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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40246 ***
+
+                   NORTH CORNWALL FAIRIES AND LEGENDS
+
+
+                                   By
+                            ENYS TREGARTHEN
+                      Author of 'The Piskey-Purse'
+
+                With introduction by Howard Fox, F.G.S.
+
+                              Illustrated
+
+
+
+                                 London
+                   Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., Ltd.
+                     3, Paternoster Buildings, E.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                           Page
+    Introduction                                             xi
+    The Adventures of a Piskey in Search of his Laugh         1
+    The Legend of the Padstow Doombar                        51
+    The Little Cake-bird                                     71
+    The Impounded Crows                                      99
+    The Piskeys' Revenge                                    113
+    The Old Sky Woman                                       125
+    Reefy, Reefy Rum                                        131
+    The Little Horses and Horsemen of Padstow               139
+    How Jan Brewer was Piskey-laden                         149
+    The Small People's Fair                                 159
+    The Piskeys who did Aunt Betsy's Work                   165
+    The Piskeys Who carried their Beds                      177
+    The Fairy Whirlwind                                     183
+    Notes                                                   189
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                           Page
+    Tintagel Castle                                Frontispiece
+    King Arthur's Castle, looking North                       9
+    Tintagel Castle                                          15
+    By Rough Tor's granite-piled height the bright
+        little Lantern went                                  21
+    'Night-riders, Night-riders, please stop!'               37
+    'Which is still called King Arthur's Seat'               45
+    Lifeboat going over the bar of doom                      53
+    Tristram Bird could see over the maiden's head
+        into the pool                                        55
+    Trebetherick Bay                                         62
+    Chapel Stile                                             65
+    'It is the Mermaid's wraith,' cried an old
+        Granfer man                                          67
+    Tregoss Moor                                             73
+    On the way to Tamsin's Cottage                           75
+    'I hear them laughing. Listen, Grannie!'                 83
+    The Roche Rocks                                          85
+    He stepped on to Phillida's nose as light as the
+        feathers of the old Sky Woman                        91
+    'All the crows in the parish came as they were
+        bidden'                                             101
+    'Perhaps you would like to hear the crows' version
+        of the tale?'                                       105
+    The Piskeys got in and ate up the bowl of junket,
+        and passed out the biscuits                         118
+    'The Old Sky Woman sweeping out the Sky Goose's
+        house'                                              128
+    She took to her heels and ran for her life              135
+    Saw them standing on the tile-ridge                     141
+    They galloped much faster than he could run             145
+    Ruins of Constantine Church                             153
+    They began to dance round him                           157
+    Nannie went on the moors again, and Tinker
+        followed her                                        172
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 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! 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.
+
+
+The 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 he hasn'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, as Granfer 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.
+
+'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 [1] as he did.
+
+As he sat there all alone on the ring his own little dancing feet
+had helped to make, two tiny hands were suddenly thrust up out of
+a small earth-heap half a foot from where he was sitting. So dainty
+were the hands, that he thought they belonged to one of the little
+Good People, a distant relation of his; and thinking that somehow one
+had got buried under the earth, he got up from the ring to help her
+out, and, without waiting to say 'Allow me,' or anything so polite,
+he caught hold of the wee hands, and pulling with all his strength,
+he dragged something very dark and soft out of the earth-heap, and saw
+to his surprise and disgust that it was the round plump body of a mole!
+
+'Whatever did you drag me out of the want-hill for, you horrid
+creature! whoever you are?' cried the mole, who was not as soft as
+she looked. 'It took me hours to throw up that beautiful hill, and
+now it has fallen down into my tunnel, and my work will all have to
+be done over again, thanks to you.'
+
+'I am so sorry,' said the Piskey. 'I saw two dinky little hands
+sticking up, and thought a relation of mine had got buried; and when I
+did my best to get her out I found it was only a want, as the country
+people call you moles.'
+
+'A want indeed!' exclaimed the mole. 'Who are you, pray, to speak so
+disdainfully? If I am only a want, I was not always the poor thing
+I am now. Once upon a time I was a very great lady, and because I
+was foolish and proud and very vain of my beauty I was turned into
+a mole. My little hands are the only things left of me to show who
+I once was.'
+
+'I am very sorry for you,' said the Piskey, with strong note of
+sympathy in his voice, so entirely new to him that he scarcely knew it
+was himself speaking; for Piskeys, although they are merry and gay, are
+often selfish in the extreme. 'I am more sorry for you than I can say,'
+he went on. 'It cannot be nice to be only a want, when once you were
+a beautiful lady. I am a Piskey,' as the little dark mole was silent.
+
+'A Piskey, are you?' she cried, speaking at last. 'I remember you
+little Piskey people quite well, and have cause to remember. Once,
+when I was a grand lady and wore fine clothes, you Piskeys led me into
+a bog and spoilt my silken gown. I did not bless you then, and I do
+not bless you now. You are still up to your tricks, I find to my cost,
+for you have done your best to pull down my house about my ears.'
+
+'I did not mean to do anything so unkind,' said the little Piskey. 'I
+am not merry enough now to play games on anyone.'
+
+'How is that?' asked the mole.
+
+'I have lost my laugh, and my heart is as heavy as lead,' he answered
+sorrowfully.
+
+'Lost your laugh!' cried the mole. 'That is very strange.'
+
+'Yes, it is; and I am quite done for, so Granfer Piskey told my little
+brothers, till I find it again.'
+
+'Why don't you go and look for your laugh instead of throwing down
+want-hills?' said the mole severely. 'It would be more to your credit
+if you did.'
+
+'I suppose it would,' replied the Piskey; 'but, unfortunately,
+I don't know where to go and look for my laugh. Have you seen it?'
+
+'No, I haven't,' snapped the mole; 'I can't see without eyes. I
+have lost my eyesight through working underground for so many long
+centuries.'
+
+'Do you know anybody who has seen my laugh?' asked the little Piskey,
+'and who would kindly tell me where to go and find it?'
+
+'I am afraid I don't,' answered the mole, 'except the Little Man in
+the Lantern. He is the most likely person I know to have seen your
+laugh. He is always flipping about the country in the night-time in
+his little Lantern, and sees most things that wander by night. He is
+a kind-hearted little fellow, and if he has seen your laugh, he'll
+be sure to help you to find it. You know, of course, where the little
+Lantern Man is to be found?'
+
+'I have seen his Lantern in the marshes sometimes.' answered the
+Piskey. 'I saw it rush by a few weeks ago, when I and my brothers were
+lying snug and warm in a great Piskey-bed at Rough Tor Marsh. But as
+I do not happen to know the Lantern Man, will you please come with
+me to Rough Tor Marsh and ask him if he has seen my laugh?'
+
+'What next will you ask me to do?' cried the mole. 'No, I cannot go
+with you. I am far too busy to go tramping round the country with a
+little Brown Piskey like you, in search of a laugh. I have a tunnel
+to make across Castle Gardens for my dear little baby wants to run
+about in, and I must do it before the sun shines over the Tors. If
+you really want to find your laugh, you must go and ask the Lantern
+Man yourself. The sooner you go the better, or you may lose the chance
+of asking him if he has seen it.'
+
+'I dare say you are right,' said the little Piskey, with a heavy
+sigh. 'But I don't like the idea of travelling all the way from here
+to Rough Tor Marsh. My feet are heavy like my heart, now I have lost my
+laugh; yet I suppose I must go, for I am a wisht poor thing without it,
+and you would say so, too, Mrs. Mole, if your eyesight wasn't so bad.'
+
+'Mrs. Mole, indeed!' snapped the velvet-coated little creature,
+raising her tiny hands in anger at such an insult. 'I beg to tell
+you that I am not Mrs. Mole, but the Lady Want, and that, although
+I have fallen from my high estate, I am still a lady of high degree,
+as my tiny hands bear witness;' and she held them out for him to see.
+
+'I'm not up in fine distinctions,' said the little Piskey in a humble
+voice, 'and I beg your ladyship's pardon.'
+
+The Piskey's sad little voice so appeased 'the Lady Want' that she
+fully forgave his ignorance, and told him he was quite nice-mannered
+for a Piskey, and hoped the little Lantern Man had seen his laugh,
+and would be able to tell him where to find it; and then her little
+ladyship disappeared into the mole-hill, her tiny lady hands and all!
+
+When she had gone, the little Piskey turned his face towards the east,
+where the Tors rose up dark and shadowy against the moonlit sky. Then
+he looked back at the great keep, and turned his glance on the Castle
+Gardens, where, in the long ago, courtly knights and great ladies
+walked among the flowers that blossomed there under the shadow of
+the loopholed walls, and listened, as they walked, to the music of
+the Tintagel sea and the great waves that sometimes broke against
+the dark cliffs of the headland on which the grim old castle stood,
+where Good King Arthur was born.
+
+The little Piskey was saying good-bye to that delightful spot, with
+its soft turf and the beautiful Piskey-ring on which he had danced
+times without number; for the poor, lonely little fellow did not
+know if he should ever come back again. Then he broke off a bit of
+a knapweed stem for a staff to help him on his journey to Rough Tor
+Marsh, [2] and before the moon had laid down a lane of silver fire
+on the rippling waters between Tintagel Head and Trevose, the little
+Piskey had set out on his travels in search of his laugh.
+
+Piskeys always travel by night, and after many nights of wandering,
+the little Piskey who had lost his laugh came to the bog country,
+where he had last seen the little Lantern.
+
+Very tired and footsore was that poor little Piskey after his long
+journey, for, having lost his laugh, he had no dance in his feet to
+help him along, and he felt so done up as he sat by the great bog,
+or Piskey-bed, as he called it, that he did not much care whether he
+found his laugh or not. But when he had rested awhile he felt better,
+and looked over the great marshy place with eager eyes, to see if
+the little Lantern Man was anywhere about. To his delight he was;
+for far away in the distance he saw the white gleam of his Lantern.
+
+He kept his eyes upon the light, and by-and-by, when the Lantern
+came rocking over the bog in his direction, he stood up on the edge
+of the water ready to call. It disappeared ever so many times among
+the bog-myrtles and willows, but every time it reappeared it was
+closer. When it came near enough for him to see the little Lantern
+Man inside, he shouted:
+
+'Little Man in the Lantern, please stop: I want to ask you
+something.' But whether the Lantern Man heard or not, he did not stop,
+and he and his Lantern flipped by the disappointed little Piskey as
+quickly as a widdy-mouse [3] on the wing, and was lost to sight in
+the reeds and rushes on the other side of the great marsh.
+
+After a while the little Lantern Man came back to the place where the
+Piskey was still standing, and the light from the Lantern was brighter
+and softer than a hedge full of glow-worm lights shining all at once.
+
+As the Lantern was passing the little Piskey, he called out louder
+than before, 'Little Man in the Lantern, please stop; I want to ask
+you something.' But the little Lantern Man did not stop, and he and
+his Lantern rushed by as quickly as before, and the poor little Piskey
+followed the rocking Lantern with his eyes over the great marsh.
+
+Just as he was in despair of the wonderful little Lantern coming his
+way again, it came, and so fast did it come, and so afraid was he of
+its passing him without making himself heard, that he shouted with
+all his might, 'Please, little Lantern Man, stop; I want to ask you
+something.' And to his joy the little Lantern Man stopped. The door
+of the little Lantern opened wide, and a tiny, shining face looked out.
+
+'Did anybody call?' asked the little Lantern Man in a voice so kind
+that the Piskey's little heart leaped for joy.
+
+'Yes, I called,' said the little Piskey. 'I called twice before,
+but you did not stop.'
+
+'I never heard you call till now,' said the little Lantern Man. 'Who
+are you, and what do you want?'
+
+'I am an unfortunate little Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered
+the Piskey, 'and I have tramped all the way from Tintagel Head to
+Rough Tor Marsh to ask if you have seen it.'
+
+'Lost your laugh, you poor little chap!' ejaculated the little Lantern
+Man in the same kind voice. 'How came you to lose it?'
+
+The little Piskey told him how he had lost his laugh, and what Granfer
+Piskey had said, and how the mole who called herself the Lady Want
+had told him to come to him.
+
+'I would gladly help you to find your laugh if I knew where it
+was,' said the Lantern Man when the Piskey had told him all; 'but,
+unfortunately, I have never seen it.'
+
+'Haven't you?' cried the poor little Piskey. 'I am disappointed. As
+you are always travelling about the country in your little Lantern,
+I felt sure you had seen my laugh.'
+
+'I only travel in marshy ground,' said the little Lantern Man, still
+standing in the doorway of his tiny Lantern; 'and your laugh may not
+have passed along my way.'
+
+'Do you happen to know anybody else who has seen my laugh?' asked
+the little Piskey anxiously.
+
+'Nobody except Giant Tregeagle, of whom I dare say you have heard--that
+unhappy fellow who for some terrible wrong-doing has to dip Dozmare
+[4] Pool dry with a limpet-shell.'
+
+'Yes, I have heard about that great Giant from Granfer Piskey,'
+answered the little Piskey. 'He was a wicked seigneur who once had a
+fine house at Dozmare Pool and a great park on Bodmin Moors, and he
+is often flying about the country with the Wicked One at his heels.'
+
+'The very same,' cried the little Lantern Man. 'He travels from east
+to west, and from west to south, and back again. He will be sure to
+have seen your laugh.'
+
+'I am afraid my laugh is too small for a great big giant to have
+noticed, even if it passed him,' said the little Piskey.
+
+'He isn't so big but what he can see a laugh,' said the little Lantern
+Man. 'You had better go and ask him.'
+
+'I don't know where he is,' said the little Piskey, who was in a most
+dejected frame of mind.
+
+'He is at Dozmare Pool--or was not long since, doing his best to dip
+the big pool dry.'
+
+'I am rather tired after tramping here from Tintagel,' said the
+little fellow, 'and I don't feel like going all the way to Dozmare
+Pool. I have no spring in my legs since my laugh left me,' he added,
+as the little Lantern Man smiled rather sadly. 'I never knew what it
+was to be tired and wisht before I lost my laugh.'
+
+'I don't suppose you did, you poor little chap!' cried the little
+Lantern Man, 'and you must do all you can to find your laugh. I am
+going to Dozmare Pool, or the Magic Lake, as it was called in the
+long ago; and if you don't mind travelling in my Lantern, I'll give
+you a lift as far as that.'
+
+'Will you?' exclaimed the little Piskey, his tiny brown face
+brightening as the Lantern Man smiled. 'You are very kind, and I will
+go with you gladly.'
+
+'That's right!' cried the little Lantern Man; and he held out his
+hand, which shone like his face, and helped the little brown Piskey
+into his Lantern.
+
+When the Piskey was safe inside the Lantern, he thought it was the
+very brightest place he was ever in--'even brighter than a fairy's
+palace,' he said.
+
+'There is no seat in my Lantern except the floor,' said the little
+Lantern Man, as the Piskey looked about him. 'The floor is not
+uncomfortable, if you care to sit down. I always sleep on it when
+my night work of giving light to the poor things that live in the
+marshes is done.'
+
+'I would rather stand, thank you.' returned the Piskey. 'I can look
+out of your windows better.'
+
+'Do as you like, only it is my duty to tell you that you would be safer
+on the floor. My Lantern and I travel so fast that the creatures that
+fly by night often knock up against us and turn us upside down.'
+
+The little Lantern Man shut the door of his Lantern as he was speaking,
+and in another minute they were rushing over Rough Tor Marsh at a
+fearful speed, and the little Piskey had to hold on to the frame of
+one of the tiny windows to keep himself on his feet. By Rough Tor's
+granite-piled heights the bright little Lantern went. On by Bronwilli
+(Brown Willy) it sped, and by many a solitary hill, almost as wild and
+untamed as old Rough Tor itself. Over lonely moors, bogs, rivers, and
+streams, it flew, and rocked and whirled as it went. As it sped on it
+bumped against all manner of strange creatures, and once a night-hawk
+[5] turned the little Lantern upside down, and the Piskey found himself
+standing on his head with his tiny lean legs sticking up in the air;
+and he looked so funny that the little Lantern Man laughed till the
+tears ran down his shining face, and if the Piskey had had his laugh
+he would have laughed too!
+
+On and on the Lantern rushed, zigzagging up and down, down and up,
+and as it went strange moths and queer things that go about only by
+night fluttered their wings against its bright windows and door. Once
+a widdy-mouse, with a face like a cat, looked in, and then vanished
+into the darkness; and once a short-eared owl gripped the Lantern in
+his talons, but it sped on all the same.
+
+About an hour after midnight the Lantern reached Dozmare Pool,
+which lies on the top of a great lonely moor surrounded by desolate
+hills. The moon was only a few days old, and had set long before
+the sun had gone down; but it was by no means dark by the big pool,
+for there was starshine from innumerable stars, and also the light
+that fell from the wonderful little Lantern.
+
+The little Lantern Man stopped his Lantern on a boulder by the pool,
+where was stretched a huge dark form, almost as big as a headland. It
+was Giant Tregeagle, lying face down on the margin of the pool,
+dipping water with a limpet-shell which had a hole in it.
+
+The little Lantern Man opened the door of his Lantern, and telling
+the little Piskey that now was his chance to ask the Giant about his
+laugh, he helped him out.
+
+'Shout into his ear till he hears you,' he whispered, hanging out of
+his door, 'and don't despair if he does not hear you just at first.'
+
+The Piskey stepped up quite close to the great Giant, and he looked
+so tiny beside him that the little Lantern Man laughed, and said he
+was like a God's little cow [6] by the side of a plough-horse. 'Why,'
+he said, 'his ear alone would make a dozen little chaps like you and
+me. Now I must be off and give light to the poor things that want
+light. Good luck to you, my friend, in finding your laugh;' and the
+little Lantern Man closed the door of his Lantern, which sped away
+over the big pool, shedding light as it went.
