Rocquaine and its neighbourhood were, MacCulloch said, "the abode par excellence of the fairy folk", and two fairies lived in the valley of St Brioc nearby. Humans called them Le Grand Colin and Le Petit Colin. They were fond of games, and sometimes played ball on the flat open fields of Les Paysans, setting up their boundary marks. On one occasion Le Grand Colin hit the ball so hard it flew out of sight. Le Petit Colin, whose turn it was, complained crossly that the ball had gone out of bounds. Le Grand Colin drove his bat into the ground and said he would play no more.
The bat is the Longue Rocque, still standing in the middle of the field. The ball, "an enormous spherical boulder", was pointed out on the shore near Les Pezeries, a mile and a half away. Some said the fairies had set up the stone as a mark for their ball games. A lost stone called La Roque des Faïes, near the Forest village, was said to have been the other goal.
The two Colins appear elsewhere in Guernsey lore as household spirits. One cottage at St Brioc lent them its oven, and a Castel farmer employed Le Petit Colin as a farm boy until a voice on the road told him Le Grand Colin was dead. The Longue Rocque is a real prehistoric menhir, recorded separately on this site as a monument. This record covers the fairy lore. The stone stands in a private field but can be seen from the road.
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