Folklore & legend

Garis, Garis: the Fairy Neighbours of Le Douït d'Israël

Also known as: The fairies who borrowed the cart

Le Douït d'Israël, south of St Pierre du Bois church

Recorded 19th century

The fairies came at night and asked for the cart until morning, always with the same promise in rhyme. In MacCulloch's translation: "Garis, Garis, Lend your cart now, I pray, To go to Saint Malo, To fetch stones away. Should tires for the wheels Or any thing lack, We'll make it all right Before we come back." The cart was never refused, because it always came back in perfect order, and any metalwork damaged on the trip was found the next day repaired "with pure silver".

Nobody knew what the fairies did with it. Some said a sound of wheels was heard in the dead of night rolling over the cliffs at Pleinmont, "where no horse could have found a footing". St Malo in Brittany is about forty miles away across open sea, which makes the stones a real fairy cargo.

The story is a good example of the Guernsey belief that the fairies were an older race who had lived on the island first and remained good neighbours to certain old families. It is still one of the gentler pieces of island folklore. The map point is placed approximately in the valley south of the church.

Lanes around St Pierre du Bois are public; the cottage is not identified.
Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
49.434, -2.632 (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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