+
+The Piskey watched the Lantern till it was hidden among the reeds and
+rushes, and then he turned his face to the Giant's ear, and when he
+had climbed up into it, he shouted:
+
+'Giant Tregeagle, Giant Tregeagle, I am a poor little Piskey who has
+lost his laugh. Please stop dipping water for a minute, and tell me
+if you have seen it.'
+
+But the Giant took no notice of the little Piskey, and went on dipping
+out water with a limpet-shell that had a hole in it.
+
+Again and again the tiny brown Piskey shouted into the Giant's ear,
+but the big Giant took no more notice of his little piping voice than
+if a fly had buzzed close to his ear, and went on dipping.
+
+Once more the Piskey shouted with all the voice he had, thrusting
+his red-capped head into the hollow of the Giant's ear as he shouted:
+
+'Giant Tregeagle, Giant Tregeagle, I am a poor little Piskey who has
+lost his laugh. Please stop dipping water for a minute, and tell me
+if you have seen it.'
+
+This time the Giant heard, and without pausing for a moment his
+hopeless task of emptying the pool dry, he said:
+
+'What tiny squeak did I hear?'
+
+The Piskey was too frightened to answer, for Giant Tregeagle's voice
+was almost as loud as the roar of breakers breaking in the cavern
+under King Arthur's Castle, and the tiny fellow crouched down in the
+curl of the Giant's ear.
+
+'What tiny squeak did I hear?' again asked the Giant; and the little
+Piskey, taking his courage in both his hands, answered back as loud
+as he could:
+
+'It was a little Piskey who spoke to you--a little Piskey who has
+had the great misfortune to lose his laugh.'
+
+'A little Piskey has lost his laugh, has he?' roared Giant
+Tregeagle. 'Why, that's nothing compared to a Giant who has lost
+his soul!'
+
+'Have you lost your soul?' cried the little Piskey, who, having got
+the Giant's ear, could now make his tiny voice distinctly heard.
+
+'Yes, I have lost my soul,' moaned the great fellow, and his moan
+shivered over the surface of Dozmare Pool, and made all the sallows
+that grew beside it shiver and shake as if a blasting wind had passed
+over them; and the reeds and rushes growing in the water sighed so
+sadly that the little Piskey felt ever so wisht, and sighed too.
+
+'How did you come to lose your soul, Mister Giant?' asked the little
+Piskey after a while.
+
+'That's a question,' answered the Giant, beginning again his hopeless
+task of emptying the pool.
+
+'Have you never looked for your soul?' queried the tiny fellow who,
+having lost his laugh, felt very sorry for the unhappy Giant who had
+lost so precious a thing as his soul.
+
+'It was no good to look for my soul when I gave it away in exchange
+for wealth,' cried the Giant; 'I can never get it back again unless
+I empty this big pool of every drop of water that is in it.'
+
+'And can't you do that, and you a giant?' asked the little Piskey
+in surprise.
+
+'I am afraid I can't with a limpet-shell that has a hole in it;
+and I am not allowed to use any other.'
+
+'Will you let me help you to empty the pool?' asked the tiny Piskey. 'I
+am only a little bit of a chap compared with you, I know--a God's
+little cow by the side of a plough-horse, the Man in the Lantern said,'
+as the Giant laughed sardonically; 'and my dinky hand is nothing for
+size, but it hasn't a hole in it.'
+
+'You can help me if you like,' said the Giant with another sardonic
+laugh. 'It will be perhaps another case of a mouse freeing the lion!'
+
+'Who knows?' cried the Piskey, who took the Giant's remark quite
+seriously; and climbing out of the huge ear, he slid down over the
+boulder to the pool, and making a dipper of his tiny hand, began to
+dip out water as fast as he could, and never stopped dipping once
+till a movement behind him made him pause, and, looking up, he saw
+the great big Giant on his feet towering above him like a tor, with
+an awful look of rage on his face.
+
+'I can never, never, empty Dozmare Pool with a limpet-shell that has a
+hole in it,' howled the Giant--'no, not if I dip till the Day of Doom;'
+and he flung the shell into the big pool. As he flung it a great blast
+of rage broke from him and lashed the dark water of the big pool in
+fury. He howled and howled, and his howls were heard in every part
+of the lonely waste surrounding the pool, and went roaring round
+and round the far-stretching moors, and were echoed by the desolate
+hills. By-and-by the Giant turned his back on the pool and strode
+away in the direction of the sea, howling and roaring as he went.
+
+The little Piskey was so terrified by the Giant's roaring that he crept
+into a water-rat's hole, and never ventured out for a night and a day.
+
+The second night after the Giant had gone he came out of the hole
+to see if he had returned, but he had not. He was disappointed in
+spite of the fright he had received, for the Giant had never told
+him whether he had seen his laugh, and he did not know where to go
+in search of it, or whom to ask if it had been seen.
+
+As he thought about this, he became very miserable--almost as miserable
+as the unhappy Giant who had sold his soul, and he wished with all
+his heart that the kind little Man in the Lantern would come his
+way again. As he was wishing this he looked over the big pool, which
+was very dark and unlit by single star, when something very soft and
+bright smote the black water on the opposite side of the pool.
+
+Thinking it was the dear little Man in his Lantern come in answer to
+his wish, he fixed his gaze upon the brightness, and in a minute or
+two a little Barge shot out from the reeds and came swiftly towards
+him, and he saw (for the Piskeys can see in the dark like a cat)
+that the Barge was being rowed across the big pool by a little old
+man. The soft light that smote the water came from the prow of the
+little craft and lit up the face of the Bargeman, which was half
+turned towards the Piskey, and was very seared and brown.
+
+When the Barge came near the spot where the Piskey was standing,
+the Tiny Bargeman said:
+
+'Who are you, looking as if you had the world on your back? and what
+are you doing here this time of night, when all good folk ought to
+be in bed?'
+
+'I am a poor unfortunate Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered
+the tiny little Piskey, and his voice was very sad.
+
+'It is a dreadful thing to lose your laugh,' said the little old
+Bargeman.
+
+'It is,' responded the little Piskey. 'The little Man in the Lantern
+thought so too, and he brought me all the way from Rough Tor Marsh to
+Dozmare Pool in his Lantern to ask Giant Tregeagle if he had seen it.'
+
+'And didn't you ask Giant Tregeagle that important question after the
+little Lantern Man had brought you so far?' asked the little Bargeman.
+
+'I did, but he was so troubled about something he had lost--his soul
+it was--that he forgot to say whether he had seen my laugh.'
+
+'That is a pity, for the Giant is now on St. Minver sand-hills
+making trusses of sand and sand-ropes to bind them with, and when
+the sand-ropes break in his hand--which they are sure to do when
+he tries to lift them--he will fly away to Loe Bar [7] to work at
+another impossible task.'
+
+'How do you know that?' asked the little Piskey.
+
+The Tiny Bargeman looked at the green-coated, red-capped little
+Piskey with a strange expression in his dark eyes for a second or two,
+and then he said:
+
+'I have lived so long in the world that I know most things. People
+who knew me in a far-away time called me Merlin the Magician, and
+said I had all the secrets of the world in the back of my head.'
+
+'Then you will be able to tell me where my laugh has gone to?' struck
+in the little Piskey eagerly.
+
+'I was speaking more of the past than of the present,' said the Tiny
+Bargeman. 'Since the time of which I spoke, I have lived here by this
+lake, now called Dozmare Pool. I lived sealed up in a stone, into
+which the Lady of the Lake shut me till a hundred years or so ago.'
+
+'How very unkind of the Lady to put you into a stone!' said the little
+Piskey indignantly. 'Whatever did she do it for?'
+
+'Thereby hangs a tale which is not good for a small Piskey like you
+to hear,' returned the Tiny Bargeman, with another strange look in
+his dark, mysterious little eyes. 'When Nimue, the Lady of the Lake,
+shut me up in the stone--like a toad in a hole she said--she thought
+she had done for me, and that I should soon die. But Merlin, the man
+who worked magic, was not so easily got rid of.'
+
+'And didn't you die?' asked the Piskey innocently.
+
+'You must have lost your wits, as well as your laugh, to ask such a
+stupid question,' said the Tiny Bargeman. 'I did not die, or I should
+not be sitting in this Barge now. But I grew down to the tiny old
+fellow you now see me through working my way out of that dreadful
+stone. My magical powers have also dwindled, I fear; for they are as
+nothing to what they once were. Therefore I am no longer Merlin the
+Magician, but only Merlin the Bargeman of Dozmare Pool.'
+
+'And can't you tell me where my laugh is?' asked the little Piskey
+wistfully. 'I am a miserable, poor thing without my laugh.'
+
+'I'm sure you are,' said the Tiny Bargeman, 'and I'll do what I
+can to help you to find it. I wasn't shut up in a stone all those
+centuries for nothing, as, perhaps, you have not lost your laugh for
+nothing. I'll tell you at once that your laugh has never been near
+this desolate spot, but it is possible that Giant Tregeagle may have
+seen it on his wild flight down to St. Minver sand-hills, or maybe he
+has seen it on the golden dunes. I advise you to go there and ask him.'
+
+'How can I get to the sand-hills?' asked the poor little Piskey. 'It
+would take me such a long time to get there with no dance in my
+feet; and there is no little Lantern Man here to give me a lift in
+his Lantern.'
+
+'You need not trouble your head how you are to get to the
+sand-hills. I'll take you near there in my Barge.'
+
+'In your Barge?' echoed the little Piskey, looking over his shoulder
+to the long stretch of country between him and the sea, and then
+at the great pool set like a cup on the top of the moors, with no
+visible outlet.
+
+'You are wondering how I can take you to the great outer sea,'
+said the Tiny Bargeman. 'For your satisfaction I will tell you that
+there is an underground waterway that leads down to Trebetherick Bay,
+close to St. Minver sand-hills. I will take you there in my Barge.'
+
+'Why are you so kind?' asked the little Piskey, looking gratefully
+at the little old Bargeman. 'My brothers were not nearly so kind.'
+
+'I saw you helping the wicked Giant to dip this great mere dry,
+and I thought so kind a deed deserved another,' answered the Little
+Bargeman lightly; 'and I told myself as I watched you that I would
+do you a kindness, if you needed a kindness. Will you let me take
+you to Trebetherick Bay?'
+
+'Gladly,' answered the little Piskey.
+
+'Get into my Barge, then,' cried the little old Bargeman; and the
+Piskey scrambled in and sat in the stern of the Barge facing the
+Bargeman.
+
+'I like rowing about this pool,' remarked the Tiny Bargeman, as he
+put his little craft about and began to row from the shore. 'It has so
+many memories. It was here by this mere that the Lady of the Lake (not
+the one who shut me up in a stone) forged the wonderful Excalibur, the
+two-handled sword with the jewelled hilt, which she gave to Arthur the
+King, who, you know, afterwards ruled all the land. It was here that
+Sir Bedivere--one of the Knights of the far-famed Round Table--flung
+the sword by order of the wounded King, and was caught by the Lake
+Lady's uplifted arm. It was here---- But you are not listening,'
+he cried, breaking off his sentence as he noticed that the little
+Piskey was not paying any attention to what he was saying.
+
+'I'm afraid I wasn't,' he said, very much ashamed. 'I am very dull
+and stupid since I lost my laugh.'
+
+'You can't be more stupid than I was when I was shut up in the stone,'
+said the tiny old Bargeman; 'and I can well excuse your stupidity.'
+
+He said nothing more, for just then the Barge reached the shore from
+which it had put off, and, without getting out, he reached over and
+touched a big stone with an oar. He had no sooner touched the stone
+than it sprang back, and revealed a dark, deep tunnel, into which
+the little Barge shot like a thing alive.
+
+'This underground waterway was known to the fair ladies who lived by
+the pool, and who took away the wounded King in their little ship to
+the Vale of Avilion,' remarked the Bargeman when the stone shut up
+itself behind them.
+
+'Did they?' asked the little Piskey, trying to look interested.
+
+'Yes,' he answered; 'and they also knew of another waterway, which
+will never be revealed to anybody except by the Good King,' he added
+half to himself, looking straight before him into the darkness of
+the narrow passage as he steered.
+
+The tiny Barge, which was a very ancient-looking little craft, with a
+gilded dragon forming its prow, sped on. But for its size, it might
+well have been the same little ship to which Merlin, the little old
+Bargeman, had just referred. The waterway was very long and deep,
+and the water ran so swiftly that the Barge did not now require to
+be rowed. It was also very dark, and the only light that shone was
+the light from the little boat.
+
+The little old Bargeman did not speak again till a roaring fell on
+their ears.
+
+'It is the noise of water breaking on Padstow Doombar,' he said,
+as the little Piskey looked frightened.
+
+'I thought it was Giant Tregeagle howling,' gasped the little Piskey.
+
+'He hasn't tried to lift his sand-ropes yet, and he won't begin his
+howl of rage till he finds how brittle they are,' said the Little
+Bargeman.' And a very good thing for you,' he added; 'for he will be
+far too angry to tell you whether he has seen your laugh when the
+ropes of sand break in his great hand. There! we are close now to
+the great outer sea,' he cried, as the thunder of waves broke more
+loudly on their ears, and they saw the light of many stars through
+a narrow opening; and the next minute the little Barge came out into
+Trebetherick Bay.
+
+'You only have to go up across the hillocks,' said the little old
+Bargeman, helping the little Piskey out of the barge, 'and if you
+follow your nose you will soon get to where the Giant is busy making
+sand-ropes.'
+
+'Thank you for bringing me,' said the little Piskey; but he never knew
+whether he was heard or not, for the Tiny Bargeman and his ancient
+Barge vanished as he spoke.
+
+The Piskey made haste to follow his nose, and he scrambled up a
+sand-bank, and hastened as fast as his feet could take him over the
+sandy common, till he came to the place where Giant Tregeagle was
+sitting making sand-ropes to bind his trusses of sand which lay all
+around him. He was sitting by a hillock, his great head showing just
+above it, when the Piskey came near.
+
+The little Piskey climbed nearly to the top of the hillock, and when
+he got close to the Giant's ear he shouted:
+
+'I am the little Piskey who told you he had lost his laugh. Please
+stop making sand-ropes for a minute and tell me if you have seen it.'
+
+But the big Giant took no notice of the tiny voice, and went on making
+his ropes of sand.
+
+The little Piskey then got into his ear and poked his red-capped head
+into the hollow of it, and again shouted:
+
+'I am the little Piskey who told you he had lost his laugh, and----'
+
+'Ah! the dinky little fellow who tried to help me to find my soul,'
+interrupted the great Giant, in a voice almost as loud as the waves
+breaking on the Padstow Doombar.
+
+'Yes,' answered the Piskey, 'and a dinky Little Bargeman brought me
+from Dozmare Pool to Trebetherick that you might answer my question.'
+
+'I know who you mean--Merlin, the little old Master of Magic,' cried
+the Giant in evident astonishment, pausing in his work of making a
+rope of sand to stare at the little Piskey. 'Fancy his bringing a
+tiny brown fellow like you from Dozmare Pool to Trebetherick Bay in
+his Magic Barge! Pigs will fly and sing after this!'
+
+'He saw me helping you to dip the pool dry, and said that one kind deed
+deserved another,' said the Piskey as meek as a harvest-mouse. 'So
+he brought me all the way down to St. Minver to know if you had seen
+my laugh. Have you seen it, Mister Giant?'
+
+'No, I have not seen it,' answered the Giant. 'Nothing so cheerful
+as a Piskey's laugh would come near such a mountain of misery as I
+am; and if by an evil chance it did come, it would flee far from my
+dark shadow.'
+
+'Do you know anyone else who has seen my laugh?' asked the little
+Piskey piteously.
+
+'Not one; unless your cousins, the Night-riders, have,' answered the
+Giant, looking at the sand-ropes he had just finished, lying at his
+feet. 'I must now begin to bind my trusses of sand.'
+
+He stooped to lift them as he spoke, and as he tried to take them up
+they fell to pieces in his hand. As they crumbled away his face was
+awful to see, and he began to howl and roar, and his cries of rage
+rang out over the sand-hills and over Trebetherick Bay, and were
+heard above the noise of waves breaking on the Padstow Doombar.
+
+Those roars of rage and anger so frightened the people living in the
+villages in the neighbourhood of the common that they shook in their
+beds, and as for the little Piskey, he was so terrified by what he
+had heard and seen that he tumbled over the hillock up which he had
+climbed to get into the Giant's ear.
+
+When he had picked himself up, Giant Tregeagle was flying away like
+an evil bird towards the south.
+
+The dawn broke soon after the Giant had gone, and as Piskeys always
+hide by day, he hid himself under a clump of tamarisk, and stayed
+there till the dark and the stars came again. When he came out he
+remembered what the Giant had said--that perhaps his cousins, the
+Night-riders, had seen his laugh. The moon being several days older
+than when the kind little Lantern Man had taken him to Dozmare Pool,
+it was now shining brightly over the common, and he knew if the
+Night-riders were in the neighbourhood of the sand-hills they would
+soon be riding over the common.
+
+As he was gazing about with wistful eyes a young colt came galloping
+along with scores of little Night-riders astride his back, and as
+many more hanging on to his mane and tail.
+
+The Night-riders, who were little people no bigger than Piskeys,
+and quite as mischievous, had taken the colt from a farmer's stable
+close to the common, and were enjoying their stolen ride as only
+Night-riders could.
+
+As they and the colt drew near, the little Piskey stood out in the
+moonshine and shouted:
+
+'Night-riders, Night-riders, please stop! I want to ask you something.'
+
+But the little Night-riders were enjoying their gallop too much to
+listen or stop, and they flew by like the wind.
