FOLKLORE of SUSSEX
One pitch dark night, fisherman Swan Jervoise beached his boat on the
Brighton shore and was making his way into town when he was startled to
behold a 'stream of meteor -like splendour burst from every window of the
'Rising Sun Inn' and then vanish again as suddenly.
The phenomenon was repeated several times and Jervoise proceeded at once
to ascertain the cause. He hammered upon the door of the inn, making enough
noise to 'rouse all the dead in the Bartholomew's Chapel, ' but without
waking the landlord, and just as he was about to force the door, the light
burst again from the windows, and the intrepid fisherman heard a ticking
noise 'as of a person striking a light with a flint and steel, each stroke
producing this super-natural blaze of light.
The door opened suddenly and there stood a 7 ft. high figure wrapped in
a black cloak and wearing a high conical white hat. The being strode past
Jervoise and vanished into the night.
Jervoise's nerve crumbled and he shrieked out in terror, this time waking
the landlord, a kindly soul who took the trembling fisherman in and bade
him rest by the fireside while he fetched a jug of ale.
Alone in the room, where a dim rush threw a fitful light, Jervoise peered
nervously from his seat in the capacious chimney when suddenly, from the
gloomy shadows behind the settle, there appeared 'the death-like features
- palled as a cere cloth of the tall man in the conical hat. His countenance
was most ghastly, and he fixed his grey-glazed eyes full on Jervoise, and
pointed to the hearth.'
The poor fisherman uttered one loud scream and fell senseless to the ground.
Put to bed by the landlord, Jervoise summoned sufficient strength to relate
his story to Father Anselm of St. Bartholomew, then promptly died.
Father Anselm took it upon himself to investigate, and on examining the
hearth to which the apparition had pointed, he discovered a vast treasure
which, somewhat unfairly to the landlord, the priest quickly despatched
to the principal of his order in Normandy.
Thereafter the 'Rising Sun' was untroubled by the spirit of Old Strike-a-Light,
as the ghostly figure came to be called.
Old Strike-a-Light
