108]
The parish of Notre Dame du Castel, or, as it is now the fashion to call it, St. Mary de Castro, is the largest in the island, but the church is situated at one extremity of the parish, close on the bounds of St. Andrew’s, to the great inconvenience of many of the parishioners. It is true that in former days they had some relief in the Chapels of Ste. Anne, St. George, and St. Germain, but chapels are not parish churches, and many, while trudging through the miry roads in winter, or toiling up the dusty hill in summer, when some of the great festivals required them to present themselves at the mother church, have inquired how it came to pass that so inconvenient a site had been chosen. The old people, depositaries of the ancient traditions of the place, will answer that originally the foundations were laid in a field called “Les Tuzés,” but this was haunted ground, and a favourite resort of the fairies, and that, these little ladies, unwilling to yield up their rights without a struggle, in the course of a single night transported all the tools, stones, etc., in their cambric aprons, to the spot where the Church of St. Mary now stands. Thrice did this happen before the builders gave up their intention of erecting the sacred edifice on the site first chosen.[109]
There is another story told of the fairy man who first came to Guernsey and carried away the beautiful Michelle de Garis[110] to be his wife. Though, vanquished by his courtliness and grace, she was persuaded to fly with him back to fairy land, she could not quite forget the father, mother, and brothers, whom she had left behind her in their cottage down by Vazon Bay. So she begged him to let her leave them some slight token by which to remember her. He thought for a few moments, and then gave her a bulb, which he told her to plant in the sand above the bay. He then whispered to the mother where to go to find a souvenir of her missing daughter, and, when she went, weeping, to the search, she found this bulb, burst into flower, a strange odourless beautiful blossom, decked with fairy gold, and without a soul—for what is the scent but the soul of a flower—a fit emblem of a denizen of fairyland. From that time the flower has been carefully cultivated in this island, the “Amaryllis Sarniensis,” as it is called, nor will it flourish, however great the care, in any of the other islands; it pines and degenerates when removed from the soil where it was first planted by the elfin lover.[111]
Editor’s Notes.
“Le Gibet des Faïes.”
This fairy-story is not included by Sir Edgar MacCulloch, but was communicated to me by the late Miss Annie Chepmell, who most kindly lent me her own manuscript book, in which she wrote down the legends she had herself collected among the country people. I give it in her own words.
“For a long time the fairies alone had possession of L’Ancresse, the cromlechs, hougues, and caves. But evil men rose up, and ambition and the lust of knowledge led them to cross the sea, and there to learn the mighty art of magic. They returned and quickly spread the sin of witchcraft in the island, so quickly that the harmless fairies had no time to accustom themselves to the miseries which were caused thereby, and which they had no power to remedy. Their hearts fairly broke to see their happy haunts invaded by witches and wizards, their fairy rings trampled down by the heavy feet of ‘sorcières,’ and scorched by the hoofs of their demon partners every Friday night; and their human friends and pet animals pining beneath charms and spells. Unable to bear these sorrows, the poor fairies met on their beloved L’Ancresse, and finding, after much consultation, that they could do nothing against the disturbers of their happiness, they sadly resolved to get rid of their past by drinking of the fountain of forgetfulness. There is, or rather was,—for the ruthless quarries have much diminished its size—a huge pile of rocks rising from the sea at the eastern extremity of L’Ancresse Bay. At the very top of this granite castle rises a little fountain, cool in the hottest summer, unfrozen in the keenest frost. Its waters have the properties of Lethe—those who drink of them forgetting the past. In a sad procession the fairy tribe moved across the bay, and, after having scaled the steep rocks, clustered round the fountain which was to give them the bliss of unconsciousness. But for them the fountain had no virtue; they drank, and still the past came back, with all its joys and sorrows. In despair at finding even oblivion denied to them, they hastily determined to get rid of life itself. Rushing down the rocks they hurried across the Common to where stood three tall upright stones, with a third resting upon them—a monument of far-off Druid times—and there they hung themselves with blades of grass. So ended the kindly race in Guernsey, the fairy fountain and the upright stones their only monuments.”
