There are many pieces of lore connected with the Ring, the most famous being of a common type where the object is walked or run around. In the case of the Ring, if you walk (or run) seven times (sometimes running backwards or anti-clockwise) around it on a dark or moonless night (one account says Midsummer Eve at 7pm, another May Day Eve, another at midnight, during the time it takes a clock to strike midnight) without stopping, the Devil will appear and offer you a bowl of milk, soup or porridge (reports vary). Some say that if you accept, he will take your soul, or grant you your dearest wish. Some Folklorists claim this is folk memory of dancing around the Ring, though as walking around something seems to be a Celtic tradition, it's seems improbable that at the Ring, it has survived the Saxons, Normans and the Reformation to the present day. There is also a theory that the Roman temple in the Ring was dedicated to Mithras and the initiation ritual involved fasting, so after the fast, the priests could have brought food out to the followers and as Christianity was spreading, they could have changed the priests bringing food out of the Ring to the Devil bringing food out, since all Pagan religions were seen as Devil worship and the Church would have wanted to discourage people from visiting the site. A nice theory but difficult to prove. The Devil is also credited with constructing the Ring, it being one of the clumps of earth thrown from his spade when he was constructing Devil's Dyke. Other spadefuls are attributed to Mount Caburn, Cissbury, Rackham Hill and the Isle of Wight.

The Ring is said to be an old fairy haunt and you can see the fairies dancing in the Ring on Midsummer Eve as well as UFO's flying overhead. A group in 1968 decided to watch for UFO's one night and were rewarded with a sighting, along with waves of intense cold, a sensation of electric shock, difficulty in breathing and stomach pains. In 1972, a man and two friends were walking within the Ring when they were startled by a noise from above which was caused by a large object brushing the tree tops. The object was large and glowed a dull red. After a minute the object moved away and the witnesses saw blue lights and what looked like four windows on the top of the craft. In 1979 a similar object was seen in the area and in 1974 a brilliant white circular object was seen which changed to an oblong shape and headed northwest at great speed. In 1975 a bright orange object was seen over Cissbury Ring before it headed off in the direction of Chanctonbury where it was seen by a woman walking her dog. This sort of sighting between the two hillforts has been quite common.

As with other places along the South Downs, Chanctonbury Hill is the subject of a saying relating to the weather :

"When Old Mother Goring's got her cap on; we shall soon have wet."

Old Mother Goring refers to Charles Goring who planted the trees, the cap refers to a cap of clouds in which the top of the Downs are sometimes enshrouded.

It is said that the old Astologer, Prince Agasicles Syennesis the Carian, made Chanctonbury Ring his night haunt in the early 17th century. On the hill he surveyed the stars while the peasants in the valley, already wary of the place would probably think the place more evil because of the presence of such a man. The Prince died in the Ring after tracing on a chart in charcoal the words "Sepeli, ubi cecidi" ("Bury me where I have fallen").

Rumour for the use of the area as a venue for Witchcraft is common and some sort of altar was found in 1979. The altar was in the form of a 5 pointed star made of flints within a circle of flints. Between each star point were pieces of thick parchment bearing black candlewax. Whether the intended use was black or white magic is unknown but being Chanctonbury Ring, it is probably black.

Aleister Crowley and one of his disciples, Victor Neuberg of Steyning, both thought the Ring was "A place of Power", though it is not known if they performed any rituals there. Neuberg published various poems about the Ring, one of which describes a youth being ecstatically burnt alive in a Druidic sacrifice.

One of the earliest and most important figures in the revival of the old religion in the 1950's was Doreen Valiente. She described Chanctonbury Ring as the meeting place of an ancient coven that predated the revival. She described the group as worshipping an unidentified earth mother and sky father, and performing rites without modern paraphenalia such as a Book of Shadows and magical tools, though they did work robed. There was no high priest or priestess, though there was a woman who was the most influential member.

For many years there have been stories of occult activity at Chanctonbury Ring and from the early 1960's. In 1979 the discovery of a nine-foot circle constructed of flint provided positive proof. In the center of the circle was a five-pointed star, also constructed of flint, and part of a fallen tree trunk had been used as an altar. Nothing of this nature has been found since but small pieces of evidence continue to be found. Pagans and wiccans all feel that Chanctonbury Ring is a 'powerful site' but most will not consider using it for any type of ritual or worship because it has a bad reputation.

Apart from being uncountable, there are tales regarding the planting of the trees within the Ring, despite it being common knowledge that they were planted by Charles Goring. The first tale is that the trees were planted by a poor village boy, the second, that they were planted by a man who had married an heiress from the West Indies. Pining for home, she used to gaze out from the top of the hill, so he planted the trees to please her, but she soon died, broken-hearted.

