Folklore & legend

The Bladebone Ship of Perelle

Also known as: Je vais cheminant; The Le Cheminant legend

Perelle Bay, St Saviour

Recorded 19th century

A respectable man from near Perelle Bay went down at first light after a stormy night to gather seaweed and any wreckage the westerly gale had thrown up. In the half-light he saw a large ship out at sea heading for the shore, and he waited for it to hit one of the sunken rocks. Instead, as it came nearer it got smaller and smaller, until it grounded next to him no bigger than the toy boats children sail in rock pools. A man of dwarfish size stepped out. The ship had turned into the bladebone of a sheep wrapped in tangled seaweed.

The countryman, not easily scared, asked him where he came from, what his name was and where he was going. The stranger did not seem to understand the language, but answered the last question: "Je vais cheminant" ("I am going on my way"). He stayed in the island all the same, built a house near where he landed, and became the ancestor of the family called Le Cheminant, "of which many of the members were famous for their skill as smiths".

MacCulloch thought the tale might be a garbled memory of the early British saints who crossed the sea on their cloaks, in stone troughs or on bundles of seaweed. The Le Cheminant name is still found in Guernsey. The map point is placed at Perelle Bay.

Perelle Bay is a public beach.
Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
49.461, -2.633 (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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