Before the Hanois lighthouse was built in 1862, the reefs off Guernsey's west coast were among the worst in the Channel, and ships coming up from the Atlantic went down there with all hands. The fishermen of L'Erée and Rocquaine grew up knowing every rock by name, and they watched the weather closely. Their storm signs were unusual ones. A bright light low in the south-west was the first. The second was a noise from La Pendue, a roar like a large beast in agony, that came before the wind arrived.
MacCulloch gave the story without comment, but it is easy to see what the fishermen might have been hearing. Rising swell working into a gully or cave in a reef can produce a deep, groaning boom long before the wind reaches shore, and similar "roaring rocks" are known on other coasts. That does not make the local name any less real. The fishermen named the sound as a creature because it behaved like one.
The bull of Sanbule was Métivier's addition. He thought "bule" might come from the English "bull" or the Swedish "bulla", and "san" from "saint", and wondered whether a holy bull legend had once belonged to the rock. The exact positions of La Pendue and Sanbule are not given in the sources, so the map point marks the reef coast between L'Erée and Lihou.
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