“There are still a few lingering remnants of fairy lore to be found among the old country people. Old Miss Fallaize, aged eighty, remembers how, in her youth, eatables and drinkables were left outside the door with any unfinished work, and how in the morning the food was gone—but she could not quite remember whether the work was done. But old Mr. Tourtel, over eighty, who was brought up as a boy at an old house at the Mont Durand, now pulled down, said that it was well known that the fairies lived in a ‘vôte’ (a Guernsey word for the French ‘voute,’ a vaulted cave), above La Petite Porte. They were a little people, but very strong, and would mend your cart wheels or spokes for you if you would put out some food for them.”
Also the woman living in the house called “St. Magloire” opposite the site of his old chapel, said she supposed “Monsieur Magloire” was the first man who came to these islands, and when I asked her who were living here when he came, she said “Oh, ‘little people,’ who lived in the cromlechs.”
A belief in the existence of mermaids is not quite extinct, although no tales relating to them appear to have been preserved among the people. An old man, living in the parish of the Forest, of the name of Matthieu Tostevin, whose word might be implicitly relied on, affirmed to Mr. Denys Corbet, the master of the parochial school, that on one occasion, being on the cliffs over-looking Petit-Bôt Bay, he saw a company of six mermaids, or, as he termed them “seirênes,” disporting themselves on the sands below. He described them as usually depicted, half woman, half fish. He hastened down to the beach as fast as he could, to get a nearer sight of them, but, on his approaching them, they took to the sea, and were immediately out of sight.
“Looking down Smith Street, 1870.”
It was doubtless a flock of seals which he saw, for, although these animals are no longer found in numbers on our coasts, a stray one is occasionally, though very rarely, to be seen. They are known to exist on the opposite shores of Brittany and Normandy, and the few specimens that have been taken in our seas are of the same variety as those found on the French coast. It is not improbable that they may have been more common in former days; and it is possible that “Le Creux du Chien,” a large cavern at the foot of the cliffs to the eastward of Petit-Bôt Bay, may have been so named from being the resort of one of these amphibians.[112]
Editor’s Note.—In Sark as well as in Guernsey they still believe in sirens, and an old man there, who had been a fisherman in his youth, told me of these women who used to sit on the rocks and sing before a storm. In Sark they are considered young and beautiful, but Guernsey fishermen talk of old women who sit on the rocks and sing, and the ships are brought closer to the rocks by the curiosity of those on board to hear this mysterious music, and then the storm comes, and the ships go to pieces on the rocks, and the sirens,—whether young or old,—carry down the sailors to the bottom of the sea, and eat them. So the tradition goes.
Referring to the legend of the Changeling, as related on pages 219-220, Paul Sébillot also tells a story very similar to this. Tome I. p. 118-119.
Un jour une femme dit à sa voisine,—“Ma pauvre commère, je crains que mon gars a été changé par les Margots … j’voudrais bien savoir c’qui faut faire.”
“ … Vous prendrez d’s œufs; vous leur casserez le petit bout, et puis d’cela vous mettrez des petits brochiaux d’bois dedans; vous allumerez un bon feu; vous les mettrez autour, debout; et vous mènerez le petit faitiau à se chauffer aussi.”
La femme fit tout cela, et quand le petit faiteau vit les œufs bouillir et les petits bois sauter dedans, il s’écria:
La femme vit tout de suite que son enfant avait été changé … et elle s’écria:
—“Vilain petit sorcier, je vas te tuer!”
Mais la fée qui était dans le grenier lui cria—
See also Amélie Bosquet, p. 116, etc.
