NORTH CORNWALL FAIRIES AND LEGENDS - 13 Legends from England's West Country E-Book

Anon E. Mouse

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Numberless stories of the little Ancient People of England’s West Country of Cornwall and Devon used to be told. In olden times cottagers often repeated to each other on winter evenings as they sat round the peat fires, and some of these Enys Tregarthen has retold 13 of the most enduring in this illustrated volume.

The Legends in this volume are:

• The Adventures of a Piskey in Search of his Laugh
• The Legend of the Padstow Doombar
• The Little Cake-bird
• The Impounded Crows
• The Piskeys’ Revenge
• The Old Sky Woman
• Reefy, Reefy Rum
• The Little Horses and Horsemen of Padstow
• How Jan Brewer was Piskey-laden
• The Small People’s Fair
• The Piskeys who did Aunt Betsy’s Work
• The Piskeys who Carried their Beds
• The Fairy Whirlwind

Piskeys, or Pixies, danced in their rings on many a cliff and wild moor on moonlit nights in North and East Cornwall. Fairy horsemen, known locally as night-riders, used to steal horses from farmers’ stables and ride them over the moors untill daybreak, when they left them exhausted, and to find their own way back to their stalls.

The legends about the Little People are very old, and some assert to-day that the tales about the Piskeys are tales of a Pigmy race who inhabited Cornwall in the Neolithic Period, and that they are answerable for most of the legends of our Cornish fairies. If this be so, the older stories are legends of the little Stone Men.

The West Country legends of the Little People are numerous. Some of them are very fragmentary; but they are none they are hugely entertaining and give an insight into the world of the little Ancient People, but they also show how strongly the Cornish peasantry once believed in them, as perhaps they still do. For, strange as it may seem in these matter-of-fact days, there are people still living who not only hold that there are Piskeys, but say they have actually seen them!

These stories are given to the world in the hope that many besides children, for whom they are specially written, will find them interesting, and all lovers of folk-lore will be grateful to know that the iron horse and other modern inventions have not yet succeeded in driving away the Small People, nor in banishing the weird legends from our loved ‘land of haunting charm.’

10% of the publisher’s profit from the sale from this book will be donated to Charities.
=============
KEYWORDS: folklore, fairy, Tales, children, stories, bedtime, fables, illustrated, myths, legends, Adventures of a Piskey, Search, Laugh, Laughter, Legend, Padstow Doombar, Little, Cake-bird, Impounded, Crows, Piskeys’ Revenge, Old Sky Woman, Reefy, Rum, Little Horses, Horsemen of Padstow, Jan Brewer, Piskey-laden, Small People, Fair, Aunt Betsy, Work, carry, Carried, Beds, Fairy Whirlwind, Plymouth, Exeter, Torquay, Paignton, Exmouth, Barnstaple, Newton Abbot, Tiverton, Brixham, Bideford, Falmouth, Penzance, Camborne, Newquay, St Austell, Truro, Essa, Bodmin, bodmin moor, Rough Tor, Siblyback Lake, De Lank River, Garrow Tor, St Neots, King Arthur's Hall, Kilmar Tor, Hawk's Tor, Bude, St Austell, St Ives, Newquay, Jamaica Inn, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Fingle Bridge, Gara Point, Upper Plym, Trowlesworthy Tor, Heddon Valley, Mount St. Michael, St Michael's Mount, Marazion

Leseprobe

North Cornwall Fairies and Legends

ByEnys Tregarthen

Illustrated

With introduction by Howard Fox, F.G.S.

Originally Published by

Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., Ltd., London

[1906]

Resurrected by

Abela Publishing, London

[2018]

NORTH CORNWALL FAIRIES AND LEGENDS

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2018

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system)

except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Abela Publishing

London

United Kingdom

[2018]

ISBN-: 978-X-XXXXXX-XX-X

Email:

[email protected]

Website:

AbelaPublishing

Acknowledgements

Abela Publishing

acknowledges the work that

Enys Tregarthen

did in compiling and publishing

North Cornwall Fairies and Legends

in a time well before

any electronic media was in use.

* * * * * * *

10% of the net profit from the sale of this book

will be donated to Charities.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Contents

Introduction

The Adventures of a Piskey in Search of his Laugh

The Legend of the Padstow Doombar

The Little Cake-bird

The Impounded Crows

The Piskeys’ Revenge

The Old Sky Woman

Reefy, Reefy Rum

The Little Horses and Horsemen of Padstow

How Jan Brewer was Piskey-laden

The Small People’s Fair

The Piskeys who did Aunt Betsy’s Work

The Piskeys who Carried their Beds

The Fairy Whirlwind

Notes

More Children’s Folklore And Fairy Tale Ebooks

List of Illustrations

She Was Caught In A Whirlwind - Frontispiece

King Arthur’s Castle, Looking North

Tintagel Castle

By Rough Tor’s Granite-Piled Height The Bright Little

Lantern Went

‘Night-Riders, Night-Riders, Please Stop!’

