Fawny Rig is a manor in the Sussex town of Wych Cross owned by demonologist Roderick Burgess.
History
The manor was previously owned by Lady Blackwood and, after 1785, Lady Johanna Constantine. It later came under the ownership of Roderick Burgess. In the early 1900s, Burgess used Fawny Rig as the base of operations for his occult organization the Order of Ancient Mysteries. On June 10th, 1916, the Order of Ancient Mysteries conducted an elaborate ritual in the hopes of summoning the embodiment of Death itself. The ritual didn't completely succeed however. Instead of binding the personification of Death, they actually captured the Lord of Dreams known as Morpheus. Using a binding circle in the basement of Fawny Rig, Burgess was able to keep Morpheus imprisoned. While the circle kept his spiritual essence bound to the Earth, a crystal dome was constructed which maintained Morpheus' physical form. Morpheus remained a prisoner inside of Fawny Rig for more than seventy years.
Roderick Burgess passed away in 1947 and the estate was inherited by his son Alexander. The Order of Ancient Mysteries had long since dissolved, but Alex maintained his own magical practices and used the manor for New Age occult rituals. Throughout the 1960s up until the time of his death, Alexander Burgess shared his home with his close confidante Paul McGuire. Like his father before him, Alex tried to force the captured Morpheus to do his bidding, but the Dream King refused, doing nothing but sitting silently and patiently inside of his crystal prison. At some point, an amateur occultist named Stanley Dover visited Wych Cross and attended a party at Fawny Rig. He ventured into the basement and caught a glimpse of the immortal Dream lord. Years later, Dover would use his own knowledge of the occult in an effort to capture a demon.[1]
By the 1980s, the aging Alexander Burgess was wheelchair bound, but he still kept Morpheus contained inside the basement under armed guard. At his wits end, he begged Morpheus to yield upon him great power in exchange for his freedom. Morpheus refused and muttered a single word, "Soon". When Alex turned to leave, the tire from his wheelchair smudged the binding circle thus breaking it. Morpheus was now free for the first time in decades. Unable to satisfy his need for vengeance against the man who first imprisoned him, he instead decided to seek retribution against the son. He cursed Alexander Burgess with "Eternal Waking", a perpetual dream state wherein he suffered nightmares that repeated themselves over and over unto the point of death.[2]
Residents
- Alexander Burgess
- Dream
- Ethel Cripps
- Johanna Constantine
- Paul McGuire
- Roderick Burgess
- Ruthven Sykes
Trivia
- According to Neil Gaiman, Fawny Rig was named by Johanna Constantine and it represents a confidence game in which an item is sold for less than what it is supposedly worth, but for much more than its actual value.[3]
See Also
- Appearances of Fawny Rig
- Location Gallery: Fawny Rig
- Catalogued images related to Fawny Rig