That singular meteor, known by the English as Jack o’Lantern or “Will o’ the Wisp,” by the French as “Feu Follet,” and by the Bretons as “Jan gant y tan” (John with the fingers or gloves of fire), bears in Guernsey the appellation of Le Faeu Bélengier—the fire of Bélenger. According to Mr. Métivier “Bélenger” is merely a slight variation of the name “Volunde” or “Velint”—Wayland, or Weyland Smith, the blacksmith of the Scandinavian gods. Bélenger was married to a Valkyrie, daughter of the Fates, so runs the old Norse legend. He was, for the sake of some treasures belonging to him, or under his guardianship, carried away by a certain king as prisoner to an island, where the tyrant cut the sinews of his feet so as to prevent his running away, and then set him to work. Too clever, however, not to be able to compass his revenge, Bélenger managed to kill the two sons of the despot, and fashioned their bones into vessels for the royal table. And then, having maltreated the princess, daughter of his quondam master, he flew away through the air, and the name Bélenger has become identified in popular mythology with any especially clever worker in metals. In English popular tradition the name of Bélenger becomes contracted into Velint, or Wayland Smith, and, according to Sir Walter Scott, “this Wayland was condemned to wander, night after night, from cromlech to cromlech, and belated travellers imagined that they then beheld the fire from his forge issuing from marshes and heaths.” The natives of Iceland, descended from our own paternal ancestors of the tenth century, say still of a clever craftsman that he is a “Bélengier” in iron.
In Guernsey they say it is a spirit in pain, condemned to wander, and which seeks to deliver itself from torment by suicide.[113] Its presence is also supposed to indicate in very many cases the existence of hidden treasures, and many a countryman is known to have made a fruitless journey over bog and morass in the hope of locating the flickering flame. It is also firmly believed by all the country people that if a knife is fixed by the handle to a tree, or stuck in the earth with the point upwards, the spirit or demon that guides the flame will attack and fight with it, and that proofs of the encounter will be found next morning in the drops of blood found on the blade.[114]
Editor’s Notes.
“Tout le monde connaît ces exhalaisons de gaz inflammable qui brillent quelquefois dans les endroits marécageux et qui effraient tant les enfants et les vieilles. Ces feux sont appelés dans nos campagnes La Fourlore, le feu follet, ou le feu errant. Ce sont des âmes damnées; et, suivant quelques personnes, ces âmes sont celles de prêtres criminels ou libertins. Elles cherchent à éblouir les voyageurs, à les entrainer dans les précipices, et à les jeter dans l’eau. Quand le feu follet, esprit d’ailleurs fort jovial, est venu à bout de son entreprise il quitte sa victime avec de grands éclats de rire, et il disparait.” Recherches sur la Normandie, par Du Bois, 1845, p. 310.
See also, Fouquet Légendes du Morbihan, p. 140. Le Meu—Revue Celt, p. 230. A. Bosquet, pp. 135-143.
As we have already stated “Le Faeu Bélengier” is supposed to indicate the existence of hidden treasure, and it is well known that when treasures have been hidden for any considerable time the evil spirit acquires a property in them, and does all in his power to prevent their falling into the possession of mortals. Nevertheless the meteor-like form which the Bélengier assumes, frequently betrays their place of concealment as it plays about the spot, and if a person have sufficient courage and perseverance he may become the possessor. The wiles, however, of the demon, and his efforts to retain his own, frequently prove successful, as the following narratives will testify. It appears, however, that the guardian spirit has no power to remove the treasure, unless the adventure have first been attempted by a mortal.
A country-woman had often observed flames of fire issuing from and hovering round the earth within the threshold of her house, and, knowing well what they indicated, one day, when all the other inmates of the dwelling were in the fields busied in getting in the harvest, she determined on searching for the treasure. She procured a pick-axe, closed and barred all the doors to secure herself against interruptions, and proceeded to work. She had not dug long, before a violent thunderstorm arose. Though alarmed, she continued her task, but the rain, which now began to fall in torrents, drove the field labourers to seek shelter in the house. By this time the woman had struck on a brazen pan, which, she had no doubt, covered the treasure, and was in no hurry to open to the men who were clamouring at the door for admission. She was at last obliged to yield to their entreaties, and, turning her back on the hole she had dug, unbarred the door. Her dismay was great, when, on looking back on her work, she saw the pan turned up, and the whole treasure abstracted. The demon had seized this opportunity to take possession of his own.
A man had reason to believe, from the flames which he had seen hovering about a certain spot, that a treasure was hidden there. Accordingly, one night, he took his spade and lantern and dug till he came to a large jar, which contained what appeared to him to be shells.[115] Suspecting that this might be a stratagem of the evil spirit to deter him from obtaining possession of the treasure, he carefully gathered up the whole, and took it home with him. On examining the parcel the next morning, he found he had judged rightly, for the apparent shells of the preceding night had now resumed their original form of gold and silver coin.
