# Folk-Lore Record/Volume 1/Some West Sussex Superstitions Lingering in 1868/Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.
ENTION will now be made of a large class of superstitions, which are simply wondrous fictions implicitly accepted as facts, on no ground whatever.
(62) We believe in Sussex that a snake, though cut in two, cannot die until the sun has set; and I have heard of (63) a labourer declaring that the "queer marks" on the belly of the deaf adder could be made out to be—
"If I could hear as well as see, No mortal man should master me."
From time immemorial, snakes or serpents so big that they looked like dragons have terrified the population of our rural districts, and during the past year what is called in our expressive dialect "an oudacious large one" was said to be in this neighbourhood. Its lair was near a by-path, which it would not permit any one to traverse. It would rush out and drive back with a terrible hissing and a very bad smell any luckless wight who wandered in that direction. This audacious snake is doubtless a relation of the dragon serpent reported to have inhabited St. Leonard's forest in the seventeenth century, and which (says the author of the "true and wonderful" account of it) was ofttimes seen "at a place called Faygate, and it hath been seen within half a mile of Horsham, a wonder, no doubt, most terrible and noisome to the inhabitants thereabouts." He then gives a long description of the serpent, which he ends by saying that "there are likewise on either side of him discovered two great bunches so big as a large foot-ball, and, as some think, will in time grow to wings; but God, I hope, will defend the poor people in the neighbourhood, that he shall ​be destroyed before he grow so fledged." A man going to chase it, and as he thought to destroy it, with two mastiff dogs, (the author tells us) "as yet not knowing the great danger of it, his dogs were both killed, and he himself glad to return with haste to preserve his own life."
(64) It is a popular belief that immense wealth lies buried under ground in various localities, and that it is mysteriously guarded from all interference. In a neighbouring parish the spot adjoins a road that sounds "awful hollow" as you walk over it, and in this instance the buried treasure has a very watchful guard, which instantly starts out of a ditch if it hears any one approaching. A woman told the clergyman's wife that she had actually seen it, and that it was clad in brown. An old inhabitant of Pulborough has assured me that there is great wealth buried under the Mount there, and that they once had a clergyman who used to dig round about it probably, I should think, engaged in some archaeological investigation relative to the mound. In our own parish we have a nightly watcher over some hidden treasures in a wood through which a public foot-path passes, that certainly sounds hollow to the tread from the interlacement of the masses of roots below it. It is traversed but by few after dark, from a dread of encountering this unearthly guardian. The folk share the superstition of Horatio in his suggestion to the Ghost of Hamlet's father:
"If thou hast uphoarded in thy life Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death"
At Offington, near Worthing, an old seat of the Delawarrs, a blocked-up passage, which can only be approached from the cellars, is still believed to communicate with the encampment on Cisbury Hill, and to be full of buried treasures. Some years ago there was a story ​current of the then occupier of the house having offered half the money to be found there to anybody who would clear out the subterranean passage, and that several persons had begun digging, but had all been driven back by large snakes springing at them with open mouths and angry hisses.
(65) There is an old belief, held by many here, that on St. John's Eve all the beasts of the field go down upon their knees at the hour of midnight. We have also the extraordinary superstition that (66) the ghosts of dogs occasionally walk abroad, unheard, unseen, except by their own species. I was once informed by a servant, whom I had desired to go downstairs and try to stop the barking of a dog, which I was afraid would waken a sleeping invalid, that nothing would stop his noise, for she knew quite well, by his manner of barking, that the ghost of another dog was walking about the garden and terrifying him.
(67) We believe in Sussex that a curse lights upon the ground on which human blood has been shed, the same effect being produced as would follow the sowing of it with salt, that it will remain barren for ever. There is a dark-looking piece of ground totally devoid of verdure in the parish of Kirdford, which is said to have been once green with grass, but the grass withered away soon after the blood of a poacher who was shot there trickled down upon the spot.
(68) There is a childish legend current with us, if not popularly believed, that a certain old woman of irascible temper has charge of all the cuckoos, and that in the spring she fills her apron with them, and, if she is in a good humour, allows several to take flight, but only permits one or two to escape if anything has happened to sour her temper. This spring a woman of the village complained quite pathetically of the bad humour of the cuckoo-keeper, who had only let one bird fly out of her apron, and "that 'ere bird is nothing to call a singer." (69) Some of us think that at a certain period the cuckoo changes into a hawk.
(70) A cat born in May is supposed to be inclined to melancholy, and to be much addicted to catching snakes and reptiles and bringing them into the house. I had heard that this West-country belief existed in our village; and, very lately observing a most dejected looking cat by the fire in a cottage, said in jest, "I should think that cat was born ​in May." "Oh yes," said the owner of it, "that she was, and so was her mother; and she was just as sad looking, and was always bringing snakes and vipers within doors."
(71) The belief that a baby and a kitten cannot thrive in the same house is far from being peculiar to Sussex.
(72) They say that a tree with a magpie's nest in it was never known to fall. The instinct of the bird may lead it to fix upon a firmly-rooted tree, but the assumed fact is stated as a proof of its supernatural knowledge and of its being in league with the powers of darkness.
(73) The fern-owl (Strix caprimulgus) is in the west of Sussex called the puck bird, or puck, which was an old Gothic word for Satan; and it probably received the name from a belief existing among the lower class of persons that it is a mischievous sprite, which inflicts on calves and heifers a disease here called the "puck complaint," and in some parts of England the "puckeridge." There are places where the bird itself is so named. When it makes its suspicious descents on the bodies of cattle grazing in the summer evenings, it is an object of terror to the superstitious, who regard its evolutions as it springs up suddenly from the grass in the dusk, or flies around them, making its long pliant wings clash over its back with a loud snap, as not being those of any earthly bird. A servant here, sent upon an errand, who was very long in returning, gave as a reason for the delay that the puck would fly before her, and she did not dare to cross its path. Jesse mentions in his Gleanings in Natural History (3rd S. p. 189) that an old farmer told him he had been sometimes so boldly attacked by the fern-owl when returning home late of an evening as to be in some degree of fear. He adds, however, that instead of being noxious and mischievous it is the most harmless and useful of birds.
* ↑ The full title of this account is True and Wonderful A Discourse relating a strange and monstrous serpent, or dragon, lately discovered and yet living to the great annoyance and divers slaughters both men and cattell, by his strong and violent poyson. In Sussex, two miles from Horsam, in a woode called St. Leonard's Forrest, and thirtie miles from London, this present month of August, 1614. Printed at London by Joint Trundle 1614. A reprint of it is to be found in part vii. of the Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana, by Charles Hindley.
* ↑ See (2).
* ↑ See (18).