Jamie and the Tree Troll

By Zsolt Kerekes

This is a children's story of the hidden South Downs near Ditchling in Sussex, England, where once upon a time in a grand cold house lived Jamie and his family surrounded by creeping dark woods and in this tale you will learn what's really underneath the hill in Underhill Lane, and some Saxon history and legend and stuff of magic too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zsolt Kerekes
• Release date: Nov 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223205746

Zsolt Kerekes

It seems likely that the next generation of readers will remember me more for 4 little comedic childrens' stories - published on my author site goblinsearch between 2001 and 2004 - than all the many thousands of serious articles I wrote about the computer market in the 10 years before and the 17 years after. It started with a short bedtime story I wrote as a surprise for my godson - Alexander Woyte and the Goblins. Then one thing led to another and I began to self identify myself as writing that kind of thing too.

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Zsolt Kerekes

Jamie and the Tree Troll

Copyright © 2023 by Zsolt Kerekes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Zsolt Kerekes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Zsolt Kerekes has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

Parts of this story were first published in a different form on the author’s website goblinsearch.com from 2005 to 2019

First edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

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this story was written for my nephew James, as promised to his mother Anna

thanks too to his father Mark - whose fire lighting skills: from tree care and dowty chain saw swings to glowing heat from a single match, kept everyone warm, and inspired this story

Jamie’s sister Laura is in it too - but she has her own book

Contents

Foreword

1. seen but not heard

2. need to feed dragons

3. the Tree Troll’s story

4. in Clayton’s lair

5. on Brighton’s Saxon shore

6. alone under hill

7. when dragons split

8. sizzling sauropods

Afterword

Notes

About the Author

Also by Zsolt Kerekes

Foreword

Names of places, if true, tell stories… which legends, themselves, have names renowned too. We always look forward to one we’ve not heard. And now we edge close to where it begins.

Jamie and the Tree Troll. A story of living memory, with truth in its pages, and legend, and magic.

And as to the place? Such a place! There before words were first written.

Ancient woods don’t need words. But their stories do. Strong trees! Upgrowing. Amidst elders resting. Trees slanting, fallen, untidy and real. Mossy nature, no signage… surrounding the grounds of a once grand old mansion. Successfully keeping the busy world out. Yet somehow all this lying hidden and quiet, and shushed in the South Downs in Sussex.

And unlike those many: self-styled as South Downs - but placed actually¹ a cloud’s shadow north in the Weald² - this house - in Clayton - invisible - even as you jog past its entrance - no gate - a mere gap in the trees along Underhill Lane - and up, up from there - bouncing up the bone-shaking steep drive - how do people with cars manage? and yet - there it is! - perched, nestling into the hill and high enough up to craftily overlook Ditchling - and while not quite at the crowning tippy top - like the nearby famed windmills of Jack and Jill - is in itself (not needing any benefit of stories I may write) about as authentic a South Downs sort of place as you can get.

As a frequent visitor 20 years ago and looking down from the lofty windows at the ant-like weekend detectorists waving their wire-wound antennae in the broken fields below I often wondered about the names… Clayton, Underhill Lane, and what they signified and what the Saxons had to do with it?

When I heard Jamie’s story - of course - it all came together. There was so much more to it than that. Those amateur archaeologists were in the wrong place using the wrong tools. Coils don’t detect magic. Much easier to be the one found than find. Knowing now. It all seems so obvious. The answer was always in the names.

So many years have passed since I last went there. Old trees have tumbled, new ones have sprouted. Paths have crumbled. I doubt if I could find my way to where the story threads all came together now. And the entrance has no doubt been sealed and moved. I’m so glad I wrote his story down at the time before my fading memory lost the fine details.

So here at last in a proper book. A true story of that place.

1

seen but not heard

In my grandmother’s day adults used to say that little children should be seen but not heard. And children used to go to bed when they were told. That could be as early as 7 or 8 o’ clock.

Nowadays things are quite different. It’s hard to get the Little Darlings to go to bed before 9 o’ clock (on a school day). And if the following day is a weekend or a holiday, they’ll try and talk you into letting them stay up as late as the adults.

Sometimes parents get so tired of providing nonstop food and entertainment they feel as if they are the ones who should be going to bed first.

And if you think getting the Little Whatsits to bed is the start of a quiet child-free night - you’re sadly mistaken. Because, as everyone knows, what comes next is…

I’m thirsty. Can I have something to drink?

I’m hungry. Can I have something to eat?

Followed by another visit to the toilet and the rebrushing of teeth.

And next… comes the one which is hardest to resist.

You said you would read me a story!

This then, Dear Reader, is the true story of a real-life child of today called Jamie Huggett.

Unlike the fairy tale paragons of old who could be seen but not heard Jamie learned the interesting trick of turning invisible (when he didn’t want to be seen).

But you could still hear him alright! He could howl like a - hungry baby tyrannosaurus at feeding time - when the occasion demanded.

All modern children can do this trick. You can see them practicing their natural born grizzling skills in any supermarket on a Saturday afternoon.

Howling like a baby dinosaur would not, in itself, make a very