The Forest of Vazon by Anonymous
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Anonymous >> The Forest of Vazon
THE FOREST OF VAZON
_A GUERNSEY LEGEND OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY_.
London:
HARRISON & SONS, 59, PALL MALL
Booksellers to the Queen and H.R.H the Prince of Wales
1889.
PREFACE.
Nothing authentic is known of the history of Guernsey previously to its
annexation to the Duchy of Normandy in the tenth century. The only
sources of information as to events which may have occurred before that
date are references in monkish chronicles of the usual semi-mythical
type, and indications conveyed by cromlechs and menhirs, fragments of
Celtic instruments and pottery, and a few Roman relics. It is
unfortunate that we are thus precluded from acquiring any knowledge of
the development of a people as to whom the soundest among conflicting
conjectures seems to be that, coming originally from Brittany, they
preserved the purity of the Celtic race through periods when in other
offshoots of the same stock its characteristics were being obliterated
by the processes of crossing and absorption.
If early local records had existed they would hardly have failed to
have given minute details of the convulsion of nature which resulted in
the destruction by the sea of the forest lands on the northern and
western sides of the island, and in the separation of tracts of
considerable magnitude from the mainland. Geologists are agreed in
assigning to this event the date of March, 709, when great inundations
occurred in the Bay of Avranches on the French coast; they are not
equally unanimous as to the cause, but science now rejects the theory of
a raising of the sea-level and that of a general subsidence of the
island. The most reasonable explanation appears to be that the
overpowering force of a tidal wave suddenly swept away barriers whose
resistance had been for ages surely though imperceptibly diminishing,
and that the districts thus left unprotected proved to be below the
sea-level--owing, as regards the forests, to gradual subsidence easily
explicable in the case of undrained, swampy soil; and, as regards the
rocks, to the fact that the newly exposed surface consisted of
accumulations of already disintegrated deposits.
It is unquestionable that before the inroad of the sea the inlet in the
south-west of the island known as Rocquaine Bay was enclosed by two
arms, the northern of which terminated in the point of Lihou; on which
still stand the ruins of an old priory, while the southern ended in the
Hanois rocks, on which a lighthouse has been erected. Lihou is at
present an island, accessible only at low water by a narrow causeway;
the Hanois is entirely cut off from the shore, but it is a noteworthy
fact that the signs of old cart-ruts are visible at spring tides, and
that an iron hook was recently discovered attached to a submerged rock
which had apparently served as a gatepost; besides these proofs of the
existence of roads now lying under the waves, it is said that an old
order for the repair of Hanois roads is still extant. That Vazon and the
Braye du Valle were the sites of forests is indisputable, though the
former is now a sandy bay into which the Atlantic flows without
hindrance, and the latter, reclaimed within the present century by an
enterprising governor, formed for centuries a channel of the sea by
which the Clos du Valle, on which the Vale Church stands, was separated
from the mainland. A stratum of peat extends over the whole arm of the
Braye, while as regards Vazon there is the remarkable evidence of an
occurrence which took place in December, 1847. A strong westerly gale,
blowing into the bay concurrently with a low spring tide, broke up the
bed of peat and wood underlying the sand and gravel, and lifted it up
like an ice-floe; it was then carried landwards by the force of the
waves. The inhabitants flocked to the spot, and the phenomenon was
carefully inspected by scientific observers. Trunks of full-sized trees
were seen, accompanied by meadow plants and roots of rushes and weeds,
surrounded by those of grasses and mosses; the perfect state of the
trees showed that they had been long buried under the sand. Some of the
trees and boughs were at first mistaken for wreckage, but the fishermen
soon discovered their error and loaded their carts with the treasure
locally known as "gorban." Subsequent researches have shown that acorns
and hazel-nuts, teeth of horses and hogs, also pottery and instruments
of the same character as those found in the cromlechs, exist among the
Vazon peat deposits. There is therefore abundant evidence that the
legends relating to the former inhabitants of the forest are based on
traditions resting on an historical foundation.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.--TRADITION
CHAPTER II.--SUPERSTITION
CHAPTER III.--DEVOTION
CHAPTER IV.--REVELATION
CHAPTER V.--AFFLICTION
CHAPTER VI.--CONSOLATION
CHAPTER VII.--ANNIHILATION
CHAPTER I.
TRADITION.
"What can he tell that treads thy shore?
