The Black Alchemist: A Terrifying True Story

by Andrew Collins

  It was Robert of Mortain, the Earl of Cornwall, who had given Wilmington to Grestain Abbey. Once in their hands, the abbey had begun to use this Sussex coastal manor as a stop-over point for its representatives in England. Yet by the end of the twelfth century, some sort of priory had been established here. Nothing is known of its history until the first records of priors at Wilmington begin appearing in ancient charters during the thirteenth century. The first mentioned is a Master Samson, circa 1200. A Prior John appears in records for 1243, and among those that follow is a Prior William de Gymeges in 1268. All names picked up by Bernard.

  Despite the fact that the priory supported only a very small community of monks, its influence extended to controlling cultivated lands over a fairly wide area. As a French alien house, Wilmington Priory should have come under a very rigid control from both ecclesiastical and secular authorities. Yet just as Bernard had predicted, Wilmington appears to have possessed an unprecedented diplomatic immunity. This became most noticeable at times of military unrest between France and England. When other alien houses were generally seized by the Crown, Wilmington seems to have been repeatedly left untouched.2

  This special immunity only lasted until 1360, however, for in that year the priory was seized by the Crown like any other French monastic house. It was again seized in 1370, and in 1414 it was taken out of Grestain’s control all together. After this time it passed into the hands of the Dean and Chapter of Chichester who, for a century and a half, ran the priory as a farm and vicarage. It eventually fell into private hands in 1565, some 30 years after Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries.3

  The ‘castle mound’ Bernard referred to as ‘Burghlee’, which was apparently close to Wilmington, was in fact a large grassy mound named Burlough Castle, situated on the apex of a hill about half a mile west of Wilmington. Very little is known about this strange mound. Some scholars believe it to be the remains of a Norman motte and bailey. A stronger tradition suggests it was once the haunt of the fairy folk, possibly indicating its great age and pagan usage in pre-Christian times.

  The little church, mentioned by Bernard as being set on a hill within a wooded grove, was also located. This turned out to be the tiny parish church of Lullington, situated on a small hillock, lost in trees, about a mile and a quarter southwest of the priory. It measures a mere 16 feet square and has seating for just 20 people. Some historians say it is the smallest church in England, although this is not quite true, as what remains today is simply the chancel of a much larger edifice that fell into decay long ago.

  I could not, however, find any reference to a man named ‘Paganus’ who, Bernard believed, was instructed by the monks of Wilmington to build a chapel in the area. That would have to wait until we visited the area.

  Bernard was certainly onto something. Despite having not found reference to a golden rod known as the Stave of Nizar, enough circumstantial evidence existed to suggest that the rest of his psychic information might turn out to be correct.

  He seemed convinced that the Stave of Nizar existed and, for some reason, it was up to us to locate it. He did not know where it could be found, but did know how we might go about finding out. The key seemed to be the still unconfirmed crypt at Wilmington Priory, where our quest now seemed destined to begin.

  3 Ogmor the Guardian

  Thursday, 30th May, 1985. It was a fine day in East Sussex. The sun was shining and a coat was not needed. Inside the car park next to Wilmington Priory, Bernard and I paused for a few minutes to enjoy some sandwiches and a much needed cup of coffee.

  A clear view of the Long Man hill figure, reclining into a hollow upon the slopes of nearby Windover Hill, dominated our gaze whenever we glanced across the fields to the southeast.

  Nobody rightly knew what the figure represented. Some scholars believe it was carved by the monks of the priory as a representation of Samson, the biblical strongman who brought down the house of the Philistines by dislodging its support pillars with his bare hands. Others see it as a representation of a pagan horned god, or of Adam, the first man.

  ‘Looks like someone trying to keep open a doorway to me,’ Bernard quipped, as he stared at the chalk-lined image through sunglasses.

  I hoped I would get more sense out of him within the priory. The museum was not all that interesting—probably because our minds were on other things—so we moved swiftly on and soon confirmed that the priory did indeed possess a medieval crypt. Stone steps led down into it, and it was dark, damp and lifeless, just as Bernard said it would be.

