MacCulloch set out the theories fairly. One school saw in "Balan" the Celtic sun god Belenus, and pointed out that Midsummer and Beltane fires were still lit in Scotland and Ireland not long before. Others thought the rock was the base of a logan, a balancing stone, or the place where the Prior of St Michel weighed his tenants' produce in the "balances". He concluded that the Ballen family, who once lived nearby, were the likeliest source of the name.
Whatever the name meant, the custom is plain. On Midsummer Eve, island people danced on the flat top of the rock, and the song survived after the dancing stopped. Near the rock stood La Roque qui Sonne, the ringing stone that was broken up with disastrous results for its owner. One version of "Satan and the Schoolmaster" is set at the house of a learned man living near the Roque Balan, whose curious pupil called up the Devil.
The Vale's dunes and hougues have been heavily quarried and built on since the nineteenth century, and the rock's exact position is not known today. The map point is approximate.
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