A Sussex miscellany

People from Sussex - and, indeed, the county itself - are sometimes referred to as Silly Sussex.  But Sussex folk will usually retort that in this case, 'silly' is a corruption of 'selig', a Saxon word meaning 'blessed' or 'holy'.  Even the county name - Sussex - is based on the Saxon language and means 'the kingdom of the south Saxons'.

Both Sussex and Kent were, in days of yore, the main part of England where smuggling took place.  Brandy, tobacco, silk and all sorts of luxuries were brought across the narrow strip of water from France.  Boats would arrive at isolated beaches and the goods would be loaded onto pack horses to be carried inland to the gang's hiding place, sometimes a good many miles away.  There were numerous armed battles between the 'gentlemen' and the Revenue men.  Rudyard Kipling captured the scene well in one of his poems:

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

The coat of arms of East Sussex

The coat of arms of the old county of Sussex and the new (relatively speaking) counties of East Sussex and West Sussex all feature a mythological bird, the martlet.  This is a bird similar to a swallow or martin - but without feet.

Several English counties have what are regarded as "their" songs but most of these are not really about the county.  There's Ilkley Moor for Yorkshire, for example.  But Sussex has it's own song, the chorus of which is:

For we're the men from Sussex, Sussex by the Sea.
We plough and sow and reap and mow,
And useful men are we;
And when you go to Sussex, whoever you may be,
You may tell them all that we stand or fall
For Sussex by the Sea!
Oh Sussex, Sussex by the Sea!
Good old Sussex by the Sea!
You may tell them all we stand or fall
For Sussex by the Sea.

The South Downs were famous for sheep grazing and before so much was put to the plough it was not uncommon to see a huge flock of sheep watched over by a shepherd and his dog.  (The Old Bat's great grandfather was a shepherd on the Downs.)  They had their own way of counting: one-erum, two-erum, cock-erum, shu-erum, sith-erum, sath-erum, wineberry, wagtail, tarry-diddle, den.  That actually took the tally to 20 as the shepherd would count pairs.

I make it den sheep in this picture.  What do you reckon?