Shropshire landscape and ancient legend helps inspire Shrewsbury author's latest book

A Shrewsbury author draws on both Shropshire folklore and the county's landscape for inspiration for his latest book.

Almost 20 years ago Nigel Sustins wrote a poetical reinterpretation of the enduring legend of Wild Edric, a Saxon lord from the Shropshire borderlands who defiantly resisted the Norman Conquest and became the stuff of various tales and myths.

Nigel, who is retired from jobs in bookselling and publishing, said: "I wrote 'Wild Edric' when I had just turned 60, and now, rapidly approaching 80, I have produced what I think should be my swansong - but you never know."

In his new book, called "Sleepers Rock," Edric only has a small part. Instead, it features new characters in interlinking stories.

"There's a young priestess in an Iron Age settlement on the edge of the Stiperstones range, a young woman in Victorian times who tutors the children of Mynde Hall and uncovers a ghostly history, and a man in modern Shrewsbury who finds that ancient stories are manifesting themselves to him, and demanding to be written.

"Added to this is a possible deeper explanation of the legends surrounding Edric and his so-called ‘fairy’ wife Godda. These have recently resurfaced surprisingly as a mystical back-story to the MGM+ television series ‘Robin Hood’ which is available to view on Amazon Prime, but they have been transposed to Sherwood Forest rather than their true Shropshire setting.

"Both ‘Wild Edric’ and ‘Sleepers Rock’ were in part inspired by paintings by the late Rod Shaw, the well-known Shrewsbury artist, and two of these are reproduced in the new book."

He added: "The book is partly autobiographical in that, like one of the characters, I have been inspired by the Shropshire landscape, particularly the Stiperstones, which seems to be crawling with potential stories. Not that I have seen anything supernatural, but the imagination certainly gets working."

Published by Marchland Books, "Sleepers Rock" is, unlike "Wild Edric," a story rather than a narrative poem, and Nigel says it is on sale at the Bog Centre and the Stiperstones Village Shop, can also be ordered through local book suppliers, and is available on Amazon. It costs £6 and he says it is aimed at young, and not-so-young, adults.