Sussex Folk Tales

Sussex Folk Tales gathers stories rooted in the county’s hills, forests, marshes, coast and urban edges. Michael O’Leary’s retellings include dragons in bottomless ponds, demons in Wealden copses, ghosts, witches and wise women, alongside creatures such as the Lyminster Knucker, the Cissbury Serpent and marsh monsters.

The stories range across Sussex, from Brighton, Crawley and Gatwick to the South Downs, Amberley Swamp, Ashdown Forest and St Leonard’s Forest. Darker accounts sit beside tales of silliness, romance, lust and passion, giving the collection a varied sense of local tradition. The book treats familiar places as settings for legends, reported encounters and imaginative stories shaped by the landscape and the people associated with it.