Jersey, September 1356
I will confess this much: I am a trickster, a pilferer, and a thief. I was christened Jean of St Ouen, but I shed that skin on the day I first slipped away from the Seigneur’s justice. That callow youth never returned. In these latter days, I travel under a dozen names, cloaked with a brace of disguises, bound together by a single, burning obsession; for gold.
The moon hung like a gibbet over the western bay on the night I set out to rob the manor of La Brecquette. I was clad in black to hide my face and caked in earth to mask my scent. I darted like a lizard over rocks, skirted the snares of St Ouen’s Pond, and followed the stream into the deep valley of l’Etacq. No sound, no voices, no watchmen. The underbelly of my prey lay before me.
The manor house of La Brecquette is old, very old. Some say it is a Roman foreshore fortress, built in the dying days of the Empire. Drunken tongues claim it is practically built on Caesar’s buried gold. Yet by my reckoning it looks the same as a dozen other grand Jersey homes; a carcass of heavy red granite, a dower wing and an obligatory tourelle peering balefully over the sandbar towards the western ocean. Fortress or not, I’m going to break in.
The house is surrounded by the finest cider orchards in Jersey. They say the oldest oaks grew on this headland before Helier ever set foot on this blasted rock. Some even say the trees are the last living remnants of an ancient forest, lost to time and memory, dating from the days when the bishop of Coutances could walk over to Jersey on a plank. But I care little for fireside legends. I am here for the coin.
Naturally, if my trespass here were discovered, I would die. I fancy I would be thrown straight off the cliff at Geoffrey’s Leap, like felons in days gone by. More likely, I would be hung in the yard of the brutish castle at Mont Orgueil. But the rewards are rich, and the timing is ideal. The Island is distracted, ablaze with joy at the news of the Duke’s terrific victory at Poitiers. A week of feasting and revelry has been ordained. The wine is flowing, and the people are asleep.
Such quick work for me to prise a door open, as softly as a feather. The poor guardsmen – farmer lads with pikes – snore like gluttons. I brashly stroll through the dying embers of a lavish feast, through the banqueting chamber. The master of the house, John Wallis, is slumped in his chair, his belly bloated with a surfeit of wine. His hounds are snorting at his feet, chasing rabbits in their dreams. A cloud of maggots in the scullery devours the entrails of a cow, all that is left of the thick side of gorgeous beef that the master and his guests have enjoyed.
I glide up the spiral stairs like a ghost, and I turn into the strong room. Yet as I pass the leaden glass window, I stop dead in my tracks. I hear the rushing sound of a mighty river. But there are no great rivers in Jersey. What is happening? I gasp with sheer amazement; nose pressed against the pane like a child. The sea just beyond the manor is suddenly draining away, beating a sullen, rushing retreat, as if the waters are swirling out of a tub.
They reveal an astonishing world. In the moonlight, I see the broken stumps of a forest, clustered on ledges of rock beyond the sandbar, shelving away from me like terraced steps. So, the old legends were true; there had once been a great wood here, before the age of Noah. His drowned kingdom, of rock palaces and chiselled sea valleys, now stretches away hundreds of yards towards the western horizon.
Fish are floundering on silvery rocks now, choking in the fatal air. Eels thrash themselves to death in this strange new world. The black bones of an ancient shipwreck lie exposed on one silted outcrop. Words from my childhood churchgoing days leap unbidden into my mind. “The first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea”.
The red moon glowers in the sky above, as heavy as a stone quern. I glance to the east, where the strong spire of St Ouen’s Parish Church still looms against the heights. Yet there is no thunderclap of judgment, no angel-scroll announcing the end of the world. I cross myself three times, out of instinct. Then I resume my brazen thievery.
My handiwork, as deft as quicksilver, prises open the manorial chest. I scoop my fingers in, and behind a thick ream of title deeds, I finally claim my prize. Silken purses bulging with gold coins, a smattering of rings and jewellery, a fine stash of loot for an evening’s work. I fleece the old fool’s storehouse in a moment.