  For a while, we paced about inside, examining every dark corner of the underground room. Bernard, however, was getting nothing. A quick decision was needed to enable him to more easily access the site’s residual memories, impregnated into the fabric of the walls by over 400 years of monastic devotion. So I decided to see if he could attune better on his own.

  Bernard did not argue so, handing him a notepad and pen, I stepped out into the sunshine, sat down on the lawn and contemplated the thought of actually discovering something as precious as the Stave of Nizar. Could we really find it, or was it too much to expect of a psychic? Twenty minutes later my daydreaming was interrupted by the sight of Bernard emerging out of the darkness, a smile on his face. Lighting up a cigarette, he handed me the notepad, which now contained a page of scribbled notes.

  3. Bernard poses with the Long Man of Wilmington in the background. I read it out aloud before even beginning to contemplate its possible significance: Mortagne’s son. Nigel. Stave here for long time. Prior, Will’ de Gymieges. 1266? We used [the stave] in ritual, also in countryside. Prior Will. Milton Court. Lord of. Paganus. Small chapel in woods. We told him to build.

  At this point in the text, Bernard had written: ‘What for?’ in response to the statement about the monks making Paganus build a small chapel in the woods, at which his hand had scribbled:

  We knew of the Rod’s yesterdays. It gave us the feelings of God. We did not say of its existence. Guilliamus de Pykard. I priori here.

  The references to the Stave of Nizar needed no explanation. However, the text indicated that it had been Robert of Mortain’s son Nigel who had gifted the stave to the priory, and not his other son William, the heir to Robert’s estate. Again, there was mention of a man named ‘Paganus’, apparently the lord of ‘Milton Court’ which, I assumed, had to be somewhere near the hamlet of Milton Street, located around half a mile from Wilmington. With this had come the name ‘Prior Will’ de Gymieges’ and a date of 1266. Records confirmed the existence of this particular prior and yet associated him with the date 1268, which was close enough.

  After this had come the name of another prior, ‘ Guilliamus de Pykard’ or, in English, William of Pikard. It was from this long-dead prior that the psychic communication appeared to have come.

  What this bout of useful automatic writing, one of Bernard’s many psychic talents, had to do with our quest to find the Stave of Nizar was not made clear. A little despondent, we decided to visit the two outlying sites where Bernard believed the stave had been used in religious ceremonies. Perhaps one of these might hold some clue regarding the ritual object’s final fate.

  As we drove south along a narrow country lane, I kept one eye out for a signpost that would direct us to Lullington church. I had worked out that it was situated somewhere in the woods off to the right, so slowed down the car in anticipation.

  Then a signpost appeared, but quickly vanished before I had a chance to react. It said something about ‘To the church’, and pointed up a narrow, tree-lined path. With cars close behind, there was no way I could stop and turn around.

  ‘Shall we go on to Burlough?’ Bernard offered, as I vehemently cursed our predicament. ‘We can go back to Lullington afterwards.’

  I was not happy. What if we had been meant to go to Lullington first? It could foul up the whole quest. Anyway, it was too late to go back, so I turned right at the next junction and headed towards Alfriston, the nearest village to Burlough Castle.


  With a little help from a countryman on a bicycle, we finally located Burlough Castle. Leaving the car at the bottom of a farm track, the two of us strolled past the growling dogs behind the restraints of a nearby farmhouse’s garden gate and eventually entered a field adjacent to the ancient site.

  Once in view, we could see that the mound was in fact a large wedge-shaped plateau on the top of a ridge, about 100 yards or so in length and some 30 yards in width. Although the plateau had been cultivated into a long strip for agricultural purposes, tall grass and weeds still covered its banks.

  Bernard and I climbed to the top of the mound, but the strong southerly winds were so distracting we decided to move into the relative shelter of the trees and undergrowth by a stream, which meandered its way past the base of the mound.