+
+The colt was fresh, and galloped like mad, and soon went round the
+common and back again; and as he was galloping by, the Piskey once
+more shouted to the little Night-riders to stop, but they took no heed,
+and once more flew by like the wind.
+
+Ever so many times the colt galloped round the sandy common, leaping
+over the hillocks in his mad gallop, and each time he passed, the
+little Piskey stood out in the moonshine and called out, but the
+Night-riders took not the slightest notice, nor pulled up the colt
+to see what he wanted.
+
+At last, when the Piskey had given up all hope of the Night-riders
+stopping, the colt, who was quite worn out with galloping so hard
+round and round the broken common, put his foot into a rabbit-hole
+and came down with a crash, with his many little riders on top of him.
+
+One little Night-rider, who happened to be astride the colt's left ear,
+was pitched off at the Piskey's feet.
+
+He looked as bright as a robin in his little red riding-coat, brown
+leggings, and his bright green cap with a wren's feather stuck in
+its front.
+
+When he had picked himself up, he thrust his tiny brown hands into
+his breeches pocket, stared hard at the little Piskey, and cried:
+
+'What wisht little beggar are you?'
+
+'I am a poor little chap who has lost his laugh,' answered the
+Piskey. 'I shouted every time you galloped the colt past here to ask
+if you had seen it, but you never stopped.'
+
+'Of course we did not stop galloping because a Piskey called,' said
+the little Night-rider. 'How came you to be such a gawk as to lose
+your laugh?'
+
+'I have no idea,' the Piskey returned. 'I only know it went away all
+of a sudden, and I have been searching for it ever since. Have you
+seen my little lost laugh?'
+
+'No; but Granfer Night-rider may have,' answered the little
+Night-rider. 'He has wonderful eyes for seeing things that are lost.'
+
+'Is Granfer Night-rider here?' asked the Piskey, sending his glance
+in the direction of the colt, which was almost smothered with
+Night-riders, some standing on his side as he lay, others still in
+the stirrups they had made in his tail and mane.
+
+'He was on top of the colt's tail a minute ago,' answered the little
+Night-rider, following the Piskey's glance. 'There he is,' pointing
+to a tiny old fellow with a bushy grey beard coming towards them,
+carrying a tamarisk switch in his hand, with which he lashed the air
+as he came. He wore a red riding-coat, green breeches, red cap and
+feather like the other little Night-riders.
+
+'What woebegone little rascal are you?' asked the old Greybeard,
+staring hard at the Piskey.
+
+'A Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered the little Night-rider
+for him, 'and he had the impertinence to want us to stop galloping
+to tell him if we had seen it.'
+
+'You were very foolish to lose your laugh,' said Granfer Night-rider,
+standing in front of the unhappy little Piskey. 'How did you manage
+to lose it?'
+
+And the poor little fellow, without lifting his eyes from the sandy
+ground, told him.
+
+'You are in Queer Lane, my son,' said Granfer Night-rider, when he
+had told him how he had lost his laugh, 'and I would not give a grain
+of corn for you.'
+
+'Wouldn't you?' wailed the poor little Piskey.
+
+'No, I wouldn't, nor half a grain either.'
+
+Quite a crowd of scarlet-coated little Night-riders had gathered near
+the Piskey by this time, and had listened to all that was said, and
+one little Night-rider asked if a Piskey had ever had the misfortune
+to lose his laugh before.
+
+'Yes, once in the long ago,' answered the old Greybeard, fixing his
+eye on the little Piskey, who trembled beneath his gaze, 'and what
+was worse still, he never found it again. And so very unhappy was
+that little fellow without his laugh, and so miserable did he make
+everybody with his bewailings, that at last the Piskey tribe to which
+he belonged sent out a command that whoever found him wandering about
+the country was to take him in charge as a Piskey vagrant, put him
+into a Piskey-bag, and hang him upside down like a widdy-mouse in
+the first cavern they came to. He was found, put into a Piskey-bag,
+and hung up in a cavern. There he is still, and there he will hang
+till there are no more Small People!'
+
+'Has the order yet been given for this little Piskey vagrant to be
+taken up and treated in like manner?' asked another little Night-rider.
+
+The poor little Piskey did not wait to hear the answer, but took to
+his heels and ran as fast as he could to the north, and the little
+Night-riders who were still standing on the colt watched him till he
+was out of sight, and Granfer Night-rider and all the other little
+Night-riders yelled after him to stop, but he did not stop.
+
+The Piskey ran and ran, and he never stopped running till he came to
+Castle Gardens, whence he had started.
+
+When he got there he was as exhausted as a colt ridden all night by
+naughty Night-riders, and he sank down all of a heap by the side of
+a mole-hill, where two tiny hands were again sticking up.
+
+'Is your ladyship under the hill?' asked the little Piskey when he
+could speak.
+
+'Yes,' answered the mole. 'Who are you?'
+
+'The little Piskey who lost his laugh.'
+
+'What! haven't you found it yet?'
+
+'No,' he answered sadly, 'and I am dreadfully afraid I never shall. If
+I don't find it soon I shall be taken up for a Piskey vagrant, put
+in a bag, and hung upside down like a widdy-mouse in some cavern.'
+
+'That will be a very tragic ending to a bright little Piskey,' said
+the mole. 'Tell me how you know that that will be your fate if you
+don't find your laugh.'
+
+And the Piskey told her. In fact, the Lady Want was so interested
+about what Granfer Night-rider had said that she begged him to tell
+her all his adventures from the time he set out to Rough Tor Marsh
+in search of his laugh till his return to Castle Gardens, which he
+was quite glad to do.
+
+'You ought to find your laugh after all your travels and what you
+have gone through,' said the Lady Want when he had related everything,
+'and I hope you will.'
+
+'Does your ladyship happen to know anybody else who may have seen my
+laugh?' asked the little Piskey wistfully.
+
+'Only one.'
+
+'And who may that one be?' queried the little Piskey. 'Will your
+ladyship be kind enough to tell me?'
+
+'The Good King Arthur,' the mole answered in a low voice.
+
+'Good King Arthur!' ejaculated the Piskey. 'Why, he is dead, and a
+dead King is no more good than a Piskey without his laugh.'
+
+'King Arthur is not dead,' said the mole.
+
+'Not dead!' echoed the little Piskey in great surprise.
+
+'No; he was seen perched only last evening on his own seat, which is
+still called King Arthur's Seat, and which, as I dare say you know,
+overhangs the sea.'
+
+'Arthur the King not dead!' whispered the little Piskey, as if he
+could not get over his amazement.
+
+'A precious good thing for you he isn't,' snapped the mole.
+
+'But how isn't he dead?' asked the little Piskey.
+
+'Because he was changed by magic into a bird,' answered the mole;
+'he haunts the Dundagel [8] cliffs and the ruins of his old castle in
+the form of a chough. He was wounded almost unto death in his last
+great battle, it is true,' she added, for the small man looked as
+if he wanted this strange happening fully explained, 'and the marks
+of the battle he fought and the hurts he received are yet upon him,
+as the legs and beak of the great black bird plainly show--as plainly
+as my own tiny hands that I was once a great lady. But he is still
+alive. If you should see a bird with a red beak and legs flying over
+King Arthur's Castle as day is beginning to break, you may be quite
+certain that he is King Arthur. If he has seen your laugh he will be
+sure to tell you. He is very kind and good, as all the world knows.'
+
+'I am glad the Good King is not dead,' said the little Piskey. 'I'll
+try and keep awake till the dawn so that I can ask him about my laugh;
+but I am so tired.'
+
+The little fellow did his best to keep awake, but he was too worn out
+with his run from St. Minver sand-hills to Tintagel Castle to sit and
+watch for the coming of the red-legged bird; and long before the sun
+wheeled up behind the Tors and shone upon the sea he was sound asleep
+under a great mallow growing by one of the grey old walls. When he
+awoke a day and a night had come and gone, and the birth of a new
+day was at hand.
+
+When he crawled out from under the mallow, the first thing he saw on
+the Island facing him was the dark form of a great black chough. He
+was perched on the wall above the old arched doorway, gazing gravely
+in front of him.
+
+The Piskey lost not a moment in getting across to the Island, which
+he did by the Piskey passage known only to the Piskeys; and when he
+had caught the bird's attention he said:
+
+'I am a poor little Piskey who has lost his laugh, and I am come to
+ask the Good King Arthur if he has seen it.'
+
+But the bird was too high up for him to make himself heard, and he
+had to wait patiently till it flew down. After waiting a short time
+it did, and perched on a stick stuck in the ground.
+
+The Piskey ran over, and, clasping his hands, he repeated what he
+had just said.
+
+'How came you to know I was King Arthur?' asked the chough, ignoring
+the little fellow's question.
+
+'The mole who says she is the Lady Want told me,' he answered.
+
+'Ah, I know her--the grand lady who considered the ground on which
+she walked was not good enough for her dainty feet, and has now,
+as a punishment, to walk under the ground--a lesson to all children
+of pride.'
+
+'But please, Good King Arthur, answer my question about my laugh,'
+pleaded the little Piskey, in an agony of impatience. 'If I don't
+find it soon something dreadful will happen to me.'
+
+'Have patience,' said the chough kindly. 'Nothing is ever won by
+impatience. I have seen something very funny lately running about
+over the grass. It is like nothing I have ever seen before except in
+a Piskey's face when he laughs. It is like a laugh gone mad, and it is
+enough to kill a man with laughing only to watch its antics. It made me
+laugh till I ached when I first noticed it. It does not make a sound,
+but its grimaces are worth flying a hundred miles only to see.'
+
+'It must have been my laugh you saw,' cried the Piskey--'my dear
+little lost laugh that I have travelled so far to find. Where is it
+now, Good King Arthur?'
+
+'It was here not long since,' answered the bird, who did not deny
+that he was Arthur the King. 'Why, there it is quite close to you,'
+pointing with his long-pointed beak to the most comical-looking
+thing you ever saw, on the grass a foot from where the Piskey was
+standing. 'It was a laugh gone mad,' as the chough said.
+
+The Piskey looked behind him, and when he saw the little bit of
+laughing, grinning absurdity on the grass, he jumped for joy and
+shrieked: 'It is my own little laugh that I lost!'
+
+Holding out both his arms, he cried, 'Oh, dear little laugh, come back
+to me! Oh, dear little laugh, come back to me!' And the droll little
+thing, which was a grin with a laugh and a laugh with a grin, came over
+to the Piskey, and began to climb up his legs, grinning and doubling
+itself up with laughter as it climbed, till it reached his chin,
+when it narrowed itself into a tiny grin and vanished into the Piskey.
+
+The next moment the Piskey was shouting at the top of his voice, 'I
+have got my laugh! I have got my laugh!' and he ran off laughing and
+dancing to the edge of the cliff and disappeared into the Piskey-hole,
+and in a few minutes more he was on Castle Gardens in the great
+Piskey-ring, laughing and dancing and dancing and laughing.
+
+His laugh was so loud and so free that his brother Piskeys heard him
+from afar, and came running over the cliffs from Bossiney to see what
+ever had happened.
+
+Little Fiddler Piskey was the first to reach the Gardens, and the
+first glance at the little whirling figure told him that his little
+brother had found his laugh; and putting his fiddle in position,
+he began fiddling away as hard as he could.
+
+As he fiddled, the other Piskeys, including Granfer Piskey, reached
+the ring, and the next minute they were all dancing and laughing as
+they had never laughed and danced before; but the one who laughed
+the heartiest was the little Piskey who had lost and found his laugh.
+
+They danced for a good hour, the little fiddler in their midst fiddling
+his fiddle, all the while keeping time with his head and foot, heedless
+that the daylight was driving the darkness away to the country to which
+it belongs; and King Arthur the Bird flew up on the wall and watched,
+and the mole who called herself the Lady Want let her dainty hands
+be seen on the mole-hill, till the fiddling, dancing, and laughing
+were finished, and the Piskeys went off to the Piskey-beds to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LEGEND OF THE PADSTOW DOOMBAR
+
+
+In a far-away time Tristram Bird of Padstow bought a gun at a little
+shop in the quaint old market which in those days opened to the quay,
+the winding river, and the St. Minver sand-hills. When he had bought
+his gun he began forthwith to shoot birds and other poor little
+creatures.
+
+After a while he grew more ambitious, and told the fair young maids of
+Padstow that he wanted to shoot a seal or something more worthy of his
+gun; and so one bright morning he made his way down to Hawker's Cove,
+near the mouth of the harbour.
+
+When Tristram got there he looked about him to see what he could shoot,
+and the first thing he saw was a young maid sitting all alone on a
+rock, combing her hair with a sea-green comb.
+
+He was so overcome at such an unexpected sight that he quite forgot
+what had brought him to the cove, and could do nothing but stare.
+
+The rock on which the maiden sat was covered with seaweed, and
+surrounded by a big pool, called in that distant time the Mermaid's
+Glass.
+
+She was apparently unconscious that a good-looking young man was
+gazing at her with his bold dark eyes, and as she combed her long and
+beautiful hair she leaned over the pool and looked at herself in the
+Mermaid's Glass, and the face reflected in it was startling in its
+beauty and charm.
+
+Tristram Bird was very tall--six feet three in his stockings--and
+being such a tall young man, he could see over the maiden's head into
+the pool, and the face in its setting of golden hair reflected in its
+clear depths entirely bewitched him, and so did her graceful form,
+which was partly veiled in a golden raiment of her own beautiful hair.
+
+As he stood gazing at the bewitching face looking up from the Mermaid's
+Glass, its owner suddenly glanced over her shoulder, and saw Tristram
+staring at her.
+
+'Good-morning to you, fair maid,' he said, still keeping his bold
+dark eyes fixed upon her, telling himself as he gazed that her face
+was even more bewitching than was its reflection.
+
+'Good-morning, sir,' said she.
+
+'Doing your toilet out in the open,' he said.
+
+'Yes,' quoth she, wondering who the handsome youth could be and how
+he came to be there.
+
+'Your hair is worth combing,' he said.
+
+'Is it?' said she.
+
+'It is, my dear,' he said. ''Tis the colour of oats waiting for
+the sickle.'
+
+'Is it?' quoth she.
+
+'Yes; and no prettier face ever looked into the Mermaid's Glass.'
+
+'How do you know?' asked she.
+
+'My heart told me so,' he said, coming a step or two nearer the pool,
+'and so did my eyes when I saw its reflection looking up from the
+water. It bewitched me, sweet.'
+
+'Did it?' laughed she, with a tilt of her round young chin.
+
+'Yes,' he said, with an answering laugh, drawing another step nearer
+the pool.
+
+'It does not take a man of your breed long to fall in love,' said
+the beautiful maid, with a toss of her golden head and a curl of her
+sweet red lips.
+
+'Who told you that?' asked the love-sick young man, going red as
+a poppy.
+
+'Faces carry tales as well as little birds,' quoth she.
+
+'If my face is a tale-bearer, it will tell you that I love you more
+than heart can say and tongue can tell,' he said, drawing yet nearer
+the pool.
+
+'Will it?' said she, combing her golden hair with her sea-green comb.
+
+'Indeed it will, and must,' he said; 'for I love you with all my soul,
+and I want you to give me a lock of your golden hair to wear over
+my heart.'
+
+'I do not give locks of my hair to landlubbers!' cried she, with
+another toss of her proud young head and a scornful curl of her bright
+red lips.
+
+'A landlubber forsooth!' he said, with an angry flash in his bold
+black eyes. 'Who are you to speak so scornfully of a man of the
+land? One would think you were a maid of the sea.'
+
+'I am,' quoth she, twining the tress of her hair she had combed round
+her shell-pink arm.
+
+'No seamaid is half as beautiful as you,' said Tristram Bird,
+incredulous of what the maid said. 'But, maid of the sea or maid of
+the land, I love you, sweet, and I want to have you to wife.'
+
+'Want must be your master, sir,' said she, with an angry flash in
+her sea-blue eyes.
+
+'Love is my master, sweet maid,' he said. 'You are my love, and you
+have mastered me.'
+
+'Have I?' said she, with a little toss of her golden head.
+
+'Yes,' he said; 'and now that I have told you you are my love, and
+I want you to marry me, you will give me a lock of your golden hair,
+won't you, sweet?'
+
+'I cannot,' said she.
+
+'Give me one little golden wire of your hair, if you won't give me a
+lock,' he pleaded, coming close to the edge of the pool. 'I will make
+a golden ring of it,' he said, 'and wear it in the eye of the world.'
+
+'Will you?' said she.
+
+'I will, my dear,' he said.
+
+'But I will not give you a hair of my head even to make a ring with,'
+said she.
+
+'Then give me one for a leading-string,' he said. 'If you will,
+my charmer, you shall take the end of it and lead me whithersoever
+you will.'
+
+'Even to the whipping-post?' said she.
+
+'Even to the whipping-post,' he said. 'So you will be my fair bride,
+won't 'ee, sweet? If you will consent to love me, I'll make you as
+happy as the day is long.'
+
+'Will you?' cried she, with a warning look in her sea-blue eyes and
+a strange little laugh.
+
+'Yes,' he said, thinking her answer meant consent. 'And I've got a
+dear little house at Higher St. Saviour's, overlooking the river and
+Padstow Town low in the valley.'
+
+'Have you?' said she.
+
+'I have,' he said. 'And the little house is full of handsome things--a
+chestful of linen which my own mother wove for me on her loom against
+the time I should be wed to a pretty maid like you, an oaken dresser
+with every shelf full of cloam, [9] and a cosy settle where we can
+sit hand in hand talking of our love. You will marry me soon, won't
+you, sweet? The little house, and all that's in it, is waiting for
+my charmer.'
