Country diary: dark trees guard even darker mysteries

Chanctonbury Ring, West Sussex Jackdaws, ravens and hobbies dance in the sky, oblivious to tales of fairies and ghosts and ritual sacrifice

The morning sun shines through the canopy of the wood at the bottom of the hill, making the fallen leaves on the ground glow rust-red. The steep chalk and grey mud track is greasy from last night's rain. Either side, flocks of tits - blue, great, coal and long-tailed - flit about, and wrens heckle my laboured climb with loud alarm calls.

At the top of the hill, the strong, cold wind is shaking the trees, some already stripped skeletal-bare. Emerging into the open, I turn on to the South Downs Way and follow the path through a gate, over a cattle grid. The soft contour of the hilltop sweeps up to the early iron age fort, hidden by a cap of dark trees.