The husband was a hard-working fisherman and labourer who went to bed early. His wife sat up late on the jonquière, the rush-stuffed day-bed by the fire, spinning by the light of the crâset lamp. One night there was a knock and a voice asked whether the oven was hot and whether a batch of dough could be baked in it. A voice from inside the house asked who was there, and on hearing it was Le Petit Colin, let him in. She heard the dough go into the oven, and heard the two talking, which is how she learned that the one living in her house was called Le Grand Colin. When the baking was done the visitor left a nicely baked cake on the table as payment.
This happened regularly, and eventually she told her husband. It was he, MacCulloch noted, not she, who could not leave well alone. Against her pleading, he put on her clothes and sat at the wheel on baking night while she went to bed. She sensibly left the distaff empty, knowing he could not spin. The visitor came. The husband saw nothing, but heard one fairy say to the other: "File, filiocque, Rien en brocque, Barbe à cé ser, Pas l'autre ser." ("There's flax on the distaff, But nothing is spun; To night there's a beard, T'other night there was none.") Both left the house as if angry and never came back.
Carey pointed out closely similar stories from Normandy, the Basque country and Brittany, where the husband in disguise beats the fairies with a stick. The Guernsey version ends with a loss rather than a fight. The cottage is not identified, and the map point is approximate in the St Brioc valley.
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