Mont Saint-Michel · Those Chased by the Tide

Mont Saint-Michel is an island; at high tide the sea spreads over the flats and wipes out the path to the mainland. The tide moves astonishingly fast, and is said to be the fiercest in Europe.

The story is that the archangel told the bishop three times in a dream to build on the summit; the third time he struck the bishop on the head. The abbey has stood on that rock for thirteen hundred years.

Stories of “people caught by the tide” are never in short supply here. The old rule on the flats still holds: do not walk the sands unless you have a guide.

Folklore / Normandy · France / 708