No legend of thine olden time,
No theme on which the mind might soar
High as thine own in days of yore."
_The Giaour_.--BYRON
In the beginning of the eighth century Guernsey was a favoured spot.
Around, over the Continent and the British Isles, had swept successive
conquests with their grim train of sufferings for the conquered; but
these storm-clouds had not burst over the island. The shocks which
preceded the fall of the Roman Empire had not been felt, nor had the
throes which inaugurated the birth of Frankish rule in Gaul and Saxon
supremacy in Britain, disturbed the prevailing tranquillity. Occasional
descents of pirates, Northmen from Scandinavian homes or Southmen from
the Iberian peninsula, had hitherto had a beneficial effect by keeping
alive the martial spirit and the vigilance necessary for self-defence.
In the third century three Roman ships had been driven on shore and
lost; the legionaries who escaped had established themselves in the
island, having indeed for the moment no alternative. When their
commander succeeded in communicating with Gaul he suggested a permanent
occupation, being secretly influenced by tales of mineral wealth to
which he had lent an ear. Disillusioned and recalled, he was followed by
a sybarite, whose palate was tickled by banquets of fish of which he
wrote in raptures to his friends at Capri and Brindisi. This excellent
man, dying of apoplexy in his bath, was replaced by a rough soldier, who
lost no time in procuring the evacuation of a post where he saw with a
glance that troops were uselessly locked up. From this time nothing had
been heard of the Romans; their occupation had lasted forty years, and
in another forty the only physical traces of it remaining were a camp at
Jerbourg, the nearly obliterated tessellated pavement and fragments of
wall belonging to the sybarite's villa, which occupied the site in the
King's Mills Valley where the Moulin de Haut now stands, the pond in
the Grand Mare in which the voluptuary had reared the carp over which,
dressed with sauces the secret of which died with him, he dwelt lovingly
when stretched on his triclinium, and the basins at Port Grat in which
he stored his treasured mullet and succulent oysters. The islanders were
of one mind in speeding the parting guests, but the generation which saw
them go were better men than their fathers who had trembled at the
landing of the iron-thewed demi-gods. Compelled to work as slaves, they
had learnt much from their masters; a knowledge of agriculture and of
the cultivation of the grape, the substitution of good weapons and
implements of husbandry for those of their Celtic ancestors, improved
dwellings, and some insight into military discipline,--these were
substantial benefits which raised them in some respects above their
Continental and British neighbours, among whom patriotism had, on the
disappearance of the civilization of the Romans, revived the more
congenial barbarism. Arrivals among them of Christian monks, scanty at
first, more frequent since the landing of S. Augustine in Britain, had
also had a certain effect. The progress of conversion was, however,
slow; the people were bigoted, and the good fathers were compelled, as
in Brittany, to content themselves with a few genuine converts, wisely
endeavouring rather to leaven the mass by grafting Christian truths on
the old superstitions than to court certain defeat, possible expulsion
or massacre, by striving to overthrow at once all the symbols of
heathenism.
The island was larger in extent than it is at present, as, in addition
to the Vale district, the islet of Lihou, Vazon Bay, and the rock group
known as the Hanois formed part of it. It is with the events that
altered this configuration that the following legend deals.
CHAPTER II.
SUPERSTITION.
"Awestruck, the much-admiring crowd
Before the virgin vision bowed,
Gaz'd with an ever-new delight,
And caught fresh virtues at the sight."
EDWARD MOORE'S _Fables_.
On the 24th of June, in the year 708, merry crowds were thronging to
Vazon Forest. It was a lovely spot. The other portions of the island
were bare and somewhat rugged; here the humidity of the soil favoured
the growth of fine, vigorous timber. On the low ground flourished oak
and sycamore, torn and bent near the shore where the trees met the force
of the Atlantic gales, growing freely and with rich verdure where better
protected. On the higher slopes were massed beech, birch, and the sweet
chestnut which was even then domesticated in the island. Glades,
bursting with a wealth of flowers nurtured by the mildness of the
climate, penetrated the wood in every direction; streams bubbling up
from springs, and forming little cascades where their course was checked
by granite boulders, lent an additional charm. Towards the centre of the
forest these streams united to form a lake, or rather a natural moat,
surrounding an island in the midst of which stood a gigantic oak. This
was the only tree on the island; round it, at even distances, were
placed twelve stones, beyond which a meadow glittering with varied hues
extended to the surrounding water.