+
+'Is it?' cried the beautiful maid, taking up another tress of her
+golden hair, and slowly combing its silken length with her sea-green
+comb. 'But let me tell you once and for ever, I would not marry
+you if you were decked in diamonds and your house a golden house,
+and everything in it made of jewels and set in gold.'
+
+'Wouldn't you?' cried Tristram Bird, in great amazement.
+
+'I wouldn't,' said she.
+
+'You are a strange young maid to refuse an upstanding young man like
+me,' he said, 'who has a house of his own, to say nothing of what is
+inside it. Why, dozens of fair young maidens up to Padstow would have
+me to-morrow if I was only to ax them.'
+
+'Then ax them,' cried the beautiful maid, turning her proud young head,
+and looking out towards Pentire, gorgeous in its spring colouring.
+
+'But I can't ask any of them to marry me when I love you,' cried the
+infatuated youth. 'You have bewitched me, sweet, and no other man
+shall have you. If I can't have you living, I'll have you dead. I
+came down to Hawker's Cove to shoot something to startle the natives
+of Padstow Town, and they will be startled, shure 'nough, if I shoot
+a beautiful little vixen like you and take home to them.'
+
+'Shoot me if you will, but marry you I will not,' said the beautiful
+maiden, with a scornful laugh. 'But I give you fair warning that if
+you shoot me, as you say you will, you will rue the day you did your
+wicked deed. I will curse you and this beautiful haven, which has
+ever been a refuge for ships from the time that ships sailed upon the
+seas;' and her sea-blue eyes looked up and down the estuary from the
+headlands that guarded its mouth to the farthest point of the blue,
+winding river.
+
+'I will shoot you in spite of the curse if you won't consent to be
+mine,' cried the bewitched young man.
+
+'I will never consent,' said she.
+
+'Then I will shoot you now,' he said, and Tristram Bird lifted his gun
+and fired, and the ball entered the poor young maiden's soft pink side.
+
+She put her hand to her side to cover the gaping wound the shot
+had made, and as she did so she pulled herself out of the water,
+and where the feet should have been was the glittering tail of a fish!
+
+'I have shot a poor young Mermaid,' Tristram cried, 'and woe is
+me!' and he shivered like one when somebody is passing over his grave.
+
+'Yes, you have shot a poor Mermaid,' said the maid of the sea,
+'and I am dying, and with my dying breath I curse this safe harbour,
+which was large enough to hold all the fighting ships of the Spanish
+Armada and your own, and it shall be cursed with a bar of sand which
+shall be a bar of doom to many a stately ship and many a noble life,
+and it shall stretch from the Mermaid's Glass to Trebetherick Bay on
+the opposite shore, and prevent this haven of deep water from ever
+again becoming a floating harbour save at full tide. The Mermaid's
+wraith will haunt the bar of doom her dying curse shall bring until
+your wicked deed has been fully avenged;' and looking round the great
+bay of shining waters, laughing and rippling in the eye of the sun,
+she raised her arms and cursed the harbour of Padstow with a bitter
+curse, and Tristram shuddered as he listened, and as she cursed she
+uttered a wailing cry and fell back dead into the pool, and the water
+where she sank was dyed with her blood.
+
+'I have committed a wicked deed,' said Tristram Bird, gazing into
+the blood-stained pool, 'and verily I shall be punished for my sin;'
+and he turned away with the fear of coming doom in his heart.
+
+As he went up the cove and along the top of the cliffs the distressful,
+wailing cry of the Mermaid seemed to follow him, and the sky gloomed
+all around as he went, and the sea moaned a dreadful moan as it came
+up the bay.
+
+When he reached Tregirls, overlooking the Cove, he stood by the gate
+for a minute and gazed out over the beautiful harbour. The sea, which
+only half an hour ago was as blue as the eyes of the seamaid he had
+shot, and full of smiles and laughter, was now black as ash-buds,
+save where a golden streak lay across the water from Hawker's Cove
+to Trebetherick Bay.
+
+'The Mermaid's curse is already working,' moaned Tristram Bird, and
+he fled through the lane leading to Padstow as if a death-hound was
+after him.
+
+When he reached Place House he met a little crowd of Padstow maids
+going out flower-gathering.
+
+'Whither away so fast, Tristram Bird?' asked a little maid. 'You
+aren't driving a teem of snails this time, 'tis plain to see. Where
+hast thou been?'
+
+'Need you ask?' said a pert young girl. 'He has been away shooting
+something to startle the maids of Padstow with! What strange new
+creature did you shoot, Tristram Bird?'
+
+'A wonderful creature with eyes like blue fire,' returned the unhappy
+youth, looking away over St. Minver dunes towards the Tors--'a sweet,
+soft creature with beautiful hair, every wire of which was a sunbeam
+of gold, and her face was the loveliest I ever beheld. It clean
+bewitched me.'
+
+'A beautiful maid like that, and yet you shot her?' cried all the
+young maids of Padstow Town.
+
+'Yes, I shot her, to my undoing and the undoing of our fair haven,'
+groaned Tristram Bird; and he told them all about it--where he had
+seen the beautiful Mermaid, of his bewitchment from the moment he saw
+her face of haunting charm looking up at him from the Mermaid's Glass,
+and of the curse she uttered ere she fell back dead into the pool.
+
+All the smiles went out of the bright faces of the Padstow maids,
+as he told his tale.
+
+'What a pity, Tristram Bird, you should have been so foolish as to
+shoot a Mermaid!' they said; and they did not go and pick flowers as
+they had intended, but went back to their homes instead, and Tristram
+Bird went on to Higher St. Saviour's, where he lived in a little
+house overlooking Padstow Town nestling like a bird in its nest.
+
+A fearful gale blew on the night of the day Tristram Bird shot
+the Mermaid, and all the next day, too, and the next night; and
+through the awful howling of the gale was heard the bellowing of the
+wind-tormented sea.
+
+Such a terrible storm had never been known at Padstow Town within the
+memory of man, so the old Granfer men said, and never a gale lasted
+so long.
+
+When the wind went down the natives of Padstow ventured out to see what
+the gale had wrought, and sad was the havoc it had made; and some went
+out to Chapel Stile, where a small chapel stood overlooking the haven,
+and what should meet their horrified gaze but a terrible bar of sand
+which the Mermaid's curse had brought there; and it stretched from
+Hawker's Cove to the opposite shore, and what was worse, the great
+sand-bar was covered with wrecks of ships and bodies of drowned men.
+
+'It is the bar of doom brought there by the fearful curse of the
+maid of the sea whom I shot with my brand-new gun,' cried Tristram
+Bird, who was one of the first to reach the stile when the wind had
+gone down; and he told them all, as he had told the Padstow maids,
+of what the Mermaid had said before and after he had shot her. 'And
+because of the wicked deed I did,' he said, 'I have brought a curse
+on my native town, and Padstow will never be blessed with a safe and
+beautiful harbour till the poor Mermaid's death be avenged.'
+
+There was a dreadful silence after Tristram Bird had spoken, and the
+men and women of Padstow Town gazed at each other, troubled and sad,
+knowing that what the youth, who had been bewitched by the Mermaid's
+face, had said was true, for there below them was the great bar of
+sand dividing the outer harbour from the inner, and on it lay the masts
+and spars of broken ships and the lifeless bodies of the drowned. The
+wind was quiet, but the sea was still breaking and roaring on the
+back of the Doombar, and as the waves thundered and broke, a wailing
+cry sounded forth, like the wail that Tristram heard when the Mermaid
+disappeared under the water; it sounded like the distressful cry of
+a woman bewailing her dead, and all who heard shivered and shook,
+and both old and young looked down on the Doombar with dread in their
+eyes, but they saw nothing but the dead bodies of the sailors and
+their broken ships.
+
+'It is the Mermaid's wraith,' cried an old Granfer man, leaning
+against the grey walls of the ancient chapel, 'and she is wailing the
+wail of the drowned; and, mark my words, everyone,' letting his eyes
+wander from one face to another, 'each time a ship is caught on this
+dreadful bar and lives are lost--as lost they will be--the Mermaid's
+wraith will bewail the drowned.'
+
+
+
+And it came to pass as the old man said, and whenever vessels are
+wrecked on that fateful bar of sand lying across the mouth of Padstow
+Harbour and men are drowned, it is told that the Mermaid's distressful
+cry is still heard bewailing the poor dead sailors.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE CAKE-BIRD
+
+
+On the Tregoss Moors, where in the long-ago King Arthur and his Noble
+Knights went a-hunting, was a quaint old thatched cottage built of
+moorstone, and in it lived an old woman called Tamsin Tredinnick and
+her little grand-daughter Phillida; it stood between Castle-an-Dinas--a
+great camp-crowned hill--and the far-famed Roche Rocks.
+
+It possessed only one room, which, fortunately, was fairly large, for
+it had to contain most of old Tamsin's possessions, including a low
+wooden bedstead, an old oak dresser, a hutch for the grail--a coarse
+flour of which she made bread for herself and little Phillida--and
+her spinning-wheel.
+
+At the side of the cottage was a small linhey, or outhouse, the door
+of which the old woman always kept open in inclement weather that the
+wild creatures of the moors might take shelter from the cold and from
+the storms that swept over the great exposed moorland spaces.
+
+Tamsin was very poor, and could only earn enough to pay the rent of her
+cottage and to keep herself and little grandchild, who was an orphan,
+in grail-bread and coarse clothes. This she did by spinning wool,
+which she sold to a wool-merchant at St. Columb, a small market-town
+some miles away. She was advanced in years, and getting more unfit
+to spin every year, she told herself; and the less wool she spun
+the less money she had to spend on food and clothes for herself
+and Phillida. But, poor as she was, she was honest and good, and so
+was her little orphaned grandchild. They seldom complained, and when
+things were at their worst, and there was no grail left to make bread,
+or money to buy any, they told each other they had what bettermost
+people had not--wide moors to look out upon, and pure moorland air,
+fragrant with moor-flowers, to breathe into their lungs, little birds
+to sing to them most of the year, and dear little Piskeys to laugh
+outside their window in the dusk when they were very wisht. [10]
+
+Tamsin was a child of Nature, and she loved the big, lonely moors,
+gorgeous with broom and gorse in the spring-time and fading bracken
+in the autumn months, with all her simple heart, and so did little
+Phillida. They loved all the moor-flowers--even the duller blossoms
+of the mint and nettle tribes--that made those great, lonely spaces
+so wonderful and so full of charm. There was not a flower that broke
+into beautiful life on the moors but had a place in their hearts. They
+were their near and dear relations, they said, and as for the birds
+and other creatures that lived on the moorland, they were to them, as
+to St. Francis, their brothers and sisters, and even the Piskeys--the
+Cornish fairies--had a warm place in their affections.
+
+Not a great way from Tamsin's cottage was a large Piskey Circle where
+the Tregoss Piskeys danced when the nights were fine and the moon
+was up, and often when they danced the old grandmother and her little
+grandmaid would come out on the step of their door and watch them.
+
+They could see the Piskey Circle quite distinctly from the doorstep,
+and the Piskey-lights which the Piskeys held in their hands when
+they danced. But they never saw the Piskeys, for the Dinky Men, as
+Phillida called them, were very shy, and did not often let themselves
+be seen by human eyes. The old woman and the child never ventured
+near their Circle when the Small People were having their high flings,
+partly from a feeling of delicacy, and partly for fear of driving them
+away. The Dinky Men were as touchy as nesting-birds, Tamsin declared,
+and said that if either she or Phillida spied upon them when they
+were having their frolics they would, perhaps, forsake Tregoss Moor,
+which would have been a great misfortune. It was lucky, she said, to
+have the Small People living near a house. So she and her grandchild
+were content to watch them dancing from a respectable distance.
+
+The place where the Piskeys made their Circle was very smooth and
+soft with grass, and the Circle lay upon the close, thick turf like
+a red-gold ring. Behind the Circle was a small granite boulder, and
+above the boulder a big furze-bush, which burnt like a fire when the
+furze was in bloom, and there little yellow-hammers sang their little
+songs year in and year out.
+
+The Tregoss Moor Piskeys were quite nice for Piskeys, and took a
+great interest in Phillida and her old grandmother. They never tried
+to Piskey-lead them into the bogs and stream-works, of which there
+were many on the moors, nor set up Piskey-lights to slock [11] them
+into the Piskey Circle, which, we must confess, they did to their
+betters when they had the chance. They were ever so sorry when they
+knew the grail-hutch was getting empty, which somehow they always did,
+and that Grannie Tredinnick, as they called her, because Phillida did,
+had no money to buy grail to fill it; and they hastened to the cottage
+and peeped through the window and keyhole to see if they were looking
+wisht, and if they were they would begin to laugh in order to cheer
+them up and make them forget how hungry and sad they were.
+
+A Piskey's laugh is a gay little laugh, and as unfettered as the song
+of a lark, and anybody hearing it is bound to feel happy and gay,
+no matter how wisht he happens to be before. Perhaps that is the
+reason the old saying 'laughing like a Piskey' is so often quoted in
+the Cornish land.
+
+Old Tamsin and little Phillida always felt better when the Dinky Men
+came and laughed outside their door. Their laugh acted like a charm
+on the old woman, and often after the Piskeys came and laughed she
+laughed too, because she could not help it, and she would forget her
+aches and her pains, and would go to the spinning-wheel and try to
+spin. She generally found she could, and soon spun enough wool to
+buy grail to fill the grail-hutch.
+
+Tamsin suffered from rheumatism, and when the weather was very wet
+and raw on the moors her hands and feet were crippled with pain; she
+could not spin at all, and not even the Piskeys' gay little laughs
+could charm the pain out of them.
+
+One autumn and the beginning of the following winter were unusually
+wet, and the old woman's rheumatism was very bad, and, what was worse
+still, the Dinky Men went away from the moors. Where they had gone
+she did not know, and fervently hoped that she and Phillida had not
+offended them in any way.
+
+The hum of the spinning-wheel was silent as the grave, the grail-hutch
+was empty, and they had had to feed on berries like the birds. When
+things were at their worst the clouds left off raining, the weather
+brightened, the sun shone out, and the little brown Piskeys came back
+to the moors. Finding out how matters were in the little moorland
+cottage, they came outside the door and laughed their gay little laugh
+once more. They laughed so much and so funnily that Grannie Tredinnick,
+weak as she was, couldn't help laughing to save her life; and when
+they saw her rise up from her chair and go over to the spinning-wheel
+and make the wheel whirl, they were delighted and laughed again.
+
+The weather not only changed for the better, but warm soft days came,
+and the yellow-hammers and the black and white stone-chats must have
+thought summer had come again, and they sang their bright little
+songs, and the larks went up singing into the blue of the winter
+sky. Tamsin felt better than she had been for months, and became so
+well and cheerful, what with the brighter weather, the music of the
+birds, and the free laughter of the Dinky Men, that she was able to
+spin from morning shine till evening dark, and very soon she had spun
+all the wool she had. She sent it in a farmer's cart to St. Columb,
+and the farmer's man who took it for her brought back a great big bag
+of flour and some more wool to spin. But when that was all paid for,
+and the rent money put aside, all her earnings were gone, which made
+the good old woman very sad, for she wanted to make a little Christmas
+cake for Phillida.
+
+Christmas was on its way, and Phillida, like most children, looked
+forward to it; why, she could hardly have told, except that it was
+the Great Festival of the Nativity, and that Grannie always told
+her of the nice Christmasses she had had when she was a croom [12]
+of a cheeld, and that her mother always made her a Christmas cake,
+with a little bird on top, to remind her of the Great White Birds
+which sang when the Babe was born.
+
+When Christmas drew near Phillida could think and talk of nothing
+else but the beautiful Christmasses Grannie had had when she was a
+little maid, and of the Christmas cake with the little bird on top her
+mother had made for her. A few days before Christmas, as she and her
+grandmother were sitting down to their dinner of grail-bread, she said:
+
+'Christmas Eve will soon be here now, Grannie. Do you think you can
+make me a little Christmas cake with a little cake-bird on top like
+those you had? Ever such a dinky cake and ever such a dinky bird will
+do, Grannie,' she added, as the old woman shook her head, 'just to see
+what a Christmas cake tastes like and the little cake-bird looks like.'
+
+'I would gladly make 'ee a cake and a little bird,' said Tamsin,
+'if only I was rich; but I am afraid I can't afford to make 'ee even
+a dinky one. You can't buy sugar and spice and other things to make
+a cake without money, and I ent a got no money, not even a farthing.'
+
+'Haven't you?' cried little Phillida, her sweet child eyes full of
+tears. 'I am so disappointed, Grannie; I did so hope you could afford
+just a dinky cake.'
+
+'I had hoped so, too, cheeld,' said the kind old woman. 'Never mind,
+I'll ask the Piskeys to come in and order you a little dream-cake an'
+a little dream-bird.'
+
+'What is a little dream-cake, Grannie, and a little dream-bird?' asked
+the child.
+
+'The Piskeys used to come in through the keyhole to pass over the
+bridges of children's noses, when I was a little maid like you,
+to order their dreams. It would be ever so nice if they passed over
+the bridge of your nose and ordered you a little dream-cake and a
+little dream-bird.'
+
+'But you can't eat cakes in your dreams,' said little Phillida,
+'and you can't hold little dream-birds in your hands.'
+
+'Can't you?' cried Grannie. 'That's all you know about it. I will
+ask the Dinky Men to come through our keyhole to order your dreams
+the very next time they are outside our cottage.'
+
+'They are outside now,' said Phillida. 'I hear them laughing. Listen,
+Grannie!' And the old woman listened, and she knew that the child
+was right, and that the Piskeys were outside their window, for she
+too heard their laughter.
