Social History

A Link with the Past: Ah! Mon beau laurier!

Guernsey's favourite dance, the rather flirtatious 'Ah! mon beau laurier!.' The illustration is of a modern hurdy-gurdy, or 'chifournie,' used in the old days to accompany the dancing: with thanks to Guernsey Post Office, who also produced a superb video of the chifournie being played in Le Hurel barn in Guernsey. The chifournie has been replaced in Guernsey by the fiddle or accordion in modern times.

It's 1681: what's on the menu in Guernsey?

Three letters from Sir Thomas Browne, polymath and oyster expert. He wrote often to his children, of whom he seems very fond. His favourite daughter Elizabeth married his friend, Captain George Lyttleton, who was appointed Guernsey's Lieutenant-Governor in 1681. There is a copy in the Library of one of Browne's works, Pseudodoxia epidemica, published in 1686, which can be viewed upon request.

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