Folklore & legend

La Roque des Faïes and the Forest Church

Also known as: The Fairies' Stone

Le Bourg de la Forêt and Forest parish church

Recorded 19th century

The moved-church story is one of the commonest in Europe, and Guernsey tells it of at least four parishes: the Castel, the Forest, St Martin's and the Vale. In each version the builders choose a site, bring stone and tools, and find them the next morning somewhere else. After this happens more than once, they take the hint. At the Forest the culprits were the fairies who owned the ground around their stone.

The Roque des Faïes itself had gone by MacCulloch's time, broken up for road improvements, but the fear of the place had outlasted it. MacCulloch thought, sensibly, that such stones may really have been used as goals in rough ball games between neighbouring parishes, like Cornish hurling or the Breton "soule", and that the fairies inherited the game in memory.

The Forest church of Ste Marguerite now stands at Le Bourg, and the map point is placed there, since the exact position of the lost stone is not known.

The Forest church and village are public; the stone itself was destroyed.
Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
49.431, -2.593 (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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