+
+'The Dinky Men be there right enough,' said Tamsin, 'an' they are
+tickled about something, by the way they are laughing.'
+
+'P'raps they heard what you said about asking them to come in and
+order me a little dream-cake and a little dream-bird,' suggested the
+little maid.
+
+'I shouldn't wonder,' laughed Grannie; 'an' I'm sure they'll
+be willing. I'll ask them now;' and getting up from her wooden
+arm-chair, she went to the door and called softly: 'Little Piskeys,
+are you there?'
+
+But the Piskeys made no response to the old woman's question save by
+a gay little laugh.
+
+'If you be there, an' can hear me,' said Tamsin, 'I want 'ee to be so
+good as to come through my keyhole on the evening of Christmas Eve
+an' pass over the bridge of Phillida's nose, an' order her a little
+dream-cake with a little dream-bird on top. I shall be so obliged to
+'ee if you will, for I am too poor to make the cheeld a real cake an'
+a little cake-bird.'
+
+When the old woman had said all this, such a burst of laughter broke
+on the winter air outside the cottage that Phillida rushed to the
+door and looked out.
+
+She could not see the Dinky Men, but their laughter was more than
+enough to tell her that they were there, and Grannie said she was
+sure they had heard what she asked, and would do it gladly.
+
+As they stood on their doorstep they heard the sound of tiny tripping
+feet going away from the cottage in the direction of the Piskey
+Circle; and as they followed the sound they noticed how bright the
+Circle was on the soft green turf.
+
+It was a perfect day--one of those very rare days we are privileged
+to have once or twice in December month--and the moors were full
+of charm. The many pools on it were full of light, the boulder near
+the Piskey Circle was diamond bright in the sunshine,  and above it
+the furze was already breaking into golden blossom. The purple had
+'pulsed' out of the heath and the pink from the ling, but each little
+sprig was a marvel of brown, and showed up the silver lichen that
+splashed the brown. The bracken was brilliant in warm tones of orange
+and gold, the brambles were every shade of crimson and red, and the
+haze on the moors was like the bloom of the hurts, [13] which still
+supplied food for the birds on the hills. In the direction of Roche,
+where the great Roche Rocks stand in lonely solitude, six hundred and
+eighty feet above the level of the sea, with the ruins of the little
+chapel dedicated to holy St. Michael on their summit, a lark went up
+singing into the blue, for larks, as most observers of nature know,
+are seldom out of song. The yellow-hammers were as bright as the
+brightly-coloured bracken, and sang their cheerful little lays from
+bramble and bush, and the streams rippled over the moors.
+
+The old grandmother and her little grandmaid stood on the doorstep
+taking in the quiet beauty of the moors. They even went out on to
+the moor, and turned their gaze towards the Roche Rocks to see if
+they could see the little sky-bird. After listening ten minutes or
+longer to the lark and other birds, and to the Piskeys laughing,
+they returned to the cottage.
+
+Fine weather seldom lasts long in winter-time, and when Christmas
+Eve came it was bitterly cold. A bitter wind blew over the moors
+from the north, which brought snow in its wake, and Phillida said
+the Old Woman was up in the sky picking her goose and throwing down
+the feathers as fast as she could throw them.
+
+The child, who was healthy and strong, did not mind the cold, and she
+liked watching the feathers of the great Sky Goose whirling down on
+the hills and moors; but she was somewhat afraid the Dinky Men would
+not come over the snow to order her dreams. But her grandmother told
+her that she was certain the Small People no more minded the cold
+than she did, and would be sure to come in through the keyhole when
+they were in bed and asleep.
+
+If Phillida did not mind the severe weather, Tamsin did. She could
+hardly keep herself warm in spite of a great fire that blazed on the
+hearthstone. Whatever else she and the child lacked, they always had
+a good fire to sit by, for the moors supplied them with furze and
+other firewood.
+
+As it grew towards evening the old grandmother told her little
+grandchild about Christmas, as was her wont whenever Christmas Eve came
+round, and why they were told to keep it as a hallowed time. She also
+told her of the Christmas cakes taken hot out of the oven on Christmas
+Eve, and Christmas birds on top of them, which had made her Christmas
+so bright in those far-away years when she was young like Phillida.
+
+Grannie's tales of the long ago were of absorbing interest to the
+child, who almost forgot that the Dinky Men were coming to order her
+dreams that night.
+
+When the day had gone, and night had come, Tamsin banked up the fire
+on the hearthstone, and then she and Phillida went to bed. The old
+woman knew that the Piskeys would not come in through the keyhole
+until they were in bed and asleep.
+
+The child and the old grandmother slept in the same bed, the latter
+at the head and Phillida at the foot. The head of the bed was against
+the wall by the side of the hearthplace, and Tamsin as she lay was in
+deep shadow, and only her white nightcap could be seen; but Phillida's
+charming little face was towards the hearth, and the fireshine fell
+full upon it.
+
+The child had a fair, smooth skin and clear-cut features, and her
+nose had a beautiful bridge! Her hair was thick and wavy, and of a
+deep red gold--only a little redder than the Piskey Circle--and her
+eyes, when they were open, were the soft sweet blue of the Cornish
+Tors when the skies were grey.
+
+The red peat and furze fire, like a Master of Magic, made the interior
+of the poor little moorland cottage look quite beautiful. The rough
+walls that went up to the brown of the thatch, where they caught the
+fireshine, glowed like the Small People's lanterns; the old dresser,
+which stood by the wall facing the hearth, looked as if it were painted
+in fairy colours, and the china on it glittered like the boulder
+near the Piskey Circle; and even the grail-hutch,  a unique piece of
+furniture often seen in Cornish cottages, was turned into a thing of
+beauty. It was painted orange colour, and its little knobs were black,
+to which the shine of the fire gave depths and tones and undertones.
+
+By the side of the bed where Phillida slept was a fiddle-back chair,
+and on its seat lay her little blue weekaday frock, that added to
+the quaint and beautiful picture. Only a small part of the cottage
+was in shadow, and this intensified the brightness of the room where
+the firelight held sway.
+
+The cottage was looking its brightest, and was as warm as a zam [14]
+oven, when a gay little laugh came through the keyhole, and a merry
+little face peeped into the room. In another minute a Dinky Man came
+out of the keyhole and sat on the wooden latch of the door and gazed
+curiously about him.
+
+He was ever so dinky, but as cheerful-looking as a robin, in his
+bright red cloak and his quaint steeple hat; the face under the hat
+was almost as brown as an apple-pip, and only a shade or two lighter
+than his whiskers and beard, and his queer little eyes were full of
+laughter and fun.
+
+'Are the little maid and her grannie asleep?' called a voice through
+the keyhole as the Dinky Man sat on the latch surveying the room.
+
+'I think so,' he answered. 'They are still as mice when Madam Puss
+is close to their hole. You are safe to come in.'
+
+'Then in we'll come,' cried the little voice; and in the twinkling of
+an eye a tiny little fellow dressed in green came through the keyhole
+and pushed off the Dinky Man sitting on the latch, who fell on his
+head on old Tamsin's lime-ash floor.
+
+Scores of little whiskered Piskeys--some in steeple hats and red
+flowing cloaks, some in green coats and red caps--came through the
+keyhole, and when they had swung themselves down by the durn [15]
+of the door, they looked towards the bed.
+
+'I'll get up on the bed and see if the little maid is really
+asleep,' said one of the Piskeys; and he climbed up to the top of
+the fiddle-back chair close to the bed and looked down on the child.
+
+'Is she asleep?' asked the other little Piskeys eagerly.
+
+'As sound asleep as a seven-sleeper,' [16] answered the Dinky Man,
+'and so is Grannie Tredinnick,' sending his glance to the head of the
+bed. 'Get up on to the bed as soon as you like, to order the little
+maid's dreams--the sooner the better. We are powerless to do harm
+after twelve o'clock, being the night of the Birth.'
+
+'But we have come to do good, not to do harm,' cried the Piskeys one
+and all, 'and we will begin at once.'
+
+They scrambled up the legs and back of the old fiddle-back chair,
+and were on the bed in a quick-stick, and took their places near the
+sleeping child. Some sat all in a row on the edge of the patchwork
+quilt; some sat, or stood, on the pillow behind the child's bright
+little head; others were low down on the pillow; and one winking,
+blinking little Piskey perched himself on her arm and sat cross-legged
+like a tailor.
+
+'I will be the first to order the little maid's dream,' said one of the
+Piskeys sitting on the edge of the quilt, and scrambling up, he stepped
+on to Phillida's nose as light as the feathers which the old Sky Woman
+had flung down on the moors, and as he walked over the bridge he said:
+
+'Dream, little maid--dream that you are wide awake, and that you and
+Grannie Tredinnick are sitting at a table covered with a cloth as
+white as Piskey-wool, [17] and that in the middle of the table is a
+lovely cake made
+
+
+                  '"Of the finest of flour
+                    And fairy cow's cream--
+                    As sweet as your dream--
+                    And Small People's spice,
+                    And everything nice,
+                    Kneaded and mixed,
+                    And done in a trix
+                    In a little dream-bower,"
+
+
+and on the top of the cake is a dinky bird with wings spread out all
+ready to fly.'
+
+Phillida dreamt as she was ordered, and in her dream she saw the
+cake, and that it was a beautiful cake, and the little cake-bird was
+a sweet little bird!
+
+'What a handsome cake!' she cried out aloud in her sleep; 'and the
+little cake-bird is a dear little bird, and it looks as if it can fly
+and sing:' and she laughed so heartily that the Piskeys laughed too,
+and one of the Dinky Men turned head over heels on the patchwork
+quilt out of sheer delight that the child was so pleased with her
+beautiful dream-cake and the little dream-bird.
+
+'Dream that Grannie Tredinnick is as pleased with the cake and the
+cake-bird as you are,' said another little Piskey, stepping on to the
+bridge of Phillida's nose, 'and that she thinks it is even better than
+the cakes which were made for her when she was a croom of a cheeld,
+and the little cake-bird is more like a real bird than those that
+were on top of her Christmas cakes.'
+
+The child dreamt as the Piskey ordered, and much beside that the
+Dinky Man never thought of ordering. In her dream she not only
+heard her grandmother say what a beautiful cake it was, and that
+the little cake-bird looked like a real bird, but that she said:
+'We must cut and eat the cake, but spare the little cake-bird.' In
+her sleep she saw the old woman, dressed in her Sunday gown and cap,
+lean over the small oak table and cut her such a big slice of the
+cake that she cried out in amazed delight:
+
+'What a great big piece you have given me, Grannie!' and her laugh
+was as happy and gay as a Piskey's laugh. 'But I must not eat all this
+myself; I must crumble some of it for the little moor-birds, and put
+a piece out on the doorstep for the Dinky Men. It isn't a dream-cake,
+Grannie, but a Christmas cake, and it has a little Christmas bird
+on top!'
+
+The Piskeys looked at one another with a peculiar expression in
+their round little eyes when the child spoke of putting a bit of her
+Christmas cake on the step of the door for them, and one said, 'Dear
+little maid!' and another said 'Pretty child!' and one little fellow,
+with a beard reaching to his feet, cried, 'How kind of her to want us
+poor little Piskeys to have part in the Christmas joy!' One little
+Dinky Man whispered: 'Perhaps it is not true what the old whiddle
+[18] says, after all--that we are not good enough for heaven nor bad
+enough for hell. The child does not think so, evidently, or she would
+not be so anxious for us to share her little Christmas cake.'
+
+The Piskey who sat cross-legged on Phillida's arm uncrossed his lean
+little legs, rose up and stepped on to her nose, and as he walked
+over its bridge he said ever so tenderly:
+
+'Dream, sweet little Phillida--dream that you shared your cake with
+the dicky-birds, and put a piece of it on the doorstep for the Dinky
+Men, which they will treasure as long as there are any Dinky Men.'
+
+The child dreamt as she was ordered, and when she had put a bit of
+the cake on the doorstep for the Piskeys, she saw in her dream a
+crowd of Dinky Men in quaint little green coats, and caps as red as
+bryony berries, and tiny fellows in red cloaks and green hats, come
+and take up the cake with solemn faces and bent heads, and carry it
+away over the moors towards the Piskey Circle. When they had gone,
+she stood on the doorstep looking out over the moors, white with
+the feathers the old Sky Woman had thrown down; then she lifted her
+sweet little face to the sky, and saw that it was free from clouds
+and full of stars, which, she thought, were chiming the wonderful
+news of the Nativity. She was so happy listening to the music of the
+Christmas stars that she forgot she had not tasted her cake till a
+little Piskey sprang on to her nose to turn her dream.
+
+'Dream that you are come over to the table and eating your cake,'
+he said, slowly passing over the bridge of her nose.
+
+'How can I dream that when I am out here on the doorstep listening to
+the ringing of the star-bells?' murmured the child in her sleep. 'I
+wonder if the Dinky Men like listening to the star-bells' music? They
+are ringing up there in the dark because the Babe was born and laid
+in the cratch.'
+
+'We shall never get her to dream our dreams if we let her stay there on
+the doorstep,' cried the Piskeys, looking strangely at one another. 'We
+never had such trouble to make a cheeld dream our dreams before.'
+
+'Dream your poor old Grannie feels the cold from the open door,' said
+a Dinky Man, jumping on to Phillida's nose with all his weight, which
+caused her to jerk her head in her sleep, and made the Dinky Man lose
+his balance, and over he toppled on the heads of his tiny companions
+sitting at the bottom of the pillow near the child's soft white neck,
+much to the amusement of the other Piskeys and his own. They laughed
+so much, including the wee fellow who was heavy-heeled, that he could
+not order the dream, and a Piskey, when he could stop laughing for a
+minute, jumped up and stepped on to Phillida's nose, and as he passed
+over its bridge he said:
+
+'Dream that you shut the door on the cold and the Sky Goose's feathers,
+and come back to the table.' And Phillida reluctantly dreamt as the
+Dinky Man ordered, and in her dream she saw herself sitting at the
+table facing her grandmother, who was munching a bit of the cake and
+smacking her withered old lips.
+
+'This is a lovely cake, cheeld-vean. [19] We must eat every crumb of
+it, for we shall never have such another.'
+
+Phillida was glad her Grannie liked the cake, and she began to eat
+the generous slice the old woman had given her, and as she ate it she
+thought it was so delicious that she must go on eating cake for ever
+and ever. 'I shan't want to eat grail-bread after this,' she said,
+laughing out loud in her sleep. 'I shall always eat cake made
+
+
+                  '"Of fairy cow's cream
+                    And every good thing."'
+
+
+She was enjoying her dream-cake so very very much in her sleep that
+the Dinky Men would have liked her to go on eating it; but the quick
+ticking of Tamsin's clock told them that time was flying, and they
+had not yet finished ordering her dreams.
+
+'Dream, little Phillida--dream that you and Grannie Tredinnick
+have eaten all the cake, and there is nothing left but the little
+cake-bird,' said one of the Dinky Men passing over the bridge of her
+nose; 'and that Grannie says the little cake-bird is yours.'
+
+Phillida dreamt all that, and in her dream her grandmother said, in
+her kind old voice: 'The little bird on the top of the cake belongs
+to the cheeld of the house, and Phillida is the only cheeld in my
+little house. Take the cake-bird, Phillida, my dear;' and Phillida
+took it and held it in her little warm hand.
+
+As she was holding it thus a Piskey stepped lightly as a ladybird on
+to her nose, and as he passed over its bridge he said:
+
+'Dream, Phillida, dream that your little cake-bird is alive and wants
+to fly and sing;' and the child dreamt that the little cake-bird was
+alive, and was fluttering in her little warm hand, and then it flew
+out of her hand up to the thatch, and began to sing a wonderful song.
+
+'What is my little cake-bird singing?' asked Phillida in her sleep.
+
+'It is singing it is a fairy-bird,' said a Dinky Man, passing over
+the bridge of her nose, 'and that it is going to sing with other
+little fairy-birds in the Dinky People's land.'
+
+'I don't think my little cake-bird is singing it is a fairy-bird
+and going to sing in the Dinky People's country,' said the child in
+her sleep. 'Its song is much too happy and beautiful for that. What
+is it singing? Please tell me. I do want to know. Can't you tell
+me?' she asked as the Piskeys looked at one another. 'Ah! I know now
+what its song is about. My little cake-bird is singing a little song
+because it is a little Christmas bird, and was on top of a Christmas
+cake! Isn't it a lovely song? It has changed its tune now, and it
+is singing a golden song about the Babe who was born on Christmas
+Day in the morning. I am a little Christian cheeld and know! Listen,
+listen!' she cried, clasping her hands and lifting her sweet child-face
+to the thatch. 'Isn't it wonderful? It thinks it is a little golden
+bird, and one day will sing with the Great White Angel Birds Grannie
+told me about.'
+
+'Somebody far greater than we little Piskeys is ordering Phillida's
+dreams,' said the Dinky Men one to another, 'which are much more
+beautiful than we can order.'
+
+Just then old Tamsin's clock struck the midnight hour, and the Piskeys
+got off the bed, went across the room, climbed up the durn of the door
+and out through the keyhole on to the moors, and in a little while
+they were hastening over the snow-covered turf to the Piskey Circle,
+which was a big round door to the Dinky People's land under the moors.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE IMPOUNDED CROWS
+
+
+A small boy called Jim Nancarrow was sitting one day eating a pasty
+on top of the Crow Pound, a large enclosure built on a common by the
+far-famed St. Neot to impound the pilfering crows of the parish that
+bears his name.
+
+Jim was the son of a thatcher, and he was waiting to accompany his
+father to a distant hamlet to help him to thatch a cottage. He looked
+a nice little lad in his clean white smock and nankeen breeches and
+soft felt hat--much the worse for wear--shading his bright young face
+and clear blue eyes.
