First Hand Accounts of Pixie (Fairy) Sighting

Eyewitness Sightings of Pixies (Fairies)

Pixies.—‘A man named Bottrell, who lived near St. Teath, was pixie-led at West Down, and when he turned his pockets inside out he heard the piskies going away laughing. Often my grandmother used to say when I got home after dark, “You had better mind, or the piskies will carry you away.” And I can remember hearing the old people say that the piskies are the spirits of dead-born children.’ From pixies the conversation drifted to the spirit-hounds ‘often heard at night near certain haunted downs in St. Teath parish’, and then, finally, to ordinary Cornish legends about the dead.

Our next witnesses from Delabole are John Male, eighty-two[Pg 184] years old, one of the very oldest men in King Arthur’s country, and his wife; and all of Mr. Male’s ancestors as far back as he can trace them have lived in the same parish.

Pixies in General.—Mr. Male remarked:—‘I have heard a good deal about the pixies, but I can’t remember any of the old women’s tales. I have heard, too, of people saying that they had seen the pixies. It was thought that when the pixies have misled you they show themselves jumping about in front of you; they are a race of little people who live out in the fields.’ Mrs. Male had now joined us at the open fire, and added:—‘Piskies always come at night, and in marshy ground there are round places called pixie beds where they play. When I was little, my mother and grandmother would be sitting round the fire of an evening telling fireside stories, and I can remember hearing about a pisky of this part who stole a new coat, and how the family heard him talking to himself about it, and then finally say:—

Pixie fine and pixy gay,
Pixie’s got a bright new coat,
Pixie now will run away.

And I can just remember one bit of another story: A pixy looked into a house and said:—

All alone, fair maid?
No, here am I with a dog and cat,
And apples to eat and nuts to crack.’