Folklore & legend

The Devil's Claw at Jerbourg

Also known as: Duke Richard and the Demon

Roadside quartz stone below Doyle's Column, Jerbourg, St Martin

Chronicle printed 1576; stone recorded 19th century

MacCulloch gave careful directions. Going along the road from town to Doyle's Column, one saw "a large white piece of quartz with a deep black splash right across it", on the right-hand side of the road just as it begins to rise towards the column, at the head of the second vallum or earthwork going down towards La Petite Porte. That black splash was the Devil's claw.

Métivier, who could never resist a learned footnote, compared the richly dressed damsel who tempted the duke to Lilith of rabbinic legend. The story itself is an old piece of Norman ducal folklore, and Guernsey simply gave it a landing place. The Jerbourg peninsula, with its prehistoric and medieval earthworks, was already rich in such associations. The fairies lived in a vaulted cave above La Petite Porte, and the ghosts of two murdered men haunted the bay below.

Whether the quartz stone still lies by the roadside is not confirmed in any modern source used here. Doyle's Column itself was rebuilt after the German forces demolished the original. The map point is approximate, on the Jerbourg road.

The Jerbourg road is public; the stone may no longer be identifiable.
Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
49.426, -2.538 (Parish-level only, treat as an area)

Sources: Edgar MacCulloch, ed. Edith F. Carey, "Guernsey Folk Lore" (1903), Project Gutenberg [public-domain]

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