+
+As he was waiting for his father and eating his pasty, which his mother
+had given him for his dinner, he saw a crow flying over Goonzion Downs,
+of which the Crow Pound common was a part.
+
+As he watched it he thought of the pilfering crows which, according
+to the old tale, little St. Neot impounded there from morning till
+evening on Sundays, that his people might go to church undisturbed
+by fear of the great black thievish birds which ate up the corn sown
+in their fields. Jim had often heard this story from the old people
+of the parish, and whenever he saw a crow he wondered if it were a
+relation of the wicked crows their patron Saint had impounded.
+
+The crow that the boy was watching was flying in the direction of the
+Crow Pound, and when it came near it alighted on the top of the wall
+quite close to the lad.
+
+The crow was lean to look at, and scanty of feathers, and such a
+sorry-looking bird that Jim broke off a piece of his pasty and threw
+to him, which he ate as if he were starving.
+
+'One would think you were one of the pilfering crows of St. Neot's
+time,' said Jim, tossing him another piece of his pasty; and to his
+surprise, the bird answered back:
+
+'I am!'
+
+'Are you?' cried Jim, staring hard at the crow. 'Well, you look ancient
+enough to be one of those birds, though I have always understood that
+our patron Saint lived ever so long ago, when Alfred the Great was
+a little chap like me. But p'r'aps crows tell lies as well as pilfer.'
+
+'If I am not one of the identical crows St. Neot was unkind enough
+to put into this pound,' croaked the big black bird, eyeing Jim and
+his pasty with his bright little eye, 'I am a descendant of theirs
+in the direct line. I truly am,' as the lad stared as if he did not
+believe the assertion. 'Those poor impounded crows learnt the language
+of men during the long hours of their imprisonment, listening to all
+the little Saint and his people said about them outside  this pound,
+and they passed on their dearly-bought knowledge to their children
+through long generations.'
+
+'Then you are quite "high learnt," as the old Granfer men say,'
+cried Jim, gazing up at the bird in open-eyed amazement.
+
+'I confess I am,' returned the crow with due modesty, 'especially in
+the old Cornish tongue, in which I can swear to any extent. I am not
+going to use bad language now,' as Jim took up a stone to throw at
+him. 'You would not understand it if I did. I am also "high learnt"
+in the needs of the body, and I shall be ever so grateful for a bit
+more of your pasty. It isn't nice to have an aching void inside one's
+little feather stumjacket.'
+
+'I suppose it can't be,' said the lad, dropping the stone and breaking
+off a large piece of his pasty to toss to the bird.
+
+He was a feeling-hearted little fellow, and the crow's quaint appeal
+touched him, and the sorry-looking bird, with his bedraggled tail,
+had most of his pasty.
+
+'I have had a good meal for once in my life, and am full fed,' said
+the crow, when the last of the pasty was eaten; and he perched on a
+stone, starred with stonecrop, and fluffed out all the feathers he
+possessed, and looked with a comical expression at Jim.
+
+'I am better fed than little St. Neot after his poor little meal
+of fish,' he continued, still eyeing the boy, 'and I am feeling so
+comfortable that I am inclined for a chat.'
+
+'Are you?' cried Jim, who thought this great black crow was a wonderful
+crow, which he certainly was. 'I don't know what to yarn about.'
+
+'I do, then,' answered the bird quickly. 'I suppose you have heard
+the old whiddle [20] how the little St. Neot put the poor crows into
+this pound.'
+
+'Yes, I have heard about it from the Granfer men and Grannie women
+here at Churchtown,' said Jim, turning his face towards a little
+village close to the church which he could just see from where he
+was sitting. 'But they never made much of a story of it.'
+
+'Didn't they? Then perhaps you would like to hear the crows' version of
+the old tale,' said the crow. 'It will tell you that their morals were
+not so black as the farmers in this parish made out to the Holy Man.'
+
+'I don't mind, if you are quick about it,' said Jim. 'I am going
+to a farm with my father to help him do some thatching when he has
+finished his dinner.'
+
+'I cannot be driven after such a heavy meal of pasty,' croaked the
+crow; 'and if I may not take my time, I won't tell it at all.'
+
+'As you like,' cried Jim with fine indifference; but the bird was
+anxious to tell the whiddle, and he began:
+
+'We crows always considered it within our right to take what we could,'
+said the crow, 'and pilfering, as the farmers hereabouts were pleased
+to call it, was the only way the crows had of picking up a living,
+and they watched their opportunity to take what they needed to
+satisfy their hunger when the farmers were not about. But back in
+those far-away days when St. Neot dwelt here to try and make people
+good, times were dreadfully bad, especially for crows. The people
+were all tillers of the land in those days, and lived by the sweat
+of their brow, as crows did by pilfering. There was no other way
+open to them, and the farmers had their eyes on the land and on us
+poor hungry birds from dawn to dark, except on the Rest Day; and the
+only chance the crows had of filling their stomachs was on Sunday,
+when the people went to church.
+
+'The starving crows looked forward to Sunday as only poor starving
+birds with empty crops could, and the moment one of the elder crows
+gave the signal, which he did in the crow way, they all flew off to
+the corn-sown fields, and had a regular feast. My word! and didn't
+they feed! They picked out with their sharp beaks every grain of corn
+they could find.
+
+'When the farmers found out the hungry crows had eaten up all the
+corn they had sown, there was the Black Man to pay, and the poor
+crows were anathematized from one end of the parish to the other.
+
+'The farmers resowed their fields, but they took good care to watch
+and see that the crows did not rob them of their toil; and they were
+always about the corn-sown land, Sundays as well as week-days, and
+the crows had to go supperless to bed, and little St. Neot had to
+preach to bare walls.
+
+'The Saint was greatly distressed at his people's neglect of their
+religious duties, and he told them how wicked it was to stay away
+from church. The people said they were sorry, but declared it was
+the fault of the pilfering crows.
+
+'"The pilfering crows!" cried the Holy Man. "What have the crows to
+do with your stopping away from the House of God?"
+
+'"Everything," answered the farmers; and they told little St. Neot that
+whenever they sowed bread-corn in their fields the wicked crows came
+and ate it all up, and that if he could not prevent them from doing
+this wickedness, they must keep away from church and watch their
+fields. "We and our children must have bread to eat," they added,
+which was true enough--true for crows as well as men.
+
+'The Holy Man was very much grieved to hear the cause of their not
+coming to church, and he said he would devise some means to prevent
+the crows from robbing the fields whilst they were attending to
+their worship.
+
+'St. Neot was as good as his word, and it was noised about in the
+parish that he was building a great square enclosure of moorstone and
+mould about half a mile from the church; and when it was finished,
+he told his wondering people it was a pound for crows, which he meant
+to impound on Sundays from dawn till dusk, so that the farmers might
+come to church and worship without having their minds disturbed by
+fear of those black little robbers eating their corn.
+
+'There was a fearful to-do among the poor hungry crows when they
+learned what St. Neot had done; and although they knew they were
+within their right to steal when they were hungry--and they were
+always hungry, poor things!--they were sorry they ate up the corn
+the farmers had sown, and every crow looked forward to the coming
+Rest Day with fear and trembling.
+
+'Well, Sunday came, as Sundays will,' continued the crow, 'and before
+the sun had risen little St. Neot made known his will to the crows
+that they were to come to be impounded, and such power had the Saint
+over beast and bird that the crows had no choice save to obey, and
+long before St. Neot's bell rang out to call his people to worship
+in the little church which he had built for them by the aid of his
+two-deer team and one-hare team, all the crows in the parish came as
+they were bidden to be impounded in the Crow Pound.
+
+'And, my gracious! what a lot of them came! There were crows of all
+sorts and conditions, all ages and sizes! There were great-great-great
+Granfer and Grannie Crows! there were great-great Granfer and Grannie
+Crows! great Granfer and Grannie Crows by the score! Grannie Crows
+by the hundred! Mammie and Daddy Crows by the thousand! and as for
+the children, and great-great-grand-children, they could hardly be
+counted! Even poor little Baby Crows, just able to fly, were there!
+
+'The Crow Pound was chock-full of crows, and all the place was as
+black as St. Neot's gown. And as for the noise they made, it was
+enough to turn the Holy Man's brain; but it didn't.
+
+'The little Saint did not expect to see so many crows, it was certain,
+though he expected a goodly number, by the big enclosure he had made;
+and the old tale says that, when he saw so many birds, he exclaimed
+with uplifted hands, "My goodness! what a lot of crows!" and he
+looked round at this great assemblage--all in respectable black--in
+open-eyed amazement.
+
+'The people who came flocking to church when they heard that the crows
+were safe in the Crow Pound were almost as astonished as St. Neot to
+see such a big congregation of birds.
+
+'The church was too far away from the pound for the crows to hear the
+little Saint preaching, but when the wind blew up from Churchtown they
+could hear the singing, and to show you they were not so bad as the
+farmers made out to the Holy Man, they croaked as loud as ever they
+could when Mass was sung, and were as silent as the grave during the
+time St. Neot was preaching.
+
+'Every year, from sowing time till the corn was reaped and safe in
+the barn, the crows were impounded every Sunday from the early morning
+till evening whilst little St. Neot lived.'
+
+'Is that all?' asked Jim, who listened to the crow's version of the
+old tale till it was finished.
+
+'Yes,' answered the great black bird with a croak, and when he had
+said that he took to his wings and flew away as fast as he could fly
+over Goonzion Downs, the way he had come.
+
+'That wisht-looking crow did not tell the old whiddle half bad,'
+said Jim to himself, as he watched the bird fly away. 'Shouldn't
+I like to have seen this old pound full of crows! It must have
+been terribly funny when St. Neot looked in upon them and cried,
+"My goodness! what a lot of crows!" It must have been as good as a
+Christmas play. There, father is coming. That sharp-eyed old crow
+must have seen him climbing the hill.'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PISKEYS' REVENGE
+
+
+Once upon a time, so the old story begins, there were an old man and
+his wife called Granfer and Grannie Nankivell, who lived on a moor,
+and a small grand-daughter who lived with them.
+
+Genefer was the name of this little girl. She was a small brown
+child. Brown as a Piskey, her grandfather said; but, brown as she was,
+she was exceedingly pretty. Her lips were as red as the reddest of
+berries, and the glow on her cheeks matched her lips.
+
+Her grandfather was a turf-cutter, and most of his days had been
+spent cutting turf on the Cornish moors.
+
+When this old man was between sixty and seventy he cleared out a
+whole bog, which happened to be a Piskey-bed.
+
+The Piskeys never like their sleeping-places to be disturbed, and when
+they found out Granfer Nankivell had done it, they were very angry,
+and set up Piskey-lights to lead him astray when he came home. But
+they did it in vain as far as he was concerned. The old turf-cutter
+was very learned in Piskeys' wiles, and never ventured across the
+moors without wearing one of his garments inside out, and this made
+him Piskey-proof, which means that the Piskeys had no power to harm
+him or to lead him out of his way.
+
+But the sly Little People knew a thing or two as well as Granfer
+Nankivell, and when they found out that their Piskey-lights failed,
+they set their sharp little wits to work to do him harm in some
+other way.
+
+After much watching they discovered that the old turf-cutter had
+a weakness for sweet things, and that the greatest treat his wife
+could give him was sugar biscuits of her own making and a big plate of
+junket. They also found out that Grannie Nankivell, whenever she made
+these delicacies, put them overnight into her spence [21] for safety.
+
+They made up their minds that they would punish the old turf-cutter
+for taking away their nice soft green Piskey-bed by doing him out
+of his junket and biscuits, and they told some distant relations of
+theirs, the Fairy Moormen, to keep an eye upon the spence-window,
+and whenever they saw Grannie Nankivell bring a bowl of junket and a
+dish of biscuits into her spence, they must come with all speed and
+tell them.
+
+'We'll watch too,' they said; 'but in case we are away dancing or
+setting up Piskey-lights, you must watch for us,' which the Tiny
+Moormen were quite pleased to do.
+
+But the moor fairies watched in vain for many a week, and just as
+they were beginning to fear that Grannie Nankivell was never going
+to make any more biscuits and junket for her husband, she set to and
+made some, and when they were made she took them into the spence,
+as she always did.
+
+The spence opened out from the kitchen, and was quite a little room
+in itself, with a tiny window facing the moors. In front of the window
+was a stone bench, and near it a square oak table.
+
+The Tiny Moormen were peeping in at the window when the old woman
+put the bowl of junket on the table and the dish of sugar biscuits
+on the bench, and the moment her back was turned they tore off to
+the Piskeys with the news.
+
+'A big round basin full of lovely cool junket,' they cried, 'and a
+dish heaping full of round biscuits, yellow and white with eggs and
+sugar, with which they are made. I heard the old woman say that she
+had never made better, and all for Granfer Nankivell, 'cause 'tis
+his birthday to-morrow.'
+
+'Birthday or no birthday, Granfer Nankivell shan't taste one,' cried
+the little Piskeys. 'No fy, he shan't! He turned us out of our beds,
+and we'll do him out of his biscuits and junket, see if we won't!'
+
+'That's right!' said the Fairy Moormen, who were hand and glove with
+the Piskeys, 'only please save some for us.'
+
+They and the Piskeys hastened away to the turf-cutter's cottage,
+and when the turf-cutter and his wife had gone to bed, the Piskeys
+got into the spence and ate up the big bowl of junket, and passed
+out the biscuits to the Tiny Moormen.
+
+When Grannie Nankivell went to her spence the next day she found the
+junket-bowl empty and every biscuit gone.
+
+She said she could not imagine who had taken the things, but looked
+suspiciously at her little granddaughter Genefer.
+
+'The cat must have got into the spence and done me out of my birthday
+treat,' said the old turf-cutter. 'You must shut the spence-window
+the next time you put a junket in there.'
+
+'But the biscuits have gone as well as the junket,' said the old
+woman, still looking at little Genefer. 'Cats have no liking for
+sugar biscuits, that ever I heard tell of.'
+
+The next time Grannie Nankivell took biscuits and a junket into
+her spence she shut the window and also the door; but when she got
+up the following morning and went to see if they were safe, lo and
+behold! the junket-bowl was again empty and the biscuits were gone.
+
+''Tis a two-legged cat who has eaten up my beautiful biscuits and
+junket,' she said to her husband; and she turned and looked at
+little Genefer.
+
+'I am not the two-legged cat who ate up all the nice things you made
+for Granfer,' cried the child, meeting the old woman's glance with
+her honest brown eyes.
+
+'I never said you did,' said Grannie Nankivell; 'but 'tis queer the
+junket-bowl is empty and every biscuit gone from the dish.'
+
+'I expect it was a dog which got into the spence and licked up the
+junket and ate the biscuits,' put in the old turf-cutter. 'I would
+lock and bar the spence-door, if I were you, the next time I put such
+nice things in there.'
+
+'I will,' she said.
+
+The next time Grannie Nankivell made biscuits and a junket she barred
+the window of the spence and locked the door, and the next morning,
+before Genefer dressed, she went to see if her junket and biscuits were
+all right; but the little round biscuits, which she had so carefully
+made and sugared, were every one gone, and the junket-bowl was quite
+empty, and as dry as a bone.
+
+''Tis our little grandcheeld who has eaten it all!' cried Grannie
+Nankivell in great anger to the old turf-cutter. 'No cat or dog could
+get into a spence with door locked and window barred.'
+
+'I don't believe it was Genefer,' said the old man stoutly.
+
+'If it was not Genefer, who was it, pray? Biscuits and junkets don't
+eat up themselves, any more than dogs and cats can get through keyholes
+and barred windows.'
+
+'That's true,' said Granfer Nankivell; 'all the same, I am certain sure
+that our dear little grandcheeld would not go and eat up the things.'
+
+'Then who did?' asked the old woman with a snap.
+
+'The little Piskeys, I shouldn't wonder,' he answered. 'My
+great-grannie told me they were little greedy-guts, and in her
+days they used to skim the cream off the milk, and eat all the
+cheese-cakes she used to make, unless she put some for them outside
+on the doorstep. Regular little thieves the Piskeys were in her
+days. P'raps they haven't learnt to be honest yet. There are plenty
+about now, and Little Moormen too, by the teheeing and tehoing I have
+heard lately, waiting, I dare say, to play some of their pranks on me.'
+
+But Grannie Nankivell was still unconvinced, and still believed it
+was Genefer, and not the Piskeys, who ate her biscuits and junket.
+
+One evening the old woman put another bowl of junket and a dish of
+biscuits in the spence, and was as careful as before to bar the window
+and lock the door; and in the middle of the night, when her husband was
+fast asleep and snoring, she got up and came downstairs to see if she
+could find out for certain who it was that ate up her good things. When
+she came down, whom should she see but her little grand-daughter
+Genefer standing by the spence-door in her little bedgown.
+
+'I am fine and glad you have come, Grannie,' whispered the child,
+before the old woman could say anything. 'I believe it is the Piskeys
+who have eaten the junket and things you made for Granfer. I saw a
+dinky little fellow not much bigger than your thumb go in through
+the keyhole just now. They are having a fine time in there, anyhow,'
+as her grandmother looked at her oddly. 'If I were you, I would look
+through the keyhole and see what they are doing.'
+
+And through the keyhole the old woman looked, and saw, to her
+amazement, scores and scores of green-coated little men, whiskered
+like a man, on the oak table, standing round the junket-bowl ladling
+out the rich, thick junket with their tiny little hands, and half
+a dozen other little chaps were up in the window-sill passing out
+her delicious sugar biscuits to the Tiny Moormen, who were even more
+whiskered and bearded than their distant relations, the Piskeys.
+
+By their faces, they were all greatly enjoying themselves, and at
+the expense of Granfer Nankivell, the turf-cutter!
