1 62 Collectanea.
servant sat up one night, and saw a figure of a lady. It ran away. The servant followed, till, in the garden, the figure suddenly stopped, said " Dig," and disappeared. On digging on the spot, a large sum of money was found, and the apparition was seen no more.
Mrs. WooUey told me that when she was a child and lived at Dulwich, her father always went out of the house about ten minutes to twelve on the 31st of December, and as the clock struck twelve he threw into the house a piece of bread, an apple, and some rice ; the bread was to bring plenty, the rice luck, and Mrs. W. had forgotten what the apple was meant for. (1S93.)
Sussex. — An almost unapproachable cave in the face of the cliff at Seaford Head is called (says M. A. Lower) Puck Church Parlour, and is the scene of an ancient superstition. A shepherd on the cliff top told me (1875) that it was called Buck Church; his boy had been in it, but he couldn't get down the face of the cliff. (1875.)
In the crypt under the Folly at Seaford the ghost of a nun opens the door, walks round, looks about, and then goes away.
I was told in 1875 that the Long Man at Wilmington (called Wilmington Giant by the people of the neighbourhood) was cut on the hills before the Flood. There are remains of a castle above Wilmington Priory ; pilgrimages were made from the castle to the priory, and, at the time of the pilgrimage the giant (Long Man) was slain by the pilgrims.
I was also told that the giant on Firle Beacon threw his hammer at the Wilmington giant and killed him, and that the figure on the hillside maiks the place where his body fell.
I was told this again in 1890, and in 1891 was further informed that the Long Man carries spears, not staves, in his hands, and that an upright line (which I was unable to find) runs from top to bottom of the hill a little to the east, and another a little to the west, of the figure.
A man told me that the Wilmington Long Man was a giant who fell over the top of the hill and killed himself; he also said that " a boy cut it out ; they can't trace its history, it goes back so far." Another man told me that the Wilmington giant was killed by a shepherd, who threw his dinner at the monster.
