Guernsey Folk Lore

Guernsey Folk Lore, by Edgar MacCulloch, is a collection of popular superstitions, legendary tales, peculiar customs, proverbs, weather sayings, etc., of the people of that island. The book says the season from St. Thomas' Day to New Year's Eve is considered to be a season when the powers of darkness are more than usually active, and that it is supposed to be dangerous to be out after dark. A belief the text calls general is that just at midnight on Christmas Eve all the cattle kneel and adore the newborn Saviour.

The text says old women as well as men pretend to have the gift of causing warts to disappear by counting them and asking certain questions of the persons applying for relief, and that it is believed those who possess the secret may impart it to one, and to one only. The text quotes Sir Edgar MacCulloch as saying that after the loss of Normandy the inconvenience of having so many valuable possessions in the hands of the enemy led to the suppression of these priories.