Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/450

 41 8 The Chevauchde de St. Michel.

over the names of the villeins at their triennial meet- ings. Probably the circular tour, which in later times Avas made round the table, originally was made round the stone.

During this interval the band played serenades and marches ; the bugles then sounded the retreat, and the cavalcade then proceeded through Berthelot Street te the College Fields, and, passing through the Grange, they reached the Gravee, where His Excellency took his leave. This spot was once the site of a menhir — or Longue Roque, in local parlance — which has long since been destroyed. They then went on by Petite Marche to the St. Martin's road, as far as the ancient manor of Ville-au-Roi, one of the oldest houses in the island. The arched stone entrance of the old avenue was tastefully decorated with flags and arches of flowers with a crown in the centre, and on one of the arches the motto " Vive la Chevauchee " vv^as displayed. Here, according to old manorial custom, the party was gratuitously regaled with milk. In the days of William the Conqueror, Hugh de Rosel held large tracts of land — called Fief Rosel — from Ranulph, son of Anchetil, Vicomte de Bessin ; among these lands were two fiefs (both called Rosel) in Guernsey and a Fief Rosel in Jersey. The Ville- au-Roi was the western boundary of the larger of the two Guernsey fiefs, and this dole of milk, which was of imme- morial antiquity, may also have been a subsidy from the Seigneur de Rosel to the abbot of Mont St. Michel for keeping his roads in repair, or it may have had to do with primitive rites in connection with a Tolmen or Pierre Percee, which, although destroyed, still gives its name to the neighbouring estate. Here the bandsmen left them, and the procession then moved on towards the southern parishes, the pions proceeding to Le Bourg at the Forest by way of Les Caches, and the horsemen of the party riding to Jerbourg to a district called Feugre, from the bracken or fougere which still covers it. This is situated just below