Legend of Moulin Huet

Red stains on the rocks at Guernsey's Moulin Huet provide the starting point for a tale of family conflict during Cromwell's ascendancy. Beside the bay, Pierre Moullin lives with his son Hirzel and daughter Marguerite in a house joined to his mill. The miller supports Cromwell, but Marguerite has promised to marry Charlie Heyward, a Royalist soldier and Hirzel's friend. Pierre's determination to give her to the fisherman Jacques Gaultier turns political allegiance into a struggle within the household.

Lizzie A. Freeth connects this historical setting with an island legend, introducing a fairy explanation for the coloured rocks before turning to human jealousy. Lace work, carved bobbins, boats and the mill wheel give the conflict a close domestic setting. Readers interested in Channel Islands fiction will find a short historical tale in which a father's authority, a daughter's choice and a rival's resentment bring danger to an ordinary coastal home.