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262 THE SUSSEX COAST
of the place, but being asked if he were a stranger in those parts, asserted that he had lived his whole life at Seaford. This was not stupidity.
Sussex suffers very much from the vulgarising of her proper names, and few take the trouble to remember, for instance—
" Herringly, Chidd'nly, and Hoadly Three lies and all true."
An eminent London barrister was once at church in one of the villages named, and hearing that the offertory was on behalf of the parish schools, he had provided two and sixpence to put into the plate. Unfortunately, in the course of the sermon it came out that the vicar did not know how to pronounce the name of his own parish, with the result that the righteously indignant lawyer substituted a halfpenny for the half-crown when the offertory-bag came round. If every mispronouncer of Sussex names lost two shillings and fivepence-halfpenny for his want of care there would be hope of better things!
We have a contemporary account by an eleventh-century monk named Drogo of the disgraceful theft from a monastery dedicated to St. Andrew, near Seaford, of the relics of St. Lewinna, a British Christian girl martyred by the Saxons about 680-690 A.D. The religious house to which the relics properly belonged has not been identified, though unpromising efforts have been made to connect Lewes with Lewinna. In 1058 a Flemish monk named Balgar, under pretext of wishing to say his prayers, visited the monastery, and as he seemed to be an honest and God-fearing |
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