The Guernsey lily, Nerine sarniensis, actually comes from South Africa. A more mundane island tradition says bulbs washed ashore from a wrecked ship in the seventeenth century. The fairy explanation is much prettier. The bulb planted by a lost daughter, found flowering by her grieving mother, has no scent because "what is the scent but the soul of a flower", and so it is "a fit emblem of a denizen of fairyland".
In the related legend of the fairy invasion, the girl who went off with a fairy from England and so drew his countrymen after her is not named. Miss Lane's version makes her Michelle de Garis, and Carey used the name to complain in a footnote that Guernsey parents had given up old Norman names such as Michelle, Peronelle and Colinette for "Lavinia, Maud, Gladys".
Vazon, where the story is set, is the broad bay on the west coast where the fairies' army was also said to land. Visit Guernsey's folklore guide still tells the story of a fairy king falling for a local girl there. The lily is grown on the island and is Guernsey's emblem flower.
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