‘Which Is Still Called King Arthur’s Seat’

Lifeboat Going Over The Bar Of Doom

Tristram Bird Could See Over The Maiden’s Head Into

The Pool

Trebetherick Bay

Chapel Stile

‘It Is The Mermaid’s Wraith,’ Cried An Old Granfer Man

Tregoss Moor

On The Way To Tamsin’s Cottage

‘I Hear Them Laughing. Listen, Grannie!’

The Roche Rocks

He Stepped On To Phillida’s Nose As Light As The

Feathers Of The Old Sky Woman

‘All The Crows In The Parish Came As They Were Bidden’

‘Perhaps You Would Like To Hear The Crows’ Version Of

The Tale?’

The Piskeys Got In And Ate Up The Bowl Of Junket, And

Passed Out The Biscuits

‘The Old Sky Woman Sweeping Out The Sky Goose’s

House’

She Took To Her Heels And Ran For Her Life

Saw Them Standing On The Tile-Ridge

They Galloped Much Faster Than He Could Run

Ruins Of Constantine Church

They Began To Dance Round Him

Nannie Went On The Moors Again, And Tinker Followed

Her

She Was Caught In A Whirlwind

Introduction

The tales contained in this little volume of North Cornwall fairy stories, by Enys Tregarthen, are either founded on folk-lore or they are folk-lore pure and simple.

The scene of the first story is laid amid the ancient walls and gateways of ‘Grim Dundagel thron’d along the sea,’and other places not quite so well known by those who live beyond the Cornish land, but which, nevertheless, have a fascination of their own, especially Dozmare Pool, where Tregeagle’s unhappy spirit worked at his hopeless task of emptying the pool with a crozan or limpet-shell‘that had a hole in it.’

This large inland lake, one mile in circumference, is of unusual interest, not only because of the Tregeagle legend that centres round Dozmare, but from a tradition, which many believe, that it was to this desolate moor, with its great tarn, that Sir Bedivere, King Arthur’s faithful knight, brought the wounded King after the last great battle at Slaughter Bridge, on the banks of the Camel.

A wilder and more untamed spot could hardly be found even in Cornwall than Dozmare Pool and the barren moors surrounding it. As one stands by its dark waters, looking away towards the bare granite-crowned hills and listening to the wind sighing among the reeds and rushes and the coarse grass, one can realize to the full the weird legends connected with it, and one can see in imagination the huge figure of Tregeagle bending over the pool, dipping out the water with his poor little limpet-shell.

The Tregeagle legends are still believed in. When people go out to Dozmare Pool, they do not mention Tregeagle’s name for fear that the Giant will suddenly appear and chase them over the moors!

On the golden spaces of St. Minver sand-hills the legends about this unearthly personage are not so easily realized, except on a dark winter’s night, when the wind rages fiercely over the dunes and one hears a fearful sound, which the natives say is Tregeagle roaring because the sand-ropes that he made to bind his trusses of sand are all broken. St. Minver is not only known for its connection with the legend of Tregeagle, but it is one of the many parishes beloved by the Small People or Fairy Folk with whom Enys Tregarthen’s little book has mostly to do.

Piskeys danced in their rings on many a cliff and common and moor in that delightful parish, and on other wild moors, commons and cliffs in many another parish in North and East Cornwall. Fairy horsemen, locally known as night-riders, used to steal horses from farmers’ stables and ride them over the moors and commons till daybreak, when they left them to perish, or to find their way back to their stalls.

Numberless stories of the little Ancient People used to be told, which the cottagers often repeated to each other on winter evenings as they sat round the peat fires, and some of these Enys Tregarthen has retold. The author writes concerning them: ‘Many of the legends were told me by very old people long since dead. The legend of the Doombar was told me when I was quite a small child by a very old person born late in the eighteenth century. The one of Giant Tregeagle came, I think, from the same source, but it is too far back to remember. I only know it was one of the stories of my childhood, as were also the Mole legend and some of the Piskey-tales, handed down from a dim past by our Cornish forebears.

‘The legends about the Little People are very old, and some assert to-day that the tales about the Piskeys are tales of a Pigmy race who inhabited Cornwall in the Neolithic Period, and that they are answerable for most of the legends of our Cornish fairies. If this be so, the older stories are legends of the little Stone Men.