Another man was less fortunate, for, finding nothing but what he conceived to be shells, he hesitated about removing them, and was effectually deterred by the appearance of an immense animal, resembling a black conger-eel with fiery eyes, coiled up in the hole which he had dug.[116]
Editor’s Note.—See Traditions et Superstitions de La Haute Bretagne. Tome I., p. 39 etc. “On m’a conté à Dinan que lorsque les chercheurs de trésors eurent creusé à la base du Monolithe, il sortit de la terre des flammes qui les forcèrent à interrompre leur travail. On assure qu’à différentes époques on a fait des fouilles sous un meulier de la forêt de Brotonne, dit ‘La Pierre aux Houneux’ pour y découvrir un trésor; mais à chaque fois d’effrayantes apparitions les firent discontinuer.… Des ouvriers qui avaient tenté d’enlever le trésor de Néaufle se virent entourés de flammes.” A. Bosquet, p. 159-186.
The “Varou,” now almost entirely forgotten, seems to have belonged to the family of nocturnal goblins. He is allied to the “Loup-Garou” of the French, and the “Were-Wolf” of the English, if, indeed, he is not absolutely identical with them. He is believed to be endowed with a marvellous appetite, and it is still proverbially said of a great eater “Il mange comme un varou.”[117]
“Aller en varouverie” was an expression used in former times in speaking of those persons who met together in unfrequented places for the purposes of debauchery or other illicit practices. Among the Acts of the Consistory of the parish of St. Martin’s, in the time when the island was still under the Presbyterian discipline, is to be found a censure on certain individuals who had been heard to say one night that the time was propitious “pour aller en varouverie sous l’épine.”
Varou was originally from the Breton Varw—“the dead”—and was identified with the “Heroes” or beatified warriors, who were, by Homer and Hesiod, supposed to be in attendance on Saturn. Guernsey, in the days of Demetrius, was known by the name of the Isle of Heroes, or of Demons, and Saturn was said to be confined there in a “golden rock,” bound by “golden chains.”
There is the “Creux des Varous,” which extends, according to tradition, from Houmet to L’Erée, and is a subterranean cavern formed of rock sprinkled with an abundance of yellow mica, which sparkles like gold; a plot of ground near the cromlech at L’Erée, known as “Le Creux des Fées,” still bears the name of “Le Camp du Varou;” and an estate in the parish of St. Saviour’s is called “Le Mont-Varou.” Old people remember that it used to be said in their youth that “Le Char des Varous” was to be heard rolling over the cliffs and rocks on silver-tyred wheels, between Houmet and the Castle of Albecq, before the death of any of the great ones of the earth; and how this supernatural warning was sure to be followed almost immediately by violent storms and tempests.[118]
The 10th of January, in Roman days, was dedicated to the Fera Dea, or cruel goddess, of which Hero Dias is a literal Celtic interpretation here. She is the queen of the witches, and although Satan himself is the commander-in-chief of the witches, he has a mate who participates in his authority, and leads the dance when his votaries meet to celebrate their midnight orgies at Catioroc or Rocquaine. This is no less a personage than the dissolute and revengeful woman by whose evil counsel the holy precursor of our Saviour was put to death by Herod. To her, more particularly, is attributed the rising of sudden storms, and especially of those which take the form of a whirlwind. It sometimes happens that during the warm and sultry days of harvest a gust of wind will suddenly arise, and, whirling round the field, catch up and disperse the ears of corn which the reaper has laid in due order for the binder of the sheaves. The countryman doubts not but that this is caused by Herodias shaking her petticoats in dancing—“Ch’est la fille d’Hérode qui châque ses côtillons,”—and he loses no time in hurling his reaping hook in the direction she appears to be moving. It is said that this has generally the effect of stopping the progress of the whirlwind.
These sudden gusts are locally known by the name of “héroguiâzes,” and, although there is so easy a means of dispersing them as that indicated above, the man who would venture to throw his sickle or knife at them must be endowed with no small degree of courage.[119]
Editor’s Notes.