It was to this island that the holiday-makers were wending their way:
young men and maidens, and such elders as had vigour enough to traverse
the rough tracks leading from the interior. They were a small race,
lithe and active, with strong black hair and dark eyes now twinkling
with merriment They poured over the wooden bridges into the precincts of
the towering oak, under which the elders seated themselves with the
musicians, the younger people streaming off to the clear ground between
the stones and the water.
When all were assembled the music struck up at a signal from an elder.
The instruments were akin to the goat-skin pipes of Lower Brittany; the
music wild, weird, appealing to the passion if not melodious to the ear.
At any rate the effect was inspiriting. First, the men danced, the
maidens seating themselves round the dancers and chanting the following
words, to the rhythm of which they swayed their bodies gracefully:--
"Mille Sarrazins, mille Sarmates,
Un jour nous avons tues.
Mille, mille, mille, mille, mille Perses,
Nous cherchons a present."
The dance, footed to this truculent chant, had no warlike features;
beginning with a march, or rather a tripping walk, it ended with feats
in which each dancer defied his neighbour to out-spring him; nor did the
vocalists appear to expect representations of strife and doughty deeds.
The words, Roman by origin, as is clear from the allusion to the
Persians, had been adapted to a native air by the conquerors, and had
been left by them as a legacy to the islanders. Next, the maidens trod a
measure, the men standing round and applauding; the dance was quiet and
soft, consisting principally of graceful movements of the body as if the
dancers were getting themselves into training for greater efforts; in
this case the dancers themselves chanted words suitable to the music.
This ended, there was a pause before the principal business of the day
began, the dance in which both sexes joined, to be followed by the
bestowal of a wreath on the loveliest of the maidens.
During the pause it was evident that an unusual incident had occurred.
The best-looking of the girls were pouting, the attention of the youths
was distracted. During the latter part of the dance the applause had
been intermittent; towards the close it had almost ceased. The elders,
looking about under their shaggy eyebrows, had not been long in
discovering the cause, and when they had found it allowed their
attention to wander also.
The disturbing element was, indeed, not far to seek. Close to one of the
bridges was seated a maiden, unknown to all of them, but lovely enough
to hold the glance of old and young. Unlike the natives she was tall and
fair; masses of golden hair encircled her oval face and clustered over
her blue eyes. Who was she? Whence came she? None could answer. By
degrees some of the boldest of the youths approached, but their bluff
manners seemed to displease her; though unaccustomed to rebuffs they
retired. One, however, among them fared differently. Jean Letocq, a
member of the family to which the hero belonged who near this very spot
discovered the sleeping troops of the Grand Sarrazin, was admired and
beloved both by youths and maidens. First in every sport, having shown
courage and resource in times of peril both by sea and land, tender of
glance and gentle of tongue, he held a pre-eminence which none disputed,
and which was above the reach of envy. The fair stranger, from his first
glance at her, had fascinated, enthralled him: his eyes fastened
greedily on her every movement; he noted well her reception of those who
had addressed her, and when he approached he came, bare-headed, with a
low obeisance and a deferential air. He seated himself by her in
silence, after murmuring a few words of welcome to the feast, to which
she made no answer. Presently he spoke again, softly and courteously;
she replied without constraint, speaking his own language fluently,
though with a foreign accent. The ice once broken their talk rippled on,
as is the wont of light words, brightly uttered. Jean drank in each
gentle phrase, watched every graceful gesture; his heart bounded when
she carelessly smiled. But he lost not his daring: when the musicians
again struck up he boldly asked her to join in the dance.
