Rich tapestry of Sussex folklore

The golden age of superstition has undoubtedly long since past, but it clearly still persists across a county which was once steeped in it.

One of the classic studies of the subject has now been resissued, with a new, updated edition of Jacqueline Simpson's 1973 survey, Folklore Of Sussex (14.99, The History Press, ISBN-13: 978-0752451008).

From giants and bogeymen to fairies and witches, Jacqueline offers a detailed exploration of Sussex's rich heritage of traditional local stories, customs and beliefs.

Traditions relating to ghosts, graves and gibbets and the strange powers of witches are there at the ghoulish end of a spectrum which pulls in life and death in all their aspects.

Sussex's coastal setting has shaped much of it, as Jacqueline explains.

"There is an obvious connection between coastal erosion and legends of lost churches, while particularly deep places in rivers, bogs, moats and harbours have attracted stories of sunken bells.

"History too is reflected in legends, albeit in a very simplified form and often distorted by mistaken antiquarian theories which linger on at popular level long after they are discarded by scholars.

"Thus it was once thought that the name Alfriston meant Alfred's Town and this idea fostered the growth of legends that Alfred fought the Danes nearby and even that an iron pot displayed in the Star Inn was the very one in which he burned the cakes."

As Jacqueline points out, even stories about comparatively modern people are often unreliable.

"Charles II figures in Sussex lore because he passed through the county when fleeing to France in 1651. Oral tradition has so multpiled his alleged hiding-places and overnight stops on the journey that one wonders how he ever reached the coast at all!"

Also reflected in Sussex folklore have been the broad trends of public feeling - such as the anti-Catholic prejudice which accounted for the intensity of the Guy Fawkes celebrations at Lewes and elsewhere and perhaps for some ogre legends too.

"This feeling, however, never surprised the legends of local saints, nor could it entirely erase traces of old Catholic customs such as laying money on coffins."

Crafts too are intimately tied in with legend, cobblers with their St Crispin feast, shepherds with their tall stores, tales of sheep-stealers and carters with their tales of carts bewitched.