Based on a folklore, set in West Sussex. Local tradition says that this great cleft in the Downs south of Poynings village was dug by the Devil. The enthusiasm of the Sussex people for religion made him decide one night to drown them all by digging a ditch through to the sea. As he reached the halfway mark, an old woman rushed up the hill with a lighted candle and a sieve. The light woke a cock, which began to crow, whereupon the devil, also seeing the candle through the sieve, imagined that sunrise was upon him, and fled.
This is my interpretation of this folklore spliced with Tim Curry’s ‘Darkness’ character from the great classic film ‘Legend’.
Ian Leaver-Blaxstone 