Save Me From The Chien

Save Me From The Chien

~The Story~
Somewhere to the north of Sark, an old Vicar was in a deep sleep in his bed when he was suddenly woken up in the early hours of the morning by a doctor who needed his help to attend to a delirious fisherman. The Vicar wasted no time in getting himself up and traveling over to La Coupee where the fisherman was lying on the side of the path way surrounded by a small number of various townsfolk. As the Vicar approached, he noticed the fisherman was soaking wet and in complete shock; screaming and shivering, like he'd witnessed something terrible and unforgettable.

The Vicar was determined to figure out what was wrong with the fisherman, so he got closer and keeled down beside him and asked what he'd witnessed. The fisherman didn't seem to pay any attention to the Vicar's words, and instead he continued screaming and shouting in fear; as if he was re-living the terrible event over and over again in his mind. Suddenly, just before the Vicar could place a comforting hand on the fisherman's shoulder, the fisherman began to yell the words "the Chien! The Chien! Save me from the Chien!" over and over with an expression utter fear as he hugged his arms around his chest tightly.

After getting no sense from the fisherman, the Vicar decided to ask the fisherman's wife what had happened to him, and she told him what the fisherman had managed to tell her:

The fisherman had been fishing on Little Sark that afternoon, but had lost track of time and had come back much later than he originally planned. The Island was pitch black, and most of it's small amount of population were sleeping.The fisherman managed to make his way across from Little Sark and halfway across La Coupee, but before he could make it to the other side a terrible storm hit the island. The rain was heavy and painful, the thunder and lighting was the most violent he'd ever seen, and the wind was so strong that the fisherman was in grave danger of being blown off the cliff!

The fisherman decided to push on, and began to rush along the cliffs edge to get home as quickly as possible, but he ended up stopping still after a few steps as a horrifying howling filled the air. The howling continued for a long while, getting closer and closer; a sound apparently so terrifying that it would send your blood cold. The fisherman couldn't tell at first where this howling was coming from; maybe it was just the wind of the storm blowing against something? Or maybe it was just a distressed animal locked outside somewhere? Whilst he was pondering over what the sound was and listened to it coming nearer, he suddenly saw something in the distance...A large black shape, running right at him with an insane amount of speed! The fisherman soon identified the shape as a very large jet black dog (described the size of a small-ish horse, and bigger than a wolf) that had glowing red eyes, and the sound of it snarling became louder and louder as it grew closer. The man screamed in terror and began to run against the raging storm to get away, but it seemed almost impossible as the large dog was extremely fast, and eager to kill the man. Before the dog could get a hold of the fisherman, the fisherman flung himself over the edge of la coupee; where he landed on a steep ledge and hid amongst the brambles as the dog frantically searched for him above.The fisherman hid for hours and hours, until the storm passed and morning came, to which he ran from his hiding place and lived to tell the tale.

~Another part to the story~
While Dame Sybil was younger, she'd apparently go everywhere on a pet donkey that she personally owned. She's ride it everywhere, and it would take her anywhere on the island she'd want to go at all-- anywhere except from over la coupee. The donkey would totally refuse her request to go over every time, and with la coupee being a really high cliff, Sybil thought that maybe the donkey wouldn't take her over because it didn't like the height of it. So Sybil decided to blind fold the donkey and then take it over la coupee instead, but even blind folded the donkey still totally refused, even though it couldn't see a thing through the blind fold. So did the donkey not want to cross la coupee because of the Chien? Who knows...

~My comments/thoughts & how I came about the story etc~
So how I actually came about this story was I was on holiday on the island called Sark (the island from the story), which is in the Channel Islands. I've been going there for holidays every 2 years ever since I was around 8 years old, and this summer I went again. While I was there, I decided to go on a Sark Folklore Walk which was led by the retired headmistress of the islands Primary School. Whilst on the walk she told the group lots of ghost stories about the island, but this story was the one that I found most interesting, so I decided that it might be cool if I posted it up here for anyone to read who's interested. Like I said in the description, apparently the story is true, and I actually think it's true, but what do you think? Also I'd highly recommend checking the island out, it's truly breathtaking, I fell in love with it years and years ago.

I have another ghost story from the same guided walk that I'll also be posting up later which I quite liked too, but this is by far my favorite. I also have had a paranormal experience whilst on the island when I was younger which I may also write about too.

--A special thanks to Jan for telling me this story too (the headmistress who guided the walk).

I hope you enjoyed the story!

NEW AUTHOR NOTE FROM 2024: Hello again all! I originally noted down this story back in 2013 when I was just 17 years old, and now it's 2024 and I'm 28! I completely forgot that I wrote this and uploaded this here (in fact I actually forgot this account even existed until this morning), but I definitely still remember the story Jan told me and I remember going on that ghost/folklore walk and really enjoying it. I've always loved ghost stories ever since I was young as you can tell. I'm going to continue to leave this up here for everyone to enjoy, and if you have any questions about it please don't hesitate to ask me. I would of course obviously still recommend you all visit Sark too if you can, it really is a beautiful part of the world. Thank you all again