Lee Morgan

The Gusty Deep is an epic monster-tale that pokes holes between world ages and lets them chatter to one another through a keyhole in the moss. In this very adult faerie-tale, twelfth-century Britain descends into the chaos of The Anarchy. Lux, daughter of the surviving member of the Green Children of Woolpit, narrowly escapes a forced marriage when a stranger, a way-faring man called Robin Goodfellow helps her escape. He takes Lux back to his band of Others—the queer, the whores, and the witches—together, can they save the land, its resources, and their very right to exist as the world slips into civil war?

It is possible to view this story as being to Old Craft what Richard Carpenter’s Robin of Sherwood books, which featured Herne the Hunter, were to neo-paganism as a whole. You can explore this more over at my blog post Robin the Marian.

‘“Ah,” Robin murmured, his voice rumbling deeply in his chest as though in sympathy with the thunder. “Gwrach, Old Woman is sleep walking… She’s strong tonight. Guts of the earth strong…” He placed his ear to the stone so as better to appreciate the reverberations of lightning striking the earth and the guttural voice of thunder. “Gyre Carlin they call her further North of here, and Cailleach. Old Grandmother with long teeth and claws stalking the ice… I hear you… A once adopted son of the Old Folk remembers… Wordless he remembers the voices in the marrow holes from when the deer and the ice were giant-sized…” As Robin spoke he moved strangely, crouched and throwing a bigger shadow up on the cave wall behind him.'‘

-The Gusty Deep

Robin’s story, through Jack, Eliza, Blaith, and Lux’s mother Agnes, one of the Woolpit Green Children, is already spread over more than one book! Get Sounds of Infinity to begin putting the pieces together.

"Stepping into the virid maw of creeping things of root and sucker, he felt the crawling sensation over his body that the green world was swallowing him whole. It gave off numerous little sparks of electricity, as if he was stepping into some kind of conscious field that zapped and stung and whispered shifting thoughts and snippets of impressions. When he emerged on the other side Jack felt one of his boots sink almost to the knee into something warm and viscous. When he looked down he observed that it was blood he was walking through. Immediately he felt violated. He wished he could wash it off. For some reason it recalled vividly in his mind each life he’d taken. As he was now forced to wade through the blood and gore if he wished to follow where Sibylla had gone, there was no quick way through. The more his thoughts turned to the past the heavier his step seemed, and the denser the sanguine stew at his leg as if he was wading through the thickness of his own guilt. How quick the faerie glamour of honey and pulsating light gives way to the blood and tears of millions and the thousands of sticky pods all pupating faerie larvae inside human hearts… How quickly the horror and the beauty… How stiff the price of entry…. So thought Old Devil Jack without words. If there had been a poetry of the limbic system, an art of heart-knowings, Jack would have been a renown bard across the land. As it was he was reckoned by most a simple man, but underneath some simple things black fen-swamps of secrets go down and down into the dusky brake…"

Sounds of Infinity

"Full disclosure, I have been a gushing fanboy of Lee's fiction ever since it first popped up out of the leaf litter of modern occult fiction. With that out of the way, onward. I first came across the tale of Lux de Rue in Lee's earlier work Unless They're Wicked, and thoroughly enjoyed it. So when a new book in the series was announced I was eager to get my hands on it and dive right in. Admittedly, I did struggle with Part 1, insofar as it is a retelling of Unless They're Wicked. Edited to meld better with the rest of the novel.

This tale of freedom, at any cost, is an emotional rollercoaster that grips you tight from the start until it leaves you shocked and awed at the very end. In a world where occult fiction is flooded with grittier reproductions of Harry Potter, and where magic has become something one might expect to see in the latest offering from the MCU, The Gusty Deep has some real meat and bones sorcery that any occultist, historian, or consumer of great writing will appreciate. Lee has woven a beautiful tale filled with love, violence, sex and magic that will leave you spent and breathless. Get it. Read it. And you too, will be counted among the Lee Morgan Fan Club."

-Michael Ryan

 "A beautiful reweaving of one of the most beloved folk heroes of the British isles. Not for the prudish or unimaginative, this book is vibrant and full of idealistic realism. Set shortly after the Norman conquest of England, The Gusty Deep tells the stories of a band of Travellers surviving the intensity of huge cultural changes that are overwhelming their traditional lifestyle. With magic and strength of character, they protect the defenceless and stay true to their deepest Selves. An excellent read for students of traditional witchcraft, and anyone who enjoys historical fiction."

-Chelse Wickersham-Tokarczyk