According to the old Latin “Romaunt de Renard,” Herodias loved John the Baptist. The jealous King caused him to be beheaded. His head, by her order, was carried to her, and she wished to kiss it, but the head turned away, and blew with so much violence that Herodias was blown into the air. Since then, St. John, faithful to his antipathy, has made her travel for ever in the deserts of the sky, and become the genius of the storm.
Some confound her with “Habunde,” who may have been a white lady, or one of those “genii” whom the Celts call “dusi.” Chronique de Philippe Mouskés, Tome II. Introduction p. 139.
Some also think that Herodias will, if anyone dances at harvest time, bring shipwreck and disasters at sea.—From Mr. Isaac Le Patourel.
This was a demon used by old Guernsey nurses to frighten their infant charges. “Le Barboue t’attrappera” was quite threat enough to make the naughtiest child repent of his misdeeds. According to Mr. Métivier (See Dictionary, p. 51. Barboue), this name “Barboue” is a corruption of bared meleu, the spectre which personifies the plague among the Cymri. According to the legends, “Barbaou Hervé” was the wolf who accompanied St. Hervé, a sainted hermit of the country of Léon, 560. He was evidently related to the French “Loup-Garou.”
Many places have the reputation of being haunted by phantoms which make their appearance at the dead of night, not always in a human form, as the spirits of the departed are wont to do when they revisit “the glimpses of the moon,” but in the more fearful shapes of beasts and nondescript monsters. “La Bête de la Tour,” “Le Cheval de St. George,” which has already been spoken of in connection with the well, and “Le Chien Bôdu,” are among these.
The “devises,” or boundary stones, which served in olden times to mark the limits of some of the principal “fiefs” or manors, but which have now disappeared, leaving only a name to the locality, appear to have been the particular resort of these spectres; and it is not improbable that the superstition may have arisen from the custom, of which traces are to be found in many nations, of sacrificing a victim and burying it where the stone of demarcation was to be set up. It was not, however, these places only which became the haunt of spectres; other spots came in also for their share of these nocturnal and frightful visitors. A lonely dwelling, especially if uninhabited, a dark lane far from any friendly cottage, cromlechs, or spots where these mysterious erections once stood—all these either had, or were likely to acquire, an evil reputation in this respect, and more especially if tradition pointed to any deed of horror, such as murder or suicide, connected with the place or its neighbourhood.
The headless dog which haunts the Ville-au-Roi, and which will be spoken of in the legend attached to that ancient domain, is an instance of these spectres. The best known of them is “Tchi-cô,” or the “Bête de la Tour,”—but there are also “La Bête de la Devise de Sausmarez à Saint Martin,” which is a black dog supposed to haunt the avenue by Sausmarez Manor.[121]
[121] Editor’s Note.—Then there is the “Rue de la Bête” at St. Andrew’s, on the borders of the Fief Rohais. Near this lane there was formerly a prison, so that it is probably full of associations of crime and malefactors. There is also a “Rue de la Bête” near L’Erée, between “Claire Mare” and the Rouvets, where, to this day, people will not go alone after dark, and they still tell the story (so wrote Miss Le Pelley, who lived in that neighbourhood), of a man, a M. Vaucourt, who, driving down that lane in the dark, the “Bête” got up into the cart, which so scared the unfortunate man that he died the next day. There was also a black dog which haunted the Forest Road, clanking its chains. The father of one old woman who told the story, saw and was followed by this beast one night when walking home from St. Martin’s to his house near the Forest Church. He was so frightened that he took to his bed and died of the shock very shortly afterwards. There is also “La Bête de la Rue Mase,” on the western limits of the Town parish, the “Coin de la Biche,” at St. Martin’s, between Saints’ and La Villette, and in the cross lane running from the “Carrefour David” to the “Profonds Camps,” past the house now called “St. Hilda,” a small white hare was supposed to be seen on stormy nights, accompanied by “Le Faeu Bélengier.”
