Hélyi (the sails of St. Helier). Helier remained at his hermitage in fasting and prayer for about fifteen years. The story is that around 555 he was martyred by marauding pirates who beheaded him with an axe – hence the crossed axes on the parish crest. Miracles Helier is recorded as performing one healing miracle in Jersey, curing a lame man named Anquetil. Once while Marculf was visiting, a band of raiders arrived. They prayed and made the sign of the cross and a great storm arose that destroyed the raiders ships. Though Helier starved himself to ascetic weakness, legend holds that he had the strength, when he was beheaded by attackers, to pick up his head and walk to shore. According to the hagiography, Romard discovered Helier's body on the beach still clutching his head in his hands, placed it in a boat and set off for the mainland. The boat, guided by the hand of God, arrived at Bréville-sur-Mer where a reputedly miraculous healing spring arose on the spot where Helier's body rested overnight. A church was founded next to the spring, which is now topped by a statue and still attracts those seeking a cure. Veneration Marculf founded an abbey on L’Islet not far from Helier's hermitage and named it for his pupil. It was later visited by Samson of Dol. Churches dedicated to Helier can be found in Rennes, St. Helier, Beuzeville (Eure), Amécourt (Eure), Barentin (Seine-Maritime), Monhoudou (Sarthe). Evidence of veneration of the saint can be found in La Hague in the Cotentin at Querqueville and also at Omonville-la-Rogue where a 13th-century mural in the church of St. John the Baptist links Helier with Thomas Becket. Helier is remembered in Jersey for having brought Christianity to the island, but is better known in Normandy and Brittany as a healing saint. Besides the healing springs at St. Hellier and Bréville, there is also a healing spring at Saint-Jouan-des-Guérets (Ille-et-Vilaine), where Helier's name has been deformed by folk etymology to St. Délier (délier meaning to untie in French, which may refer to the power to loosen the bonds of illness). There is also a chapel of St. Helier in the cathedral of Trenton, New Jersey. The traditional year of his martyrdom is AD 555. His feast day, marked in Jersey by an annual municipal and ecumenical pilgrimage to the Hermitage, is on July 16. The Hermitage is