1915.] THE CHEVAUCHEE DE ST. MICHEL. 245 



During this interval the band played serenades and marches, 

 the bugles then sounded the retreat and the Cavalcade proceeded 

 through Berthelot Street to the College Fields, and, passing 

 through the Grange, they reached the Gravees, where His 

 Excellency took his leave. This spot was once the site of a 

 menhir — or Longue Roque in local parlance — which has long 

 since been destroyed. They then went on by Petite Marche to 

 the St. Martin's Road, as far as the ancient manor of Ville-au- 

 Roi, one of the oldest houses in the Island. The arched stone 

 entrance of the old avenue was tastefully decorated with flags 

 and arches of flowers with a crown in the centre, and on one of 

 the arches the motto " Vive la Chevauchee " was displayed. 

 Here, according to old Manorial custom, the party was gratuit- 

 ously regaled with milk. In the days of William the Con- 

 queror Hugh de Rosel held large tracts of land — called Fief 

 Rosel — from Ranulph, son of Anchetil Vicomte de Bessin ; 

 among these lands were two fiefs (both called Rosel), in Guern- 

 sey, and a Fief Rosel in Jersey. The Ville au Roi was the 

 western boundary of the larger of the two Guernsey fiefs, and 

 this dole of milk, which was of immemorial antiquity, may 

 also have been a subsidy from the Seigneur de Rosel to the 

 Abbot of Mont St. Michel for keeping his roads in repair, or it 

 may have had to do with primitive rites in connection with a 

 Tolmen or Pierre Percee which, although destroyed, still gives 

 its name to the neighbouring estate. Here the bandsmen left 

 them and the procession then moved on towards the southern 

 parishes, the pions proceeding to Le Bourg at the Forest by way 

 of Les Caches, and the horsemen of the party riding to Jer- 

 bourg to a district called Feugre, from the bracken or fougere 

 which still covers it. This is situated just below where is now 

 Doyle's Column and where the old earthwork or Castle of Jer- 

 bourg once stood. They halted at a stone, now destroyed, 

 which stood north of a well which still remains. It was a flat 

 slab of rock about a yard long by two feet broad, standing on 

 either a stone pillar or on rough masonry, and raised about two 

 feet from the ground. It probably was once a boundary of the 

 Fief de Jerbourg, and quite near there stood La Croix de 

 Jerbourg. W 



From Jerbourg the Cavalcade rejoined the Pions at Le 

 Bourg, opposite the Forest Church, and here the ritual dance 

 was performed as before. Sir Edgar MacCulloch (Guernsey 

 Folklore, p. 127) states that on this spot an upright stone, called 

 La Roque des Fees, once stood, but that it was destroyed when 

 the road was widened. Another stone, distinguished by its 



Note (1). The Gazette de Guernesey, 11th June, 1825, says :— 



"A Jerbourg, ou il y avait dit-on autrefois un autel des Druides, pour 

 manifester le mepris qu'inspirent restes d'idolatrie, ils executaient— a ce qu'on 

 assure— dans les premiers tems sur ce pretendu autel, une cer6monie qui nous 

 rapelle l'exp6dient auquel Gulliver eut recours pour etiendre les flammes qui 

 embrassaient le palais de l'empereur de Lilliput." 



