'THE ADVENTURES OF A PISKEY IN SEARCH OF HIS LAUGH.'
The Piskeys are said to have 'a kind of music,' and to dance to the
strains of fairy fiddles.
There are Piskey-rings on many of the Cornish cliffs and headlands. The
country people say the Piskeys make them in the night. The rings,
anyhow, spring up suddenly like mushrooms!
The legend of the mole is still current in North Cornwall, and its
tiny hands are shown as evidence that it was once a very proud and
vain lady, who said that the ground was not fit for her dainty feet
to walk on. As a punishment for her overwhelming vanity and pride,
she was turned into a mole to walk underground.
There is more than one quaint conceit about Jack-o'-the-Lantern or
the little Man-o'-the-Lantern. Some say he walks about carrying a
lantern, others that he goes over the moors in his lantern. He is
the Piskey Puck.
There are many weird stories told about Giant Tregeagle. I have
given one of the simplest, but only as far as it has to do with North
Cornwall. It is said that his shadow still flits over the moorlands
in the neighbourhood of Dozmare Pool, and that the pool itself is
the Mother of Storms, being moved by supernatural influences.
There has always been a tradition that an underground waterway led
from Dozmare Pool to the sea, but there is no tradition that Merlin
ever came out of the place where the Lady of the Lake put him, or
that he was the Bargeman of the moorland lake.
The little fairy riders, or 'night-riders,' as we Cornish call them,
are, I believe, peculiar to North and East Cornwall. They do not seem
to have been a kind Little People. They never had any consideration
for the horses and colts which they took out of farmers' stables near
their haunts, but rode them over the moors and commons till they were
ready to drop, and then left them to perish or to find their way back
to their stables as best they could. They made stirrups out of the
colts' manes and tails.
The legend that King Arthur never died is still extant, and it is
said that he haunts the dark Tintagel cliffs and the ruins of the
old castle where he was born in the form of a red-legged chough.
'LEGEND OF THE PADSTOW DOOMBAR.'
The above legend is doubtless a myth, but it is a fact that a wailing
cry is sometimes heard on the Doombar after a fearful gale and loss
of life on that fateful bar, like a woman bewailing the dead.
'THE LITTLE CAKE-BIRD.'
In the neighbourhood of St. Columb the children used to be told
that when they were in bed and asleep the dear little Piskeys would
pass over their noses and order their dreams. One of the strange
conceits about the Piskeys was told to me not long ago by a native of
Cornwall. He said he had heard the old Granfers and Grannies say that
the Piskeys were the spirits of still-born and unbaptized children,
which will perhaps explain the curious belief that Small People were
not good enough for heaven nor bad enough for hell. The gay little
Piskeys seem to have their wistful moments and yearnings for higher
things. They are said to listen at windows and doors in moorland
villages when Christian people are saying their prayers.
It was the custom in some parts of Cornwall to put a piece of dough
in the shape of a bird on the top of the children's Christmas Eve
buns, to remind the children that the white-winged Angels sang when
the Babe of Bethlehem was born. If I remember rightly, the buns were
eaten hot from the oven.
'THE IMPOUNDED CROWS.'
This is a well-known legend. The Crow Pound, where little St. Neot
impounded the pilfering crows, was in existence not a great while
ago. It is now a field.
'THE OLD SKY WOMAN.'
Wherever the snow falls in North Cornwall, especially at Padstow,
little children cry one to the other that the Old Woman is up in the
sky plucking her goose.
'THE LITTLE HORSES AND HORSEMEN OF PADSTOW.'
The quaint little figures on the housetop in the old town of Padstow
are visible to all the passers-by, and sometimes strangers ask why
they were put there--a difficult question to answer, as nobody knows
for certain. Perhaps they were placed on the ridge of the house for
the Piskeys to dance on, or for the fairy riders to ride. Or maybe
they were put there in the days of the Civil Wars, as a token that the
house on which the little steeds and the little horsemen were perched
was a refuge for King Charles' cavaliers. There is no tradition about
the small horses and their riders, but the children were always told,
as the tale says, that when they heard the clock strike twelve they
galloped round the market and town.
'THE PISKEYS' REVENGE.'
It used to be held, and is still told, that the Piskeys came in
through the keyhole and ate up the good things. Children, when they
knew that cakes were made and asked to have some, were told that the
Piskeys had eaten them all. They had a special liking for junkets
and sugar biscuits.
'THE PISKEYS WHO DID AUNT BETSY'S WORK.'
Some of the Piskeys were kindly disposed, and were credited with doing
kindly acts, and it is said that they often came into the cottages
in the night-time and cleaned them. When the cottages looked very
clean and neat it was said that the Piskeys had done it.
'HOW JAN BREWER WAS PISKEY-LADEN.'
Legends about Piskey-led people are as plentiful as blackberries. The
present one comes from the neighbourhood of Constantine.