Meeting the Fairies of the Baligot Rocks

Parking is available in the car park on Rue des Perrettes, near Proussy Church.

(S/E) With your back to the church, continue left along Rue des Perrettes, then turn right after the last house onto Chemin des Rus. Leave the village, take the grassy, wooded path that climbs uphill and walk for about 500 metres until you reach the junction with a perpendicular path, from where you will see the Manoir de la Fresnaye opposite.

Turn left onto Chemin des Monts, from where you will see Condé-sur-Noireau on your left, and on the horizon, Mont Cerisy, the Bois d’Athis and the Bois de Berjou. Continue for about 700 m until you reach the crossroads at the Coudray wayside shrine.

(1) Turn right and walk downhill for about 600 m through the Bois de la Fresnaye, the training ground of the Condé-sur-Noireau archery club. With a bit of luck, you might spot a few roe deer. Cross the Ruisseau la Jeannette, which you may hear more than you see due to the vegetation, then walk uphill for about 600 m until you reach a tarmac road.

(2) Turn left, pass the hamlet known as Le Domaine, and cross the hamlet of Vieux Douet. Navigate the S-bend and reach the RD184.

(3) Cross the D184 very carefully, then head left. Follow this road with the utmost caution for about 400 m until you reach the path marked by the^GR® 221.

(4) Cross the D184 again with great care and take this path on the left. Follow the^GR® 221 for a while, then head down to the hamlet of Prépetit.

(5) Turn left towards Montbray and walk downhill for about 300 m. Cross the Ruisseau la Jeannette stream, then walk uphill for about 600 m. At the junction, ignore the path on the left and leave the^GR® 221 to continue to the road.

(6) Cross the road with care, then take the sunken path opposite. Walk for about 400 m, negotiate the right-hand bend and continue for about 200 m until you reach a left-hand bend.

(7) You are now in the Roches Baligot, a land of legend. Ask the locals, and they will tell you the story of the ‘Fairies of the Roches Baligot’. Turn left to discover the Druance valley. Walk down to the tarmac road.

(8) Turn left, cross the hamlet of Le Carrouge, then turn right. Continue along the path that climbs to La Blare until you reach the D36.

(9) Do not cross the D36; turn left and carefully stay on the left-hand pavement, following it along. About a hundred metres further on, turn left onto the Chemin des Bissons, where you will rejoin the^GR® 221. Follow this path uphill until you reach Le Coudray.

(10) Turn right, leaving the^GR® 221, and follow the tarmac road leading to Proussy and the S/E car park for about 1 km, taking great care.

The Fairy Fountain

Above their underground dwelling, at the summit of the Roches Baligot, the Fairies had a gushing spring which one day one of them caused to spring forth with a wave of her wand; it is called the ‘Fairy Fountain’. A neighbouring field belonged to them and, every year, a local labourer was summoned by them to cultivate it. When it was time to plough, the Fairies would call upon a farmer from the neighbouring villages—Les Îles, La Blare or Le Carrouge—to do the work. No one, moreover, would have dared to refuse; it was well known that the Ladies had a rather irascible temperament. The night before, three knocks on the farmer’s door would rouse him from his first sleep, and he would hear a voice shouting: ‘So-and-so, make sure you are in our field at dawn tomorrow, with your plough and your oxen.’ The farmer obeyed and, at daybreak, he was in the Champ-aux-Fées, just as he had been ordered.