The Field of Silver - Jersey's Hidden Hoard
Thank you for subscribing to The History Islands - a collection of Channel Islands histories and legends. This week’s tale takes us deep into the buried past, to uncover the Grouville coin hoard and its secret history. I hope you enjoy it ~ Paul Darroch
A Chieftain of the Coriosolitae tribe
Armorica (Brittany), 56 BC
Death is coming. We shivered when we heard the first rumours, and fear whispered in our dreams. Then the travellers started arriving, refugees at our hearth. Their clothes were torn, their limbs bloodied with the scars of combat. They told us of villages ravaged, of fires burning for days without end. The hour has come to flee.
Julius Caesar is on the march. His legions are poised to seize our country. We grew up in the shadow of Rome, trading with their great Empire; and now they have turned on us. Like beasts whose ravenous hunger can never be sated, they desire fresh meat.
We call ourselves Celts of the Coriosolitae tribe. They have new names for us: Galli, Gauls; vassals; subjects. Yet we are a proud maritime people, the guardians of the northern coast. Our blood sings with the tide, and we are familiar with every secret channel.
Tonight, there is an arc of flame on the horizon. So, I command our treasure-trains to leave for the coast. I lead a file of strong warhorses, and each saddlebag is bulging with coin. Where the Forest of Scissy runs into the dunes, we haul the treasure into our boats.
We know that beyond the flooded reef lies a great granite Island. Our forefathers built hilltop fortresses and encampments here. It is our tribe’s stronghold, our sanctuary. We beach in a sandy bay on the Island’s southern shore, where the huts of the conger-fishers perch on the edge of the marsh. Then we ride inland, to the high ground, to our secret encampment. We kneel at the burial mound that watches over these parts, a hill built by the ancients to cover secrets unknown. Our prayers sustain us.
Under the moonlight, we bury our silver-copper coins, our precious staters and billons, the treasure of our tribe. My wife adds her collection of gold torques. We hide them in haste, in a series of pits in the soft earth. Thousands upon thousands of coins glimmer together like fish scales. Finally, we consecrate the land, entrusting it to the watch of the ages. The ceremony is complete. We fade away into the watches of the night.
The treasure lies buried in the field, as the empire of Rome reaches its zenith of magnificence and glory. It remains hidden, as the wheel of history turns and the Empire devours itself, as the Roman Forum crumbles and sheep graze over the ruins. It remains forgotten as the brute hulk of Mont Orgueil rises on the horizon, as the Prince’s Tower is built at La Hougue Bie, then crumbles into ruin. All this time the treasure sleeps in silence, waiting to be found.
There are always rumours; shards of broken pottery in a Grouville field, the occasional coin ploughed up with the potato harvest. And then one day, in an age beyond all imagining, the secret is finally uncovered. The hoard is revealed.
The Coriosolitae have vanished. We will never know their names. All they have left us are their coins; decorated with the chariots of a vanished world. We can see their likeness in the shocking heads with spiral curls, in the eyes that cut like daggers. Thousands of proud and cryptic faces are staring back at us, men who have gazed upon other worlds; but look as if they already know us.
You can discover many other stories in Jersey: The Hidden Histories and Jersey: Secrets of the Sea, which are available as Seaflower paperbacks and on Kindle. Thank you for supporting my writing as I seek to bring Jersey history to life. ~ Paul Darroch
(c) Paul Darroch 2021