Folklore & legend

Le Creux ès Faïes, the Fairies' Cave

Also known as: Creux des Fâïes; Entrance to fairyland

Le Creux ès Faïes passage grave, L'Erée, St Pierre du Bois

Neolithic monument; beliefs recorded 19th century to 1896

Mrs Savidan's version of the oven story has ploughmen at work in a field belonging to Mr Le Cheminant, just below the cromlech, when they heard the voice call for the baker's shovel. One of them called back, "Bon! J'airon de la gâche!" ("Good! We'll have some cake!"), and almost at once a hot cake dropped into one of the furrows. One man ran to pick it up to take a piece home to his wife, and as he bent down he received a blow on the head that knocked him flat. The fairies' gifts were not for the greedy.

Nearby, two men ploughing near L'Erée found their plough stuck fast. In the next furrow was an iron baking kettle with a piece broken out of its side and two nails beside it, and a voice asked them to have it mended and put back. They took it to a smith and replaced it, and their plough ran freely again. A little later it stopped a second time, and they found a neat bundle holding a warm cake and a bottle of cider, and heard their invisible friend thank them and tell them to eat and drink without fear.

The belief that the fairies built and lived in the cromlechs was, MacCulloch found, the peasants' explanation for the pottery dug out of them. Miss Le Pelley wrote from St Pierre du Bois in 1896 that one woman told her "when they dug down they found all kinds of pots and pans and china things". A skeleton with arms found in a stone-lined grave on a hillside near L'Erée was named without hesitation "Le Tombé du Rouai des Fâïes", the tomb of the fairy king. Modern Guernsey guides still describe a stone at the monument as the doorway to the fairy world. The passage grave is open to walk into from the coast road.

The passage grave stands on the L'Erée headland and can be entered freely.
Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
49.456, -2.656 (Sited to the building or field)

Sources: Edgar MacCulloch, ed. Edith F. Carey, "Guernsey Folk Lore" (1903), Project Gutenberg [public-domain]; Island Families, "Guernsey's Ghosts & Legends" [other]; Visit Guernsey, "Folklore of the Bailiwick" (2018) [other]

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