Folklore & legend

St Magloire and the Vanishing Rescuer of Port du Moulin

Also known as: The monastery of St Magloire

Site of St Magloire's monastery above Port du Moulin, Sark

Sixth-century saint; legend told today

Sark's early medieval history is almost entirely legend, but Magloire is a real figure of the sixth-century Breton church, and his connection with Sark is old. The island's own telling of his life says he came in 565 with sixty monks, was given half the island after curing a dying chieftain, and built his monastery above Port du Moulin. Later, Viking raiders under Jarl Hastein were said to have destroyed it, after which the island became a haunt of pirates and wreckers who lured ships onto the rocks with false lights.

The rescue legend is told as a miracle with a ghostly edge. The children had climbed into an old wreck on the beach at Port du Moulin. A storm got up out of nowhere, lifted the hull off the sand and carried it out among the rocks. At their cries a figure appeared and brought the boat back to land, and then was gone. Whether the story is meant to happen in Magloire's lifetime or after his death is left open in the telling, which is part of its appeal.

La Moinerie, now a hotel, keeps the monks' name, and there is an old well near it said to be theirs. Nothing of the monastery itself is visible. The map point is placed between La Moinerie and Port du Moulin and is approximate.

Port du Moulin is reached by a cliff path; the monastery site is not marked.
Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
49.441, -2.365 (Parish-level only, treat as an area)

Sources: Isle of Sark, "Monks, Pirates & Folklore" [other]; Edgar MacCulloch, ed. Edith F. Carey, "Guernsey Folk Lore" (1903), Project Gutenberg [public-domain]

View on the map →

Comments

Loading…