Sussex Roots

Download or read book Sussex Roots written by Untruth Seekers and published by Coghurst Press. This book was released on with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every May Day, bundles of branches tied with colourful ribbons appear on Hastings’ shopfronts and streetlamps. Drumming swells as crowds of green-clad bogies, festival-goers in shorts and t-shirts, and Morris dancers fill Hastings’ winding streets. And then comes the main event: Jack in the Green’s wizened face appears on a towering cone of leaves topped with a crown at the centre of the festivities. The Jack in the Green festival marks the passage of spring to summer. But from where does this bizarre tradition originate? The roots are too tangled to know for sure, and the first recording of the festival was in 1770. However, some believe celebrations of the ‘Green Man’ hail from the pagan Anglo-Saxons who established England’s historic county of Sussex, and the myth transformed with each subsequent generation. But Jack in the Green is only one of Sussex’s many mysteries. Fearsome beasts, terrifying giants, cackling witches, and plucky fairies are just a few of the creatures populating the folklore of this strange and savage land. Ending with the modern celebration of the Jack in the Green festival, this collection of stories traces the roots of Sussex’s centuries of tall tales, mythology, and folklore.