There is no doubt that in early times the town of St. Peter Port was encircled by walls, and fortified—indeed there is an order of Edward III. in 1350, authorising the levy of a duty on merchandise for this purpose. Certain spots, called “les barrières,” mark where the gates were situated, and, although all remains of the walls have long since disappeared, it is not difficult to trace the course they must have taken. At the northern extremity of the original town, the name of “La Tour Gand” indicates a fortress of some sort. The southern extremity was protected by a work called “La Tour Beauregard,” of sufficient importance to be named, together with Castle Cornet, in the warrants or commissions issued by the monarch to those who were intrusted with the defence of the island.
This fortress stood near the top of Cornet Street, on the brow of the hill which overlooks the Bordage and Fountain Street, where now stands St. Barnabas’ Church. Tradition points to a spot at the foot of the hill, as the place where the execution of heretics and witches, by burning, used to take place, and connects with these sad events a spectral appearance which, even within the present century, was believed to haunt the purlieus of the old tower.
During the long nights of winter, and especially about Christmastide, the inhabitants of Tower-hill, the Bordage, Fountain Street, and Cornet Street used to be roused from their midnight slumbers by hearing unearthly howlings and the clanking of heavy chains, dragged over the rough pavement.
Those who could summon up courage enough to rise from their beds and peep out of window, declared that they saw the form of a huge uncouth animal with large flaming saucer eyes, and somewhat like a bear, or huge calf. This spectre was known as “Tchî-co, La Bête de la Tour.”
Editor’s Notes.
See Pluquet in Contes Populaires de Bayeux, p. 16, for an account of a phantom in the shape of a great dog that wanders about the streets of Bayeux in the winter nights gnawing bones and dragging chains, called “Le Rongeur d’Os.”
See also Sir Walter Scott’s note in Peveril of the Peak, Vol. II., Chap. I., on the spectral hound or “Mauthe Doog”—a large black spaniel, which used to haunt Peel Castle in the Isle of Man.
There is also in Laisnel de la Salle’s book Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France, Tome I. p. 181, a long story of “Le Loup Bron,” which in many respects resembles that of our “Bête de la Tour.”
In Sark “they have another superstitious belief, that of the Tchico, or old dog, the dog of the dead, the black or white beast. Several affirm having seen it, and met it walking about the roads. This dog affects certain localities, and makes its regular rounds, but often it is invisible.” From Descriptive Sketch of the Island of Sark, by the Rev. J. L. V. Cachemaille, published in Clarke’s Guernsey Magazine, Vol. III., October. 1875.
In Brand’s Antiquities, Vol. III., p. 330, he identifies the English “Barguest,” or “Great Dog Fiend,” with the Norman “Rongeur d’Os,” and the “Boggart” of Lancashire, great dog-spirits, which prowl about in the night-time, dragging heavy chains behind them.
This black dog was said to infest the Clos du Valle, and was probably a resident of the Ville Bôdu, which was at one time the slaughter-house of the Benedictine monks of St. Michel du Valle. To see him was taken as a sure sign of approaching death. According to Mr. Métivier, he derived his name from “the German Bohdu, and Gaulish Bodu, which mean the Abyss, and the mythological dog of Hades is our ‘Chien Bôdu.’”
Editor’s Note.—In Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France Laisnel de la Salle has a chapter (Tome I. pp. 168-175), on “La Chasse a Bôdet,” which he describes as “une chasse nocturne qui traverse les airs avec des hurlements, des mieulements et des abois epouvantables, auxquels se mêlent des cris de menace et des accents d’angoisse,” and he identifies (p. 172), “Bôdet” with the German Woden, who is the same as the Scandinavian Odin, Gwyon of the Gauls, the Egyptian Thot, Hermes of the Greeks, and Mercury of the Latins, who filled, in the Teutonic Mythology, the rôle of “Conductor of Souls.”
Although this story is known to everyone, and is to be found in all the local histories and guide books, no collection of Guernsey folk-lore can be considered perfect without it. It is just one of those stories that are calculated to make a profound impression on the popular mind, as showing the special interposition of Providence in preserving a poor and innocent man from the effects of a false accusation, and in causing the nefarious designs of a rich and unprincipled oppressor to fall back with just retribution on his own head.