The Ring is a haunted place, the trees are said to be birdless because of the haunting as in other examples in Sussex, such as Birdless Grove near Goodwood. Apart from the presence of the devil noted above, Caesar and his armies can be raised by counting the trees of the Ring, which are supposed to be uncountable, though another piece of lore says that there are 365 trees in the Ring, one for each day of the year. The thudding hooves of invisible horses can sometimes be heard and the ghost of a man on a horse who gallops past without stopping has been seen. A lady on a white horse can been seen if you run around the Ring only three times rather than the seven required to raise the devil and last but not least, a white bearded old man has been seen, reputedly either a druid looking for buried treasure or a Saxon killed at the battle of Hastings. This legend seems to have been transposed from chancton farm below the hill, where a hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins were found in 1866. Apparently the story of the searching ghost existed before the find at the farm.

Many people have been unable to stay the night near the Ring giving up after a short time of feeling uncomfortable. In the 1930's, Dr. Philip Gosse of Steyning declared in his book"Go To The Country" :

"Even on bright summer days there is an uncanny sense of some unseen presence which seems to follow you about. If you enter the dark wood you are conscious of Something behind you. When you stop It stops; when you go on It follows."

In 1966, several members of the Southern Paranormal Investigation Group decided to camp within the Ring. Arriving around 9.30pm and lighting a fire, they also talked with a group of motorcyclists who were camped there. Things were quiet until after midnight when a strange crackling sound started followed by the wailing voice of a woman emanating from a form that moved around outside the Ring. There was a period of quiet until 2am when there was the sound of a church organ and feelings of intense pressure from people within the group. At 2.30am the motorcyclists left complaining of "Something really evil" but feelings of pain within the group persisted until they left the Ring in the morning.

Other physical ailments have been felt such as sudden paralysis of all the limbs in a group of people and a levitating force which picked up a person and then dropped him, injuring his back. A similar force, in later years, knocked someone to the ground and ripped a crucifix from around his neck. The crucifix when found was red hot.

The reason for the location for the placement of Chanctonbury Ring is obvious, the point the fort was built on is the highest on the spur giving it an excellent view of the landscape around, as if the fort is viewing its domain around it. The view is blocked to the east and west by the spur of land on which the fort sits and marking the edges of the ridge area that can be viewed from the ring are the two Cross-Dykes. Though one of the Dykes has been dated to the Romano-British period, when the Romano-British temples were constructed, the vast majority of the Bronze-Age barrows in the area, some of which are not marked on the OS map, are within the confines of the Cross-Dykes. Whether this is coincidence or had some meaning to the builders of the temples is unknown. Certainly Roman use of earlier Bronze-Age or even Neolithic sacred sites is not unknown, and indeed Neolithic material has been found within the Ring, showing a continuance of use far into the past.

As to the reason the Romano-British temples were built within the Ring, it is difficult to see why the chosen site was an ostensibly military feature, since significant sites are often reused for their previous purpose. This is especially true with the transition between the British (Iron-Age) and Romano-British cultures, where wealthy Romanised natives build Roman style temples on their old sacred sites. Such sites can be seen at nearby Lancing Down. where an Iron-Age ritual area was overlayed by a Romano-British temple in the same style of Chanctonbury's main temple. So if the 'fort' and the immediate area marked out by the Romano-British using the Cross-Dykes already had a religious significance then the placing of the temples begins to make more sense. The significant area at Lancing was laid out in the Iron-Age by a 'temenos' in the form of a surrounding fence and ditch and the 'fortifications' at Chanctonbury may be seen in the same light, as a ritual rather than defensive barrier. The later cross-dyke features may be an extension of the ritual space idea given form at the time the Romano-British temples were built, perhaps suggesting a greater importance given to the site, which is already attested to by the construction of two seperate temples within the old ritual area of the Ring itself.

Structures similar to the Iron Age feature found within the ritual enclosure at Lancing have also been found within Iron Age hill forts in other parts of the country such as at Danebury in Hampshire and at South Cadbury in Somerset. Indeed most of the structures of this type found have been within hill forts giving the real possibility that the purpose of the original enclosure on Chanctonbury Hill was religious rather than military.

The many Roman coins discovered on and around the location prove that the temple was functional for some three hundred years. A labourer by the name of John Butcher, who died in his eighties in 1967, spent his working life on the Goring Estate. He had many stories to relate on the subject of Roman coins dug up in the area of Chanctonbury. He was the grandson of "Mas" Butcher of Locks Farm below the Ring. His grandfather had often recounted the story of how during a hard day's work for Mr Goring, he had discovered coins when planting the outside ring of trees on the summit. John Butcher also remembered another workman, around the year 1910, who had discovered by chance a hoard of coins. He had been toiling on the breezy heights and carting flints from a location just below one of the dew ponds, when to his amazement he unearthed the coins. Being an astute character, he pocketed the treasure-trove. He later bragged to his incredulous fellow workers how he had received the princely sum of fourteen pounds for just one of the coins. Roman coinage recovered over the years dated from Nero (54-68 AD) to Gratian (375-383 AD). Anglo-Saxon coins have been also found. It is indeed surprising how many coins came to be lost on the hillside over the years. What else lies buried on the lofty summit awaiting discovery?
Richard Tritton Ade was born in 1836. He worked as a master bricklayer and mason on the Wiston Estate and in 1872 constructed the dew pond on the south-east of Chanctonbury Ring. In his later years he lodged with Mrs Farrell at the Mill Cottages and died there in 1914.