+
+Grannie Nankivell was so astonished that she lost her mouth-speech,
+[22] but when she found it her old voice shrilled through the keyhole:
+
+'Filling your little bellies with the junket and biskeys I made for
+my old man, be 'ee?' she cried. 'I'll wring the necks of every one
+of you--iss fy, I will!'
+
+The old woman spoke too soon to carry out her threat, for she had no
+sooner spoken than the Piskeys vanished, the Tiny Moormen as well,
+and where they went she never knew.
+
+But her husband told her the little rascals were still in the spence
+when she could not see them.
+
+'They have the power to make themselves visible or invisible, whichever
+is most convenient to them,' he said.
+
+'They have done you out of your biscuits and junket a good many times,
+anyhow,' cried the old woman.
+
+'Iss,' said Granfer Nankivell, 'they have; and as I did away with
+the Piskey-beds, we are quits. I only hope they will be of the same
+mind, and won't come any more and eat up those nice things you make
+for me. I am quite longing for a plateful of junket and one of your
+sweet biscuits.'
+
+Whether the Piskeys thought the old turf-cutter was sufficiently
+punished for clearing out their sleeping-places, or whether Grannie
+Nankivell's threat to wring their necks frightened them away, we
+cannot tell. At all events, they and the Tiny Moormen kept away
+from the cottage on the moor, and whenever the old woman made sugar
+biscuits and sweet junket, and put them in the spence, no two-legged
+cat, Moormen or Piskeys, ever ate up those specially-made dainties;
+and little Genefer's honesty was never again doubted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD SKY WOMAN
+
+
+When winter brought the cold north wind, and the snowflakes began to
+fall, the little North Cornwall children were always told that the
+Old Woman was up in the sky plucking her Goose.
+
+The children were very interested in the Old Sky Woman and her great
+White Goose, and they said, as they lifted their soft little faces to
+the grey of the cloud and watched the feathers of the big Sky Goose
+come whirling down, that she was a wonderful woman and her Goose a
+very big Goose.
+
+'I want to climb up to the sky to see the Old Woman plucking her
+Goose,' cried a tiny boy; and he asked his mother to show him the great
+Sky Stairs. But his mother could not, for she did not know where the
+Sky Stairs were; so the poor little boy could not go up to see the Old
+Sky Woman plucking the beautiful feathers out of her big White Goose.
+
+'Where does the Old Woman keep her great White Goose?' asked another
+child, with eyes and hair as dark as a raven's wing, as he watched
+the snow-white feathers come dancing down.
+
+'In the beautiful Sky Meadows behind the clouds,' his mother said.
+
+'What is the Old Sky Woman going to do with her great big Goose
+when she has picked her bare?' queried a little maid with sweet,
+anxious eyes.
+
+'Stuff it with onions and sage,' her Granfer said.
+
+'What will she do then with her great big Goose?' the little maid
+asked.
+
+'Hang it up on the great Sky Goose-jack and roast for her Christmas
+dinner,' her Granfer said.
+
+'Poor old Goose!' cried the little maid.
+
+'I don't believe the Old Sky Woman would be so unkind as to kill and
+pluck her great big Goose,' said a wise little maid with sunny hair
+and eyes as blue as the summer sea. 'Winter-time is the Sky Goose's
+moulting time, and the Old Sky Woman is sweeping out the Sky Goose's
+house with her great Sky Broom, and the White Goose's feathers are
+flying down to keep the dear little flowers nice and warm till the
+north wind has gone away from the Cornish Land.'
+
+'Perhaps that is so, dear little maid,' her Granfer said.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+REEFY, REEFY RUM
+
+
+A small girl called Nancy Parnell came down from Wadebridge to Padstow
+one St. Martin's summer to stay with her Grannie.
+
+The Grannie was old and weak in her legs, and could not take her
+granddaughter out to see the sights of the little old-world town,
+with its narrow streets and ancient houses, so the child had to go
+by herself.
+
+When she had seen all there was to be seen in the town, she went up
+to look at the church, of which she had heard from her mother, who
+was a Padstow woman, and the quaint little figures on the buttresses
+of the south wall.
+
+It was between the lights when she got there, but she could see the
+carved figures quite distinctly, which were a lion with its mouth wide
+open, a unicorn with a crown encircling its neck, and a young knight,
+standing between them, holding a shield; and when she had taken them
+all in she repeated a funny old rhyme which her mother told her she
+used to say when she was a little maid and lived at Padstow. The
+rhyme was as follows:
+
+
+                   'Reefy, reefy rum,
+                    Without teeth or tongue;
+                    If you'll have me,
+                    Now I am a-come.'
+
+
+The rhyme--a taunt and an invitation in one--was very rude, and so
+was the little girl who repeated it; but the lion, the unicorn,
+and the little knight did not take any notice of her, and looked
+straight before them as they had done ever since they were carved on
+the wall. But Nancy was somewhat afraid of the effect of the rhyme
+on those quaint little figures, especially on the open-mouthed lion,
+who had no sign of teeth or tongue; and she ran round the great
+square-turreted tower, and took refuge under the pentice roof of
+the gateway, and sat on the bench to see if they would leave their
+stations on the wall and come after her; but they did not.
+
+The little stone knight and the two animals had a strange fascination
+for the little Wadebridger, and the next evening again found her in
+the beautiful churchyard gazing up at them with her bright child-eyes,
+and as she gazed she repeated the same rude rhyme:
+
+
+                   'Reefy, reefy rum,
+                    Without teeth or tongue;
+                    If you'll have me,
+                    Now I am a-come.'
+
+
+But they took not the smallest notice of her, nor of her rhyme, and
+the young knight did not lift as much as an eyelash; but the child,
+now the rhyme was said, was even more apprehensive than ever of the
+effect it might have, and ran round the tower and again took refuge
+in the old gateway, and waited to see if they would come down from
+the wall and try to catch her; but they never came.
+
+The last evening of her stay at Padstow, Nancy went once more to the
+churchyard to have another look at the figures, and to taunt them
+with having no teeth or tongue.
+
+It was not quite so late as the first two evenings she had come
+thither, and the robins were singing their evensong in the churchyard
+trees.
+
+As she stood staring up at the figures, a shaft of light from the
+sun setting between the trees fell across their faces, and the eyes
+of the little knight seemed to look down in sad reproach at the rude
+little maid as she again repeated the rhyme which was even ruder than
+she knew.
+
+Her voice was shrill and loud, and was heard above the robins'
+cheerful song.
+
+She had hardly finished the rhyme when she saw the lion move from
+his place on the wall, followed by the unicorn and the young knight,
+and come sliding down. She did not wait to see them reach the bottom,
+for she took to her heels and ran for her life; but she could hear
+the figures carved in stone coming after her as she flew round the
+tower, and her heart was beating faster than the church clock when
+she reached the gateway.
+
+The gate, fortunately for her, was open wide, and she caught hold of
+it, and banged it behind her as the lion with his gaping mouth came
+up to it.
+
+She looked over her shoulder as she turned to run down the street,
+and she saw the three figures all in a row--the young knight in
+the middle holding his shield--gazing at her through the round
+wooden bars of the gate. The lion looked savage, and but for the
+brave little knight with his pure young face, who seemed to have a
+restraining power upon both animals, he might have broken the bars
+and come through the gate and made small bones of the child who had
+invited them three times to come down and have her!
+
+The little Wadebridger ran back to her Grannie, and told her about the
+rhyme she had said to the little stone figures on the wall of Padstow
+Church, and how they had come down and run after her to the gate. Her
+good old Grannie said it would have served her right if they had broken
+the gate and got her. 'A lesson to you, my dear,' she cried, 'never to
+be rude to man or beast, especially to figures carved on church walls.'
+
+The three little stone figures stood all in a row on the gate step
+till the child was out of sight, and finding she did not return, they
+went back to their places on the buttresses of the grey old church,
+and there they are still; and, as far as we know, they have never left
+them since Nancy Parnell, the little Wadebridger, repeated 'Reefy,
+reefy rum' three times, and that was when our great-great-grandmothers
+were children.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE HORSES AND HORSEMEN OF PADSTOW
+
+
+At the bottom of the same old town there is a house which has two
+tiny little men on horseback on the top of its roof. They have stood
+there for hundreds of years, and they never leave their places save
+when they hear the great church clock strike the hour of midnight,
+when, it is said, they leave the red tiles, and gallop round the
+market-place and through the streets of the little town.
+
+These gallant little horsemen have seen the house on which they
+stand almost rebuilt--changed from an old-world building with quaint
+windows and doors into quite a modern one--and they have the sorrow
+of knowing that the only things left that are ancient are the walls,
+the red tile-ridge, their little horses, and themselves.
+
+Long generations of Padstow children have seen these quaint little men
+on horseback, and many a question have they asked concerning them;
+but the only thing they ever learnt was that whenever they hear the
+church clock strike twelve in the middle of the night they come down
+from the roof, gallop round the market, and through the streets, as
+we have just said. But as children are generally in bed at that late
+hour, none were ever fortunate enough to see them do this wonderful
+feat, except little Robin Curgenven, the son of a toymaker, and it
+happened in this way:
+
+One evening when Robin was about nine years old his father and mother
+went to a party; and as it was a party only for grown-up people,
+they left him at home asleep in bed.
+
+Robin slept sound as a ringer till just before twelve, when he awoke,
+and finding he was alone in the house, he crept out of bed, opened the
+front door, which was under the roof, and went out and stood on the
+top of an external stone stairway which led down to the market-place.
+
+The house where he lived was as quaint and old as the one on which
+the little men rode so gallantly, and it faced it. As he stood at
+the head of the steps the church clock began to strike the hour of
+midnight.  It had only struck four or five when he remembered what
+he had heard about those wonderful little horsemen and their steeds,
+and he looked across the market to see if what he had been told about
+them was really true.
+
+He could see the house quite plainly, and the little horses and
+horsemen, for it was a clear night and full moon.
+
+The moment the clock had done striking Robin saw to his great delight
+the two little men on their two little horses leave the housetop and
+leap into the street, and go galloping round and round the market-place
+as his parents assured him they did when they heard the clock strike
+twelve.
+
+The little horses galloped so funnily, and the tiny riders sat so bolt
+upright on their quaint little steeds, that Robin laughed to see them,
+and said they looked exactly like the wooden toy horses and horsemen
+in his father's shop. And as they went galloping, galloping that queer
+little gallop, he clapped his hands and cheered like a Cornishman.
+
+The tiny little horsemen took no notice of the excited boy on the top
+of the stairs, and the moment they had finished their gallop round
+the old market they came through the narrow opening at the foot of
+the stairs, and galloped away up the street as fast as they could.
+
+So excited was little Robin Curgenven when he saw the tiny horsemen
+gallop away that he flew down the steps and tore after them, quite
+forgetting that his feet were bare, and that he had nothing on save
+his little white nightshirt.
+
+He ran very fast; but fast as he ran, he could not overtake those
+swift little horses, and by the time he got to the bottom of Middle
+Street they were nearly at the top.
+
+When they reached the head of that street the tiny horsemen pulled
+up their horses for a minute outside an ancient-looking house with a
+porch-room set on wooden pillars, and then they turned up Workhouse
+Hill and disappeared.
+
+Robin ran faster than before, and the tails of his little nightshirt
+flew out behind him on the wind as he ran; and he never stopped running
+till he was half-way up Church Street, when he saw the little horses
+and their riders galloping down towards him.
+
+They had been to the head of the town, and were returning; and he got
+on the footpath and stood near an arched passage, and waited for them
+to pass.
+
+He did not have to wait long, and so fast did they come you would have
+thought they were galloping for a wager. They seemed to be enjoying
+their gallop through the streets of the sleeping old town amazingly;
+and Robin, as he fixed his bright young eyes upon them, saw, or thought
+he saw, a broad grin on their queer little faces as they galloped by.
+
+The barefooted little lad, in his little night-garment, ran beside
+the quaint little horses and the little horsemen for a short distance,
+but they galloped much faster than he could run, and soon outdistanced
+him; and, run as hard as ever he could, he could not overtake them,
+but he heard the ringing of the tiny horses' hoofs on the hard road
+as they went galloping down through the town.
+
+When he reached the bottom of the town and the house where the little
+men and their horses usually stood, he glanced up, and to his surprise
+saw them standing on the tile-ridge, looking as if they had never
+left it.
+
+Robin gazed at them till he began to feel cold, and then he went
+back across the market to his own house; and half an hour later,
+when his father and mother came home from the party, they found him
+fast asleep on one of the steps with his toes tucked up under him.
+
+'The funny little horses and little horsemen did hear the clock strike
+twelve, and galloped round the market and through the town same as
+you told me,' said Robin in a sleepy voice, when his father picked
+him up and carried him into the house. 'I saw them with my own eyes,
+and I ran after them up as far as Church Street. They galloped so
+funnily and so fast; I am glad I saw them.'
+
+'So am I,' said his father, laughing, thinking his small son had
+dreamt it as he lay asleep on the step. 'You are the first little
+chap who ever saw them come down from the roof and gallop, and I
+fancy you will be the last.'
+
+Little Robin Curgenven may have been the first to see them gallop as
+his father said, but he may not be the last, for the quaint little
+horses and horsemen are still on the roof of the house, and it is
+told that they still gallop through Padstow streets, and round what
+once was the market, when they hear the church clock strike twelve!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HOW JAN BREWER WAS PISKEY-LADEN
+
+
+The moon was near her setting as a tall, broad-shouldered man called
+Jan Brewer was walking home to Constantine Bay to his cottage on the
+edge of a cliff.
+
+He was singing an old song to himself as he went along, and he sang
+till he drew near the ruins of Constantine Church, standing on a
+sandy common near the bay. As he grew near the remains of this ancient
+church, which were clearly seen in the moonshine, he thought he heard
+someone laughing, but he was not quite sure, for the sea was roaring
+on the beach below the common, and the waves were making a loud noise
+as they dashed up the great headland of Trevose.
+
+'I was mistaken; 'twas nobody laughing,' said Jan to himself, and he
+walked on again, singing as before; and he sang till he came near a
+gate, which opened into a field leading to his cottage, but when he
+got there he could not see the gate or the gateway.
+
+'I was so taken up with singing the old song, that I must have
+missed my way,' he said again to himself. 'I'll go back to the head
+of the common and start afresh,' which he did; and when he got to the
+place where his gate ought to have been, he could not find it to save
+his life.
+
+'I must be clean mazed,' [23] he cried. 'I have never got out of my
+reckoning before, nor missed finding my way to our gate, even when
+the night has been as dark as pitch. It isn't at all dark to-night;
+I can see Trevose Head'--looking across the bay--'and yet I can't see
+my own little gate! But I en't a-going to be done; I'll go round and
+round this common till I do find my gate.'
+
+And round and round the common he went, but find his gate he could not.
+
+Every time he passed the ruins of the church a laugh came up from the
+pool below the ruins, and once he thought he saw a dancing light on
+the edge of the pool, where a lot of reeds and rushes were growing.
+
+'The Little Man in the Lantern is about to-night,' he said to himself,
+as he glanced at the pool. 'But I never knew he was given to laughing
+before.'
+
+Once more he went round the common, and when he had passed the ruins
+he heard giggling and laughing, this time quite close to him; and
+looking down on the grass, he saw to his astonishment hundreds of
+Little Men and Little Women with tiny lights in their hands, which
+they were flinking [24] about as they laughed and giggled.
+
+The Little Men wore stocking-caps, the colour of ripe briar berries,
+and grass-green coats, and the Little Women had on old grandmother
+cloaks of the same vivid hue as the Wee Men's coats, and they also
+wore fascinating little scarlet hoods.
+
+'I believe the great big chap sees us,' said one of the Little Men,
+catching sight of Jan's astonished face. 'He must be Piskey-eyed,
+and we did not know it.'
+
+'Is he really?' cried one of the Dinky [25] Women. ''Tis a pity,' as
+the Little Man nodded. 'But we'll have our game over him all the same.'
+
+'That we will,' cried all the Little Men and Little Women in one voice;
+and, forming a ring round the great tall fellow, they began to dance
+round him, laughing, giggling, tehoing, and flashing up their lights
+as they danced.
+
+They went round him so fast that poor Jan was quite bewildered, and
+whichever way he looked there were these Little Men and Little Women
+giggling up into his bearded face. And when he tried to break through
+their ring they went before him and behind him, making a game over him,
+he said!
+
+He was at their mercy and they knew it; and when they saw the great
+fellow's misery, they only laughed and giggled the more.
+
+'We've got him!' they cried to each other, and they said it with such
+gusto and with such a comical expression on their tiny brown faces,
+that Jan, bewildered as he was, and tired with going round the common
+so many times, could not help laughing, they looked so very funny,
+particularly when the Little Women winked up at him from under their
+little scarlet hoods.
+
+The Piskeys--for they were Piskeys--hurried him down the common,
+dancing round him all the time; and when he got there he felt so
+mizzy-mazey with those tiny whirling figures going round and round him
+like a whirligig, that he did not know whether he was standing on his
+head or his heels. He was also in a bath of perspiration--'sweating
+leaking,' he expressed it--and, putting his hand in his pocket
+to take out a handkerchief to mop his face, he remembered having
+been told that, if ever he got Piskey-laden, he must turn his coat
+pockets inside out, when he would be free at once from his Piskey
+tormentors. He immediately acted on this suggestion, and in a minute
+or less his coat-pockets were hanging out, and all the Little Men
+and the Little Women had vanished, and there, right in front of him,
+he saw his own gate! He lost no time in opening it, and in a very
+short time was in his thatched cottage on the cliff.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SMALL PEOPLE'S FAIR
+
+
+In the same parish where Jan Brewer was Piskey-laden on Constantine
+Common there is a beautiful lane called Tresallyn. It has high mossy
+hedges, where ferns grow in abundance, and where speedwells love to
+display their multitude of blue blossoms.
