OLD SUSSEX WAYS 237 



This knowledge enlightens our reading of the pages 

 of the Rev. Giles Moore, of Horsted Keynes, when he 

 records : " 1670, 26th Dec., I gave the howling 

 boys 6d. ; ' a statement which, if not illumined by 

 acquaintance with these old customs, would be 

 altogether incomprehensible. 



Then, if mud were brought into the house in the 

 month of Januarv, the cleanlv housewife, at other 

 times jealous of her spotless floors, would have nothing 

 of reproof to say, for was this not " January butter," 

 and the harbinger of luck to all beneath the roof-tree ? 



Saints' days, too, had their observances ; the habits 

 of bird and beast were the almanacs and weather 

 warnings of the villagers, all innocent of any other 

 meteorological department, and they have been 

 handed down in doggerel rhyme, like this of the Cuckoo, 

 to the present day : 



In April he shows his bill, 



In May he sings o' night and day, 



In June he'll change his tune, 



By July prepare to fly, 



By August away he must. 



If he stay till September, 



'Tis as much as the oldest man 



Can ever remember. 



If he stayed till September, he might possibly see 

 a sight which no mere human eve ever beheld : he 

 might observe a practice to which old Sussex folk 

 know the Evil One to be addicted. For on Old 

 Michaelmas Day, October 10th ; the Devil goes round 

 the country, and — dirty devil — spits on the black- 

 berries. Should any persons eat one on October 11th, 

 they, or some one of their kin, will surely die or fall 

 into great trouble before the close of the year. 



Sussex has neither the imaginative Celtic race of 

 Cornwall nor that county's fantastic scenery to inspire 

 legends ; but is it at all wonderful that old beliefs die 

 hard in a county so inaccessible as this has hitherto 

 been ? We have read travellers' tales of woful 

 happenings on the road ; hear now Defoe, who is 

 writing in the year 1724, of another proof of heavy 