She was not offended, her look showed no displeasure, but she refused;
he renewed his request; suddenly a change came over her face, she looked
rapidly round as though searching for some one who was not present, a
flash came into her eyes, she sprang to her feet. "Why should I not
dance!" she said; "they are merry, why should I alone be sad!" She let
him lead her into the ring. If she had been enchanting when seated, what
was her power when she moved! She was a model of grace and loveliness;
the contrast of her colouring to that of her neighbours inspired the
superstitious with some terror, but made the braver spirits gaze more
curiously, indifferent to the half-concealed anger and affected disdain
of their partners. Every moment she gained more hearts, though she let
her eyes rest only on those of Jean. After the dance was over she seated
herself in her former position; the women then, according to custom,
retired outside the stone circle, while the men clustered round the oak
to award the prize. The ceremony had up to this day been looked on as a
pure formality: for the last two summers the wreath had been by common
consent placed on the brows of Suzanne Falla, and none who woke that
morning had doubted that it would rest there again before night. But now
the men's heads were turned; there was commotion both outside and inside
the circle; then a hush, as the old men rose in their places and the
young men formed a lane to the tree. Jean stepped out, and taking the
stranger by the hand, led her to where a white-haired veteran stood with
the wreath in his hand. The next moment it was placed on her brows, and
then all voices burst into a song of triumph, which rang to the remotest
glades of the forest. Suzanne did not join in the song; her little heart
was breaking; all the passion of her hot nature was roused; she felt
herself unfairly, unjustly, treated; insulted on the very day that was
to have crowned her pride. She could not control herself, nor could she
accept her defeat: she stamped her foot on the ground, and poured out a
torrent of objurgation, accusing Jean of treachery, demanding to know
whence he had produced her rival, appealing to the elders to revise the
judgment. Then, suddenly ceasing, as she saw by the looks of those
around her that while in some her fate created pity, in others it gave
rise to amusement, in many to the pleasure which poor human nature felt
then as now in a friend's misfortune, her mood altered: she turned and,
rapidly leaving the crowd, crossed one of the bridges. Hastening her
steps, but not watching them, she tripped over the straggling root of a
yew, and fell, her temple striking a sharp boulder, one of many cropping
up in the forest. Poor girl! in one moment passion and pride had flown;
she lay senseless, blood streaming from the wound.
A quick revulsion of feeling swept through the impressionable people.
Her departure had been watched, the fall observed, and the serious
nature of the accident was soon known; all hurried to the spot where she
lay, full of sympathy and distress. Jean, perhaps not altogether
unremorseful, was among the first to proffer aid; the stranger, left
alone, took off the wreath and placed it on one of the stones of the
circle, by which she stood contemplating the scene.
The blow, struck deep into the temple, was beyond any ordinary means of
cure; life indeed seemed to be ebbing away. "Send for Marie!" the cry
sprang from many mouths: "send for Marie the wise woman! she alone can
save her!" Three or four youths ran hastily off.
"Wish ye for Marie Torode's body or her spirit?" said a harsh female
voice; "her body ye can have! but what avail closed eyes and rigid
limbs? Her spirit, tossed by the whirling death-blast, is beyond your
reach!"
The speaker, on whom all eyes turned, was an aged woman of unusual
height; her snow-white hair was confined by a metal circlet, her eyes
were keen and searching, her gestures imperious; her dress was simple
and would have been rude but for the quaintly ornamented silver girdle
that bound her waist, and the massive bracelets on her arms. Like the
girl she was seen for the first time; her almost supernatural appearance
inspired wonder and awe. She bent over the prostrate form: "Marie said
with her last breath," she muttered to herself, "that ere the oaks were
green again the sweetest maidens in the island would be in her embrace,
but she cannot summon this one now! her vext spirit has not yet the
power!"
She examined the wound, and raising herself said, "No human hand can
save her. The Spirits alone have power: those Spirits who prolong human
life regardless of human ills; but they must be besought, and who will
care to beseech them?"
"Prayers may save her," answered a stern voice, "but not prayers to
devils! The Holy Virgin should we beseech, by whom all pure maidens are
beloved. She will save her if it be God's will, or receive her into her
bosom if it be decreed that she should die."
The words were those of Father Austin, one of the monks of Lihou,
distinguished by his sanctity and the austerity of his habits. He was
spare, as one who lived hardly; his grey eyes had a dreamy look
betokening much inward contemplation, though they could be keen enough
when, as now, the man was roused; there was a gentleness about his mouth
which showed a nature filled with love and sympathy.
The woman drew herself to her full stature, and turned on him a defiant
look.
"Gods or devils!" she said in a ringing tone--"which you will! What can
an immured anchorite know of the vast mysteries of the wind-borne
spirits? Is this child to live or die? My gods can save her; if yours
can, let them take her! She is nought to me."
"When Elijah wrestled with the prophets of Baal, where did victory
rest?" said the priest, and he too stooped down and inspected the wound.
"She is past cure," he said, rising sadly; "it remains but to pray for
her soul."