+
+This lane is said to be a regular Piskeys' haunt, where all the Wee
+Folk in the neighbourhood meet. People who have passed through this
+lane in the evening or late at night have heard the Piskeys laughing;
+but nobody, as far as we know, except one young fellow, ever had the
+good fortune to see them, and he, like Jan Brewer, had the gift of
+seeing what others could not.
+
+Hender Bennett was the name of this young fellow, and he lived at a
+farm near Tresallyn Lane. One night, after he had been over to Towan,
+a village about a mile and a half away, to see a young girl whom he
+was courting, he was returning home through this beautiful old lane,
+when he was startled by a burst of music quite close to him. The
+music was so sweet and yet so stirring that he wanted to dance to
+the tune. He looked about to see whence the sound was coming, but he
+could see nothing unusual.
+
+It was a glorious night, and the big moon floated like a silver ball
+in the cloudless blue of the midnight sky, and shone so brightly that
+he could even see fronds of the ferns standing out quite clearly from
+the mossy hedge-banks.
+
+As he was looking around, the music grew louder, sweeter, and more
+stirring, and sending his gaze down the lane to where the trees arched
+it, he saw a big crowd of Small People holding a fair.
+
+He had heard of Little People's fairs from his great-grannie, but had
+never hoped to see one, and he was as glad as a bird that he happened
+to be going down Tresallyn Lane when they were holding one.
+
+The Wee Folk were holding their fair near a gate about a dozen yards
+or so from where he was standing. As the moon was just then floating
+over the gate, he could see all the Little People quite plainly,
+and what they were doing.
+
+The Little Men and the Little Women were all dressed up to the nines
+in the way of clothes, and although he could not have described the cut
+of their coats or the style of their gowns, he knew that all the Little
+Women were lovely, that dear little faces peeped out of quaint bonnets,
+that they carried frails in their hands, and that Piskey-purses hung
+by their sides in the same way that his great-grannie's big cotton
+purse bag hung under her gown.
+
+There were ever so many little standings or stalls on the grass--one
+here and one there, like currants in his mother's buns, Hender told
+himself. Every standing was laid out with all sorts of tempting
+things pleasing to Small People, on which they gazed with evident
+delight. They asked the price of this thing and that of the little
+standing women behind the stalls; and to see the Little People opening
+their tiny brown Piskey-purses and taking out their fairy money to
+pay for their purchases was as good as a play.
+
+But what delighted the young fellow most were the Tiny Fiddlers and
+Pipers; and to watch the way the Fiddlers elbowed their fiddle-sticks
+and fiddled was worth walking twelve miles any night to see, he
+said, to say nothing of watching the Little Men and the Little Women
+dancing to the tunes the Fiddlers fiddled and the Pipers piped. It
+was merrymaking with a vengeance, he told himself, and the fiddling,
+the piping, and the merrymaking at Summercourt Fair were nothing to it!
+
+The fair itself was held a few feet away from the standings and the
+merrymaking, and when Hender could turn away his gaze for a few minutes
+to look at the Little People's Fair Park, he saw a sight he feared he
+should never see again. There were scores of fairy horses, and as many
+bullocks and cows, and flocks of sheep and goats, none of them much
+bigger than those quaint little animals in toy farmyards; but these
+were all alive, he could tell, by the prancing of the horses! The
+sheep were confined within hurdles. There were pigs there as well,
+only to Hender's eyes they looked exactly like very large sow-pigs,
+[26] all of which were in small stone enclosures. Moving about among
+the animals were Little Men who were dressed like farmers, but whether
+they were farmers or not he could not tell.
+
+It was all so wonderfully interesting to Hender that he stood still
+like one in a dream, till one of the Little Men in a smart green coat
+went over to a very pretty Little Lady, who reminded him of his own
+sweetheart whom he had not very long kissed good-night, and asked her
+if he might treat her to some fairing, and he took hold of her little
+hand and led her up to the standing. And when he opened his purse to
+pay for what he bought for his lady-love Hender had to give vent to
+his feelings, and he cried out: 'I could not have done it better--no,
+not even if I had bought a fairing for my own little sweetheart! No
+fy! I couldn't.'
+
+The words were no sooner spoken when the Small People's fair vanished,
+Little People and all, and the only thing left to show that a fair
+had been held were a dozen sow-pigs in a stone enclosure!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PISKEYS WHO DID AUNT BETSY'S WORK
+
+
+In our great-great-grandmothers' days people very seldom went away
+visiting, and when little Nannie Sando received an invitation from
+her Aunt Betsy--great-aunt really--who lived quite twenty miles from
+her home on a lonely moor, near Liskard, there was great excitement
+in Nannie's home.
+
+Nannie's father did not like the thought of her going away so far from
+home, and her mother did not like it either, but she said Aunt Betsy
+was well-to-do, and had a stockingful of gold hidden away somewhere;
+it would not do for them to offend her by refusing to let the child
+go. So the invitation was accepted, and Nannie was sent off by coach,
+and met by her aunt in a donkey-cart in Horn Lane, at Liskard, where
+the coach put up; and that same evening she reached the little house
+on the moor.
+
+It was quite a nice little house, with two rooms up and two down,
+and a large garden behind, sheltered by granite boulders fantastically
+piled one on top of the other. In front of the house were the moors,
+which, at the time Nannie came to stay with her aunt, were gorgeous
+with the bloom of heather and other flowers.
+
+Nice as the house was, and beautiful as the moors were, with their
+background of Kilmar and other Cornish tors, it was a lonely spot
+for a child to come and stay at, with only an elderly woman for
+company. But, then, there was the charm of novelty, and there were
+delights in the shape of her aunt's donkey and cow, and a big black
+tom-cat called Tinker, to say nothing of the far-stretching moors,
+which were so beautiful to look at and run wild on.
+
+When Nannie was leaving to go and stay with Aunt Betsy, her mother,
+with a view to possessing some of the old lady's golden hoard some
+day, told her little daughter to be very attentive to her aunt. 'Get
+up when she does,' she said, 'and help her to do her work, and make
+yourself very useful;' and the child said she would.
+
+Nannie, when she was going to bed on the evening of her arrival,
+remembered her mother's injunction, and said to her aunt:
+
+'Please call me when you get up; I want to help you to clean up
+the houseplace.'
+
+But the old woman did not call her grand-niece, and let her stay in
+bed till breakfast-time; and when the child came down she found all
+the work done, and everything clean and shining.
+
+'You never called me, Aunt Betsy,' said Nannie reproachfully. 'Mother
+did so want me to help you.'
+
+'Did she?' cried the old woman sharply. 'If your mother told you to
+help me, she had a motive for it. I know your mother's little ways!'
+
+'She said you were getting up in years,' said Nannie innocently,
+'and that the young should spare the old as much as they could.'
+
+'The dear little Brown Piskeys spare my old legs,' said the old woman,
+looking at the child. 'They come in and do my work before the world
+gets up.'
+
+'The Piskeys!' cried the child. 'Who are the Piskeys? I never heard
+of them before.'
+
+'You must be a very ignorant little girl not to have heard tell of
+the Piskeys,' cried Aunt Betsy, lifting her hands in surprise. 'They
+are dear Little People who take strange likes and dislikes to human
+beings. If they happen to like people very much, they come into their
+house and do their work for them. They have taken quite a fancy to me,
+and come into my house every night and clean up the houseplace, polish
+the candlesticks till they shine like gold, scour the pots and pans,
+and wash and clean everything that wants cleaning.'
+
+'How very kind of them!' said Nannie. 'They must be dear Little
+People. I do wish I could see them doing your work, Aunt Betsy. It
+would be something to tell father and mother when I go home.'
+
+'I don't expect you will have the good fortune to see the Piskeys,'
+said the old woman. 'They are little invisible Men and Women, and
+nobody ever sees them unless they happen to be Piskey-eyed. As you
+have never heard about these dear Wee Folk till now, it is quite
+certain you have not the gift.'
+
+'Are you Piskey-eyed, Aunt Betsy?' asked Nannie eagerly.
+
+Her aunt did not answer, and told her little grand-niece to sit up
+at table and eat her breakfast.
+
+The child was too full of the Little People to eat much breakfast,
+and the more she thought about them, the more anxious she became to
+see those dear Wee Folk, who were so very, very kind to her Aunt Betsy.
+
+The next morning Nannie got up ever so early, with the hope of
+seeing the Piskeys, but, early as it was, Aunt Betsy was down before
+her. The work was all done, and the table laid for breakfast, as on
+the previous day.
+
+'The Piskeys came and did it long before I was up,' remarked her aunt,
+not noticing the child's face of disappointment, glancing round the
+big kitchen, with its stone-flagged floor, just washed, and looking
+as blue as the tors, and up at the dresser, with its china looking
+as if it had been washed in sunshine, it was so sparkling; and as
+for the tall brass candlesticks on the high mantelpiece, they were
+dazzling in their brightness.
+
+'It isn't fair that the Little People should come in and do all your
+work when I wanted to help,' said Nannie.
+
+'I am used to Piskeys, but not to children,' returned the old
+woman. 'If you really want to do something for me, you shall go out
+on the moors and pick me a nosegay of wild flowers. It will make the
+kitchen look nice, and will complete the work of the Piskeys.'
+
+Nannie was willing, as she had nothing to do, and she put on her
+sun-bonnet to go.
+
+'The clover is in blossom,' said her aunt, as the child was going out
+at the door, 'and if you happen to find one with four leaves you may
+perhaps get Piskey-eyed, and if you also find a Wee's Nest [27] you
+will have the good fortune to see all the Little People in Cornwall!'
+
+'A Wee's Nest is a thing that is never found,' said Nannie; 'but
+I'll look for a four-leaved clover till I find it. P'raps you found
+a four-leaved clover, and that is how you can see the Piskeys,'
+looking round at her aunt with a smile.
+
+The old woman was not given to answering questions, and she only said
+that four-leaved clovers were not so easy to find as she imagined.
+
+There was an abundance of flowers everywhere on the moors, and Nannie
+soon gathered a great big nosegay; but although she looked for a
+four-leaved clover, she could not find one.
+
+Her aunt was very pleased with the flowers when she took them to her,
+and told her to put them into an earthenware pot, which she did; and
+when she had had her dinner, she went on the moors again. Tinker, the
+great tom-cat, with whom she had already made friends, followed her.
+
+Nannie stayed out on the moors till it was almost bedtime, searching
+for a four-leaved clover, but she searched in vain.
+
+The next morning, the child, hearing her aunt dressing, got up and
+dressed too, and, being young and nimble, she was dressed and down
+first.
+
+When she got to the kitchen, she heard the clatter of pans and
+a tripping to and fro of tiny feet, and little bursts of laughter
+came from the big spence at the upper end of the kitchen; but she saw
+nothing living, except Tinker, cleaning his face in front of the fire,
+and then she heard a patter of small feet going towards the outer
+kitchen door, and there was silence.
+
+'You have driven away the Piskeys, you young good-for-nothing!' cried
+Aunt Betsy, coming into the kitchen, buttoning the sleeve of her gown
+as she came. 'The Little People don't like to be spied on when they
+are busy working. You should not have got up so early.'
+
+The old woman seemed as much put out as the Piskeys, and she flew
+round the kitchen doing the work the Small People had left undone,
+and would not allow Nannie to help at all, not even to lay the cloth
+for breakfast.
+
+After breakfast, the child, in order to put her aunt in a better
+mood, went out on the moors to get another nosegay of wild flowers,
+and she gathered one of every sort she could find.
+
+As she was picking them, Tinker, the cat, who had followed her again
+to the moors, put his paw on a clover and mewed; and, fearing a bee
+had stung him, she looked to see, and quite close to his paw was a
+white four-leaved clover!
+
+'I shall be able to see the Piskeys now!' said Nannie joyfully;
+and she and Tinker returned to the house.
+
+Aunt Betsy was out at the back looking for a hen who had stolen her
+nest, and she did not come in till dinner-time.
+
+Nannie amused herself meanwhile in arranging the flowers, and when
+she had done that to her own satisfaction, she passed the four-leaved
+clover over her eyes three times, and looked round the kitchen to see
+what she could see. She saw nothing unusual, but she thought she saw
+a tiny brown laughing face peeping round the kitchen door.
+
+When Aunt Betsy came in from watching the hen, the child told her
+she had found the four-leaved clover, thanks to Tinker.
+
+Her aunt looked at her queerly, and asked her to show the clover
+which she had found; and when she saw that it was a four-leaved one,
+she only said: 'But you have not yet found the Wee's Nest, and you
+must not expect to see the dear little Brown Piskeys unless you do.'
+
+Nannie hoped she would, all the same, and this hope made her
+so excited she could not sleep; and when daylight began to creep
+into the sky she got up, and without waiting to put on more than
+her little petticoat, she crept downstairs, holding the four-leaved
+clover in her hand. When she got to the door of the kitchen, leading
+into it from the passage, she opened it softly and peeped in; and to
+her delight she saw scores and scores of Little People, all as busy
+as bees in a field of clover. Some were sweeping the flagged stones,
+some were washing the cloam [28] and scouring the pots and pans, some
+were polishing the candlesticks with a soft leather, and others were in
+the big spence scrubbing the stone benches and doing it all as keenly
+[29] as Aunt Betsy herself, which was most wonderful, she thought,
+considering how tiny they were. For they were not much bigger than
+a miller's thumb. [30]
+
+It was the Little Women Piskeys who were the busiest workers. The
+Little Men were less industrious; and when Tinker came into the
+kitchen, they stopped their work of cleaning the milk-pans to
+pull his great bushy tail and his whiskers. One little scamp of a
+Piskey--perhaps unconscious that Nannie was now Piskey-eyed--put his
+thumb to his nose, after the manner of naughty little boys, and made
+a face at her.
+
+The Piskeys were a merry little lot, and laughed at their work as if
+it were all play, which perhaps it was; and one little red-capped
+Piskey danced a hornpipe on the table as several of his companions
+were about to lay the cloth for Aunt Betsy's breakfast. They stood
+on the edge of the table, waiting for him to finish his dance, and
+as he did not seem inclined to do this, they caught hold of him by
+his legs and tickled him.
+
+The little Piskey who was being tickled, and those who tickled him,
+looked so comical that Nannie laughed, which made them stop and
+look round.
+
+'There is a little maid watching us from the door!' said one of the
+Piskeys in a whisper. 'She is Piskey-eyed, the same as Aunt Betsy,
+and she will be spying upon us now, sure as eggs are eggs. I think
+we had better forsake this house and go and do work for some other
+old woman.' And, to Nannie's distress, they went, and ever after Aunt
+Betsy had to do her own work, which made her so cross that she sent
+poor Nannie home to her parents at the first opportunity she had; and
+when she died, which was not a great while after, she left her little
+hoard of gold to strangers. Nannie's father said 'twas a great pity,
+but that his wife was to blame, for if she had not urged their little
+maid to help the old lady to do her work with the unworthy motive of
+having some of her gold, Nannie would never have wanted to see the
+Piskeys doing Aunt Betsy's work.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PISKEYS WHO CARRIED THEIR BEDS
+
+
+Many years ago the Piskeys used to dance on a grassy place on the top
+of the cliffs overlooking Newtrain Bay in the parish of Padstow. They
+danced there so often that the grass was worn quite bare, and until
+the cliffs on which they danced were undermined and broken down by
+the rough sea, the marks of their tiny feet were plainly seen.
+
+An old woman who lived a short distance from Newtrain Cliffs used
+to tell people interested in fairies that she had often seen them
+dancing there. 'They danced two and two,' she said, 'and so near the
+edge of the cliff, you would have thought they would dance over. But
+they never did; they were far too clever for that.'
+
+Jinnie Chapman was the name of this old woman. She was quite a
+character in her way, and almost as interesting as the Small People
+she loved to talk about.
+
+She was a little quick woman, with twinkling dark eyes, and whenever
+she went over to Newtrain to watch the Piskeys, she wore a black
+cottage-bonnet over her neat jinnie-guick cap, a blue print apron, and
+a quaint little black turnover with a wide border of red cones. This
+turnover she called a 'q' shawl, because the cones on its border were
+the shape of q's, she said.
+
+It was the great pleasure of her dull, uneventful life to see the
+Piskeys dancing, which she was simple enough to believe they did to
+give her pleasure; and she embraced every opportunity to get to the
+Newtrain Cliffs to watch them.
+
+Jinnie had watched the Small People so often that she knew every one
+of them by sight, and how many there were that danced.
+
+They never took any notice of the little old woman in the
+cottage-bonnet, the quaint shawl, and blue print apron, watching
+them dancing near a low stone hedge green and gold with samphire;
+and they laughed and talked to each other just the same as if she
+were not present.
+
+They never danced, as far as Jinnie knew, except when the moon was
+high, and they left off dancing when the moon set like a ball of fire
+over the great headlands. But she did not know where they went after
+the moon had gone down.
+
+One very bright moonlight night in the early autumn, when the
+Piskey-stools [31] were thick on Newtrain Cliffs, old Jinnie came
+again to watch the Piskeys; and when she got there, there were not any
+to be seen. She could not understand it, and she went and looked at
+the Piskey-stools to see if they were sitting on any of them having
+a chat, which they sometimes did when they were tired of dancing;
+but every Piskey-stool on the cliffs was unoccupied.
+
+As she was wondering what had become of the Piskeys, she heard
+shrieks of tiny laughter, like the giggles of kittiwakes, coming up
+from Newtrain Bay under the cliffs; and she hastened down the steep
+