Then my head explodes. A brace of seagulls is sweeping in over the tourelle, the tower, all of them shrieking in fury. At once the land birds awake in a flurry, whooping together in a cacophony of terror. In the hall below, the wolf hounds start to howl, as if struck by forked lightning. I freeze. My hand clasps on the hilt of my dagger, my teeth clenched, my heart bursting, ready to fight for my life. Yet the guard-dogs are as giddy as kittens. They thrash straight out of the gates and vanish away into the night, heading up for the higher ground.
A slurred voice yells an oath from the banqueting hall. The master of the house has awoken; the game is up. I sped off into the night, hurtling through the trees as if the hangman himself was at my heels. I ran with every sinew in my body, and I kept on running.
Before long I was panting my innards out, scratched by thorn bushes, my ankle raw and twisted. At last, halfway up the slope of the great hilltop above l’Etacq, I dared to look back.
That was when I saw the great black line on the horizon, unfurling like a scroll, erasing all the stars. A towering ocean wave, the king of tides, was sweeping in at speed towards Jersey. The dreadful wall of black water was five times the height of the tallest man. For an instant, it hung poised, hanging like a curtain over the doomed manor of La Brecquette. Then it fell like an executioner’s blade.
A scurry of lanterns; a frantic welter of men saddling up horses, of servants darting like insects in the courtyard. And then that world suddenly drowned, as violently as a burning brazier ducked into a pond. The water smashed over the tourelle and all the candles turned to black. The diabolical wave was not done yet. It ripped on through the rich orchards and surged all the way up the valley of l’Etacq, finally breaking at the foot of the very mount where I cowered. A jagged sea-crest leapt into the sky, salt-spraying my feet, then mercifully folded back onto itself.
I fell to my knees and begged for my life: “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum…” Yet just as suddenly as the sea had lurched onto the land, the monstrous tide retreated. It swiftly fell back to its divinely appointed boundaries. Yet the world had changed.
My jaw dropped in awe. The fearsome wave had destroyed the sandbar and punched a new, clean hole in the coast. The map of Jersey had changed in an instant, as if a child had drawn a clean smooth line, an arc right down to Corbière.
And at the low tide next morning, every man could see that the trees and soil of La Brecquette had been stripped away like skin. Only a skeleton of stone remained. Crowds of locals were thronging there, jabbering and pointing, sending salvage boats to bring the debris back home. Already fishermen were scouring for wreckage, looting the bricks, swarming over the ruined manor like flies on a corpse.
Only this thief had been spared. I wept and prayed for hours. As night fell, I buried my cache of stolen gold, deep beneath the dunes, overlooking the drowned manor. I kept just a single copper coin. I punched a hole in it and will wear it around my neck until the day I die. This will be my albatross, my penance.
And now, of course, it is as if La Brecquette had never been. The years have fallen away like the tide, and I am an old man. The endless wars in France still rage of course, like old sores. But the legend of the manor under the sea is a mere fairy tale, a tall story to scare the children on All Hallows’ Eve. I still forage for seaweed or vraic on the new foreshore and tell my tale in the Island’s taverns for a copper coin. The drinkers laugh and sometimes humour this old fool. At night, I curl and sleep in my rags by the fire-grate, and in my dreams the sky becomes a black wave, and every night those waters are sweeping closer, dragging me home.
I will never speak of the gold, buried long ago like the fruit of those drowned orchards. The treasure still lies deep beneath the earth, waiting to be remembered, waiting to be found.
#Ad This story is included in my second book, Jersey: Secrets of the Sea. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made using the link below at no extra cost to you.
#Ad You can discover more Jersey myths and legends in my latest book, Illustrated Tales of Jersey. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made using the link below at no extra cost to you.
© Paul Darroch 2026.
Music: Chariots by Gavin Luke courtesy of Epidemic Sound.