  The psychic began to stare intently back towards the grassy bank, yet for a moment remained silent. I noticed this but said nothing, although it was obvious he could see something quite out of the ordinary. But what?

  ‘You are not going to believe this,’ he began, glancing back at me. ‘Sitting cross-legged on the edge of that plateau is a curiouslooking dwarf. A guardian figure or elemental of some sort. He’s looking at us and laughing.’

  Questing lore speaks of the existence of ethereal thought forms, created in the past either inadvertently by simple devotion or on purpose by priest magicians in order to guard sacred places and hidden treasure. They may take any form—human, animal or mythical—and a good psychic will be able to see and communicate with them both clairaudiently (through voices) and clairvoyantly (through visions). So what did this one look like?

  4. Bernard approaches the mysterious site of Burlough Castle. ‘I would say he’s about four feet tall, with thick bushy hair and a long beard,’ Bernard said, rather hesitantly. ‘He’s wearing a leather tunic of sorts, with leather thongs around his feet and ankles. In his hand is a wooden staff, raised upright, and he appears to be associated with a very early period of the site’s history, possibly Iron Age or earlier.’

  He sounded like something straight out the pages of a Tolkien novel. Did he have a name?

  ‘He says his name is “Ogmor”,4 and he’s laughing because we have “come up the wrong way.” I get the impression that this plateau was once covered with a huge turf maze, which during religious ceremonies would have to be entered from a particular direction. It seems we inadvertently approached the site the wrong way. So he deliberately made us leave and come down here.’

  What was he doing at Burlough Castle?

  ‘He’s here to keep people off the mound,’ Bernard revealed, ‘and says that many have visited the site before us.’

  I felt it was time to tell the guardian figure about our quest to locate the Stave of Nizar. Was he aware of its existence?

  ‘He’s now erected a great wall around himself and the entire plateau,’ Bernard stated, still gazing into thin air. ‘When you mentioned the stave he seemed angered, so erected a wall.’

  It was obvious that he knew of this artefact, but why the sudden hostile reaction?

  ‘He says the monks came here and interfered with the mound for many centuries, and he now wants me to write something down.’ Sitting with a notepad on his lap, Bernard concentrated his mind upon the dwarf-like figure and soon his hand began to scribble a message, which read:

  They came and pierced my heart with the rod. They make signs in sky and earth. They cause me much pain. They heed not my warnings to depart. I sorry at my loss of strength.

  By this it seemed that the monks of Wilmington had visited Burlough Castle and carried out some kind of religious ceremony, which had involved them piercing the ground with the stave.

  ‘And I feel this ritual involved the use of Hebrew words,’ Bernard added to my summary of the situation. ‘And some kind of reverence to the sun, I think. I’m not sure in what way.’

  Yet the presence of the stave had apparently drained the site of its inherent energies, leaving it weak and unable to function as a place of great spiritual power. The statements ‘They came and pierced my heart’ and ‘I sorry at my loss of strength’ implied that the guardian figure of Ogmor and Burlough Castle were one and the same. We were, in effect, speaking to the collective personification of the site itself!

  5. Artist’s impression of Ogmor, the guardian of Burlough Castle.

  Bernard decided he would walk back up the grassy bank and confront the little man’s psychic wall.

  Following the psychic, I tried to convince Ogmor we meant him no harm and if he could help us in our quest we might be able to help him regain some of his lost strength.

  ‘The wall has now been removed,’ Bernard observed, as he still stared intently at the little figure. ‘He seems to know of our quest and says he might be able to tell us certain things about the stave.’

  Once again, I tried, via Bernard, to engage the invisible form in conversation by asking him how long he had guarded the mound.

  ‘“ Since time began”, he says.’ There was a pause before Bernard spoke again. ‘Now he’s saying this place has always

  been sacred to nature and surrounded by water.’ Having heard enough, I decided to try and help Ogmor regain his ‘lost strength’ by conducting a simple visualisation exercise. To achieve this I would see and feel energies passing from my own aura into those already present at the site. In questing lore it is understood that the human mind can create a very subtle effect upon natural energy fields simply by visualising your intentions.