At this critical moment an agonizing shriek rang through the forest. The
same runners who had sped to Marie Torode's cottage and had learnt there
that the wise woman had in truth passed away, had brought back with
them Suzanne's mother, who threw herself on her child's body
endeavouring to staunch the blood, and to restore animation. Finding her
efforts vain, she had listened anxiously to the words that had passed,
and on hearing the priest's sentence of doom she burst into frantic
grief and supplication. Turning to each disputant she cried--"Save her!
save her young life! I suckled her, I reared her, I love her!--oh, how I
love her!--do not let her die!"
"She can be saved!" curtly responded the stranger. The priest was
silent. A murmur arose. Austin, who had trained himself to study those
among whom he laboured, saw that the feeling was rising strongly against
him. His antagonist saw it also, and pressed her victory.
"Yes!" she said scornfully, "it is a small matter for my Gods to save
her, but they will not be besought while this bald-pate obtrudes his
presence. Let him leave us!"
The priest was much perplexed. He knew the skill of these lonely women;
secretly he had faith in their power of witchcraft, though attributing
it to the direct agency of Satan. He thought it not impossible that
there was truth in the boast; and his heart was wrung with the mother's
grief. On the other hand, the public defeat was a sore trial; but it was
clear to him that for the present at least the analogy of Elijah's
struggle was imperfect: he must wait, and meanwhile bear his
discomfiture with meekness. He prepared to retire. The victor was not,
however, even now satisfied. "Take with you," she said, "yon idol that
defaces the sacred oak!"
The good fathers, following their usual practice of associating emblems
of heathen with those of Christian worship, in the hope of gradually
diverting the reverence to the latter without giving to the former a
ruder shock than could be endured, had suspended a small cross on the
oak, hoping eventually to carve the tree itself into a sacred emblem; it
was to this that the woman was pointing with a sneer.
But this time she had made a blunder. Father Austin turned to the
crucifix and his strength and fire returned. Taking it from the tree,
reverently kissing it and holding it aloft, he said solemnly--"Let my
brothers and sisters come with me! We will pray apart, where no profane
words can reach us. Perchance our prayers may be granted!" Not a few of
the hearers followed him; sufficient indeed to make an imposing
procession: the triumph of the Evil One was at least dimmed.
But his adversary did not appear to notice their departure. She gave a
sharp glance in the direction of the oak, and the now discrowned girl
was quickly at her side. Receiving some rapid instructions, the latter
disappeared into the wood, and shortly returned with some herbs, which
she passed to her companion; she then resumed her position by the stone.
The old woman placed some leaves, which she selected, on the wound: the
bleeding at once ceased; squeezing juice from the herbs, she applied an
ointment made from it; then, opening a phial attached to her waist-belt,
she poured some drops of liquid into the girl's mouth, gently parting
her lips. This done, she stood erect and began an incantation, or rather
a supplication, in an unknown tongue. As she proceeded her form became
rigid, her eye gleamed, her arms, the hands clenched, were raised above
her head. The sun flashed on the circlet, glittered on the embossed
girdle: on the right arm was a heavy bracelet, composed of a golden
serpent winding in weird folds round a human bone; the head was towards
the wearer's wrist, and the jewelled eyes which, being of large size,
must have been formed of rare stones, glowed and shot fire as the red
beams struck on them through the branches. It seemed that a forked
tongue darted in and out, but this may have been imagined by the heated
fancies of the bystanders. The prayer ended; the stillness of death
rested a moment on man and nature; then a wild gust of wind, striking
the oak without any preliminary warning, bent and snapped the upper
branches, and crashed inland through the swaying forest. The watchers
saw the colour return to the cheeks of the wounded girl, who opened her
eyes and sate up. "Take her home," said the sorceress, now quite
composed, to the mother; "she is yours again!--till Marie calls her!"
she added in a low voice to herself. The happy mother, shedding tears of
joy, but in vain attempting to get her thanks accepted, obeyed the
injunction.
As she and her friends disappeared, the old woman, turning to the awed
people who seemed more than ever disposed to look on her as a
supernatural being, said sternly--"Why linger you here? Are you
unmindful of your duties? See you not how the shadows lengthen?" These
words produced a magical effect: the deep emotions by which the mass had
been recently swayed were swiftly replaced by equally profound feelings
of a different nature, as cloud succeeds cloud in a storm-swept sky.