The Crows (Pagham-on-Sea #1)

by C.M. Rosens

Sir Peter Sauvant (d. 1892) was the leader of an occult group who called themselves the Eleusinians, after the ancient rites performed each year in Ancient Greece by the devotees of Demeter and Persephone, based at Eleusis. Such an agrarian cult suited the surroundings of the East Sussex coast, but the name was a pretty deceit and had less to do with the harvest as it did with tampering with things men ought to leave alone. As far as this author can tell, it is from the activities of the Eleusinians and their own enacted Mysteries that the curious local phrase, ‘don’t plant what you don’t want to grow’ originates. Although this appears to be nothing more than agrarian wisdom, folk legend has it that during the time of Sir Peter and the Eleusinians, the soil around the town, situated in the South Downs below the clay of the Weald, became increasingly – some might say aggressively – fertile.

well, agrarian fertility was part of the jam & jelly