BYGONE SUSSEX - online book

Essays, Sketches and Illustrations of bygone Sussex

	A MONKISH scribe of the thirteenth century has left us a Latin version of a curious tradition of bygone Sussex.* According to this chronicler there was once an avaricious man living in the neighbourhood of Winchelsea, who hoarded in a chest money which was of no benefit either to himself or to others. One day, as he went to look at his beloved treasure, he saw sitting on the box a little black demon. If he was startled at the sight, he was still more startled to hear this apparition exclaim, " Begone, this money is not thine ; it belongs to Godwin, the Smith." Unable to make use of the
	* The story was communicated by the late Mr. W. J. Thorns to the " Altdeutsche Blaetter " from a Latin MS. of the thirteenth century which is now in the British Museum. It reads :—Quidam in partibus de Winchelse, sibi aggregavit pecuniam in cista, de qua nee sibi nee aliis voluit subvenire. Veniens igitur una die ut earn videret, vidit super earn quendam diabolum sedere nigerrimum, dicentem sibi, " Recede, nee est pecunia tua, sed Godewini fabri." Quod ille audiens, et nolens earn in alicujus commodum pervenire, cavavit magnum truncum, ipsamque imposuit, reclusit, et in mare projecit. Quern quidem truncum marinas undae ante ostium dicti Godewini, viri justi et innocentis, manentis in proxima villa, super litus in siccum projecerunt, circa vigilium Dominici Natalis. Exiens itaque idem Godwinus mane, invenit truncum projectum, multumque gavisus pro habendo foco in tento festo, eum in domum suam traxit, et ad locum foci gaudem apposuit. Intrante itaque festi praedicti