  So, raising my arms, I closed my eyes and mentally pictured streams of golden light pouring out of my body and forming into a huge spiral encircling the mound in an ever-decreasing circle.

  Bernard stood by and watched in utter amazement. With his eyes wide open, he began to see a mass of golden light—the visual form of vibrant subtle energies—spiralling up and encompassing the site, like a luminous tornado focused upon Burlough Castle.

  Bernard now saw the little man run into the centre of his home—its ‘heart’—and stand with his arms and staff raised aloft, seemingly quite enamoured by what was taking place around him.

  Opening my eyes at the completion of the visualisation, I saw Bernard writing. It was another psychic message. So, was Ogmor pleased with my actions?

  Bernard handed me the scribbled message, which I read out aloud: Do you know of the legend of Peredur? This is the Castle of the Chessboard. He plays, loses, is told to hunt white stag in small wood. Remove head.

  It was apparently our reward for having helped the guardian figure regain his lost strength. Had we not done this, then we would probably not have been given the message. But what did it mean?

  Peredur was a character from Welsh Arthurian literature, yet other than this it meant very little to either of us. The mention of a ‘small wood’ was, I felt sure, a reference to the wooded grove surrounding Lullington churchyard. So I asked whether this was correct?

  Bernard nodded as he received an affirmative from Ogmor. The message implied we were to go to Lullington and there remove a ‘head’ of some sort. Perhaps the church’s architecture included a carved stag’s head, behind which the golden stave lay secreted. I knew it was a wild idea, but in psychic questing you are taught to expect the unexpected, so it might be correct.

  As Ogmor appeared to have no more to say, we thanked him for his assistance and began to retrace our steps back across the ploughed field towards the car.

  Strolling across the hard, uneven earth in the bright sunlight I had a curious thought. What if we had visited Lullington before going to Burlough Castle, as we had originally intended to do? We would not have encountered Ogmor and been given the clue about removing the stag’s head. Had fate, for better or worse, intervened to make us skip Lullington and go straight to Burlough Castle? Whatever the answer, it was a decision that almost certainly changed our lives forever.

  4 The Unintentional Quest

  Ten minutes later we pulled up behind another car coming to a halt beneath
the signpost pointing the way to Lullington Church. The party left their vehicle and acknowledged our presence before beginning the slow ascent along the narrow path, which led through a wooded area to the small churchyard crowning the top of the secluded hillock.

  We followed close behind and, as the tiny church came into view, with its white slatted bellcote jutting above the tree line, another party of visitors was about to leave.

  Despite their presence, I strolled casually around the church exterior looking for any carvings of a stag’s head. None could be found, so I made my way back across the sun-drenched churchyard.

  Bernard wandered thoughtfully among the few remaining gravestones, a concerned expression on his face. ‘I get the feeling that black magic has been going on here,’ he revealed, grimacing.

  As there was no explanation, I simply accepted his word, and felt it unconnected with our quest to find the Stave of Nizar.

  Moving away, I searched the wooded area surrounding the entire churchyard. It revealed no clues—neither did the tiny church interior. Something was wrong. There was definitely no stag’s head either on, or around, Lullington church, I concluded, signing the visitors’ book and rejoining Bernard out in the open.

  I found him sitting on a wooden bench close to the western edge of the churchyard, waiting for an opportunity to better attune to the site.

  Visitors came and went as Bernard sat in the shade, complaining of a growing headache. A couple of times he got up to study a clump of stone and mortar foundations in the centre of the encloseds churchyard. It seemed to be the last remnants of the old church nave, pulled down and removed long ago.

  Inquisitive, I asked him what he was doing.

  ‘I keep getting the feeling there’s something down there, by those foundations,’ he said, getting up again to look at the block of stone and mortar, about five feet square and around three feet in height. ‘It’s nothing definite. Only vague stuff, really,’ he offered, sitting back down and rubbing his head once more.