Guernsey Folk Tales — Part 1: The Broken Kettle · Fairy Neighbours · Le Petit Colin · The Fairy Bakers · The Changeling · Building of the Castel Church · The Guernsey Lily · Mermaids + Four More from Demons and Goblins | KacheliTV World Classics
Part One opens a new shelf: Guernsey Folk Lore, the great collection made from the manuscripts of Sir Edgar MacCulloch and edited by Edith F. Carey. Twelve short pieces come in the book's own order, first from its chapter of Fairies and then from Demons and Goblins: a kettle mended for unseen neighbours, a cart borrowed by night, a fairy servant, bakers who come after dark, a changeling, a church the fairies would not leave where men had put it, the Guernsey lily, mermaids on the sands, hidden treasure, two haunted houses, a dole of loaves, and an enchanted horse.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
In this part:
- The Broken Kettle — two ploughmen find a broken kettle in a furrow, and an unseen voice asks them to have it mended.
- Fairy Neighbours — the fairies borrow a cart by night, and always bring it back, its ironwork repaired with silver.
- Le Petit Colin — a fairy farm servant who leaves the moment a voice from a haunted hill tells him Grand Colin is dead.
- The Fairy Bakers — Petit Colin bakes by night in a farmhouse oven, until the master takes his wife's place at the spinning wheel.
- The Changeling — a mother hears her cradle-child speak with an ancient voice, and knows what the fairies have done.
- Building of the Castel Church — three nights running, the fairies carry the church's stones and tools away in their aprons.
- The Guernsey Lily — a fairy husband leaves his Guernsey wife's family a bulb to remember her by, planted above Vazon Bay.
- Mermaids — an old man of the Forest parish sees six mermaids disporting on the sands below Petit Bot Bay.
- Hidden Treasures — flames hover over buried gold, and its guardian demon plays shells and trickery against the diggers.
- The Spectre of the Grentmaisons — a closed and empty mansion, with fearful noises, strange lights, and a shaggy beast at its walls.
- The Dole of Loaves at Le Laurier — a bread charity for the poor, a calf-like spectre laid by prayer, and the night the dole was withheld.
- The Enchanted Horse — a white horse stretches to carry a dozen young men, and sets them all down in a muddy marsh.
The tales:
01:28 — The Broken Kettle
03:41 — Fairy Neighbours
06:00 — Le Petit Colin
08:34 — The Fairy Bakers
15:28 — The Changeling
18:41 — Building of the Castel Church
20:30 — The Guernsey Lily
22:19 — Mermaids
23:36 — Hidden Treasures
26:57 — The Spectre of the Grentmaisons
29:10 — The Dole of Loaves at Le Laurier
33:54 — The Enchanted Horse
Source and rights: the pieces performed here are from Guernsey Folk Lore (London: Elliot Stock, 1903), from the manuscripts of Sir Edgar MacCulloch (died 1896), edited by Edith F. Carey (died 1935), read from the complete public-domain text at Project Gutenberg. This shelf is Guernsey only; no completeness for the book is claimed. Screened for this part and not read: The Invasion of Guernsey by the Fairies, The Fairies and the Nurse, The Fairies and the Midwife, and Le Gibet des Faies, each set aside under this shelf's content screen; Herodias stands held with sacred material. The witch-trial records of the Witches and Witchcraft chapter are not narrated and stand benched, as do the Charms chapter (surveyed, practice-description, not read), the Devil chapter, the remaining Demons and Goblins pieces, Story Telling, and Historical Reminiscences, all held for Part 2. Where the book prints Guernsey-French verse, the performance speaks the book's own English translation.
Narrated by Amos.
Music: Lightning Crash — opening and closing theme only.
