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Devil's Dyke
(The). A ravine in the South Downs, Brighton. The legend
is, that St. Cuthman, walking on the downs, plumed himself on having
Christianised the surrounding country, and having built a nunnery where
the dyke-house now stands. Presently the Devil appears and tells him
all his labour is vain, for he would swamp the whole country before
morning. St. Cuthman went to the nunnery and told the abbess to keep
the sisters in prayer till after mid-night, and then illuminate the
windows. The Devil came at sunset with mattock and spade, and began
cutting a dyke into the sea, but was seized with rheumatic pains all
over the body. He flung down his mattock and spade, and the cocks,
mistaking the illuminated windows for sunrise, began to crow; whereupon
the Devil fled in alarm, leaving his work not half done.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Devil's Dyke from Infoplease:
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