‘The legends are numerous. Some of them are very fragmentary; but they are none the less interesting, for they not only give an insight into the world of the little Ancient People, but they also show how strongly the Cornish peasantry once believed in them, as perhapsthey still do. For, strange as it may seem in these matter-of-fact days, there are people still living who not only hold that there are Piskeys, but say they have actually seen them! One old woman in particular told me not many months ago that she had seen“little bits of men in red jackets” on the moors where she once lived. She used to be told about the Piskeys when she was a child, and the old people of her day used to tell how “the little bits of men” crept in through the keyhole of moorland cottages when the children were asleep to order their dreams.’

These stories are given to the world in the hope that many besides children, for whom they are specially written, will find them interesting, and all lovers of folk-lore will be grateful to know that the iron horse and other modern inventions have not yet succeeded in driving away the Small People, nor in banishing the weird legends from our loved ‘land of haunting charm.’

H. F.

The Adventures of a Piskey in Search of his Laugh

‘... A soft Cradle of old tales.’

W. B. Yeats.

he moon was shining softly down on the grey ruins of King Arthur’s Castle by the Tintagel sea, and on hundreds of little Piskeys dancing in a great Piskey-ring on the mainland, known as Castle Gardens.

In the centre of the ring stood a Little Fiddler, fiddling away with all his might, keeping time with his head and one tiny foot.

The faster he played and flung out the merry tune on the quiet moonlit night, the faster the Piskeys danced. As they danced they almost burst their sides with laughter, and their laughter and the music of the Little Fiddler was distinctly heard by an old man and his wife, who then lived in the cottage near the castle.

One little Piskey, somewhat taller than a clothes-peg, was the best dancer there, and his laugh was the merriest. He was dancing with a Piskey about his own size, who could hardly keep step with his twinkling feet.

As the Piskeys careered round and round the Piskey-ring, the tiny chap who was the best dancer, and had the merriest laugh, suddenly stopped laughing, and his little dancing feet gave under him, and down he went with a crash, dragging his little companion with him. Before they could pick themselves up, the Piskeys who were coming on behind, not seeing the two sprawling on the ring, fell on them, and in another moment Little Fiddler Piskey saw a moving heap of green-coated little bodies and a brown tangle of tiny hands and feet.

So amazed was he at such an unusual sight that he stopped fiddling, and let his fiddle slip out of his hand unnoticed on the grass.

When the Little Men had picked themselves up, except the one who had caused the mishap, they began to pitch into him for tumbling and causing them to tumble, when something in his tiny face made them stop.

‘What made you go down on your stumjacket like that when you were dancing so beautifully?’ asked a Piskey not unkindly.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered, looking up at his little brother Piskey with a strange expression in his face, which was pinched and drawn, and pale as one of their own Piskey-stools; and instead of a laugh in his dark little eyes there was misery and woe.

The strange expression in his eyes quite frightened the Piskeys, and one said: ‘What is the matter with you? You are looking worse than a cat in a fit.’

‘Am I?’ said the poor little Piskey. ‘I am feeling very queer. It was a queerness that made me fall on my little stumjacket. Am I ill like those great men and women creatures we sometimes entice into the bogs with Piskey-lights?’

‘We have never heard of a Piskey getting ill or sick,’said a little brown Piskey, ‘have we?’ turning to speak to the Little Fiddler, who had come over to his companions, bringing his fiddle with him.

‘I most certainly haven’t,’ answered the Little Fiddler.

‘Then what is the matter with me, if I’m not sick?’ asked the little Piskey who was looking so queer.

‘Perhaps Granfer Piskey will be able to tell you, for I can’t,’ said the Tiny Fiddler.

‘Where is Granfer Piskey?’ asked the poor little sufferer. ‘I am afraid I am getting worse, for all the dance has left my legs.’

‘Granfer Piskey is over on the Island,’ cried a little Piskey.

‘So he is,’ said all the other Piskeys, sending their glance in that direction, where, on the edge of a beetling cliff facing Castle Gardens, stood a tiny old man, with a white beard flowing down to his bare little feet. He was dressed, as were all the other Piskeys, in a bright green coat and a red stocking cap.

He disappeared into a Piskey-hole the Piskeys had dug in the cliff, which led down into an underground passage between the Island and the mainland, and very soon he reappeared from another hole in Castle Gardens, a few feet from where the little Piskeys were anxiously awaiting him.

‘Why are you not fiddling, dancing and laughing?’ asked the little Whitebeard, winking his eyes on the silent little Piskey crowd, standing near their little brother Piskey who was looking so queer. ‘You are wasting precious time standing here doing nothing. Before a great while the moon will have set over Trevose, and the time for merry-making and high-jinks will be over,’ he added, as not a Piskey spoke.

‘We are not fiddling, dancing and laughing because of something that has befallen our little brother,’ said the Tiny Fiddler at last, pointing to the poor little Piskey who had raised himself to a sitting position and was seated on the Piskey-ring.

‘He is a rum-looking little customer, sure’nough,’ said the old Whitebeard, glancing in the direction of the place where the Little Fiddler pointed. ‘What is the matter with him?’

‘That is what we want to know,’ answered the Little Fiddler. ‘Come and have a closer look at him, Granfer Piskey;’ and Granfer Piskey came.

‘What is the matter with him?’ asked one of the Piskeys when the Whitebeard had stared down a minute or more on the little atom of misery sitting humped up on the edge of the great green ring like a toad on a hot shovel. ‘You are so old and wise, you will be able to tell us what ails him, if anybody can. He thinks he is sick like the big people we lead a fine dance round the fields and commons sometimes,’ as Granfer Piskey stood stock-still before the little afflicted Piskey, winking and blinking and solemnly shaking his head.

‘He is not sick like those people of whom you spoke,’said the Whitebeard at last. ‘He has——’

‘The make-outs,’ shrilled a little voice with a laugh somewhere in the background.

‘No, he hasn’t the make-outs, you impudent little rascal!’ said Granfer Piskey, without lifting his gaze from the poor little fellow on the edge of the ring. ‘That’s a complaint from which you apparently suffer.’

‘What has he?’ asked the Tiny Fiddler, impatiently scraping his fiddle-stick over his fiddle, as if to emphasize his words.

‘It isn’t what he has, but what hehasn’t,’ said the old Whitebeard, in the same slow, solemn voice. ‘I was going to say that our poor little brother has lost his laugh.’

‘Lost his laugh!’ cried little Fiddler Piskey and all the other little Piskeys; and their tiny faces of consternation showed what a terrible thing had befallen their poor little brother.

‘Yes, he has had the sad misfortune to lose his laugh,’said the little old Whitebeard, winking and blinking harder than ever as he stood before the unhappy little Piskey who had lost his laugh;‘and, worse still, he is quite done for till he finds it again.’

‘Where has my laugh gone to, Granfer Piskey?’ asked the miserable little Piskey who had met with that dreadful misfortune.

‘I don’t know more than the Little Man in the moon,’ answered the tiny old Whitebeard; ‘but if I were you I would go and look for it.’

‘Where must I go and look for my laugh?’ asked the poor little Piskey.

‘I have not the smallest idea; but I should go and search for it till I found it.’

‘Will you come with me and search for my laugh?’ asked the little Piskey, with a look of anxiety in his wee dark eyes, asGranfer Piskey was moving away.

‘I am afraid I can’t. It is my duty to stop with your brothers to see that they don’t grow silly and lose their laugh. Besides, it is not quite the thing for an old Whitebeard like me to go travelling about the country with a youngster like you, in search of a laugh.’

‘Will you go with me to look for my laugh?’ asked the little Piskey, fixing his gaze on the Tiny Fiddler.

‘I would go with you gladly, if I were not Fiddler Piskey,’ he answered, touching his fiddle lightly with his bow. ‘But if I were to go gallivanting up and down the country in search of your laugh, there would be nobody to play the dancing tune when our brothers dance in the moonshine.’

‘Won’t one of you go with me and help me to find my laugh?’ begged the miserable little fellow, glancing from one Piskey to another as they crowded round him.

King Arthur’s Castle, looking North.

‘We would if we hadn’t so much dancing to do,’ they said. ‘We have to dance in every Piskey-ring from Tintagel Head to Crackington Hawn up St. Gennys, before the moon grows as small as a wren’s claw.’

‘Must I go by myself to search for my laugh?’ said the poor little Piskey in a heart-breaking voice.

‘Yes, you must go by yourself to look for your laugh,’answered all the little Piskeys. ‘You should not have been so foolish as to lose it;’ and the selfish little Brown Men—Granfer Piskey, Fiddler Piskey, and all the other Piskeys—turned their backs on their unfortunate little brother, and ran away across the gardens and over the cliffs towards Bossiney, half-way between which was another big Piskey-ring; and by-and-by the poor little Piskey who had lost his laugh heard in the distance, as he sat all alone in the great grassy place, their merry laughter and the music of Fiddler Piskey’s tiny fiddle.

He was a very sad little Piskey as he listened to the merriment of his little brother Piskeys, and the moon, sailing along the dark velvety blue of the midnight sky above the ruins of King Arthur’s Castle and Gardens, never looked down on such a woebegone little Piskey before. He had always been happy and gay till now, and having no laugh was such a strange experience that it was no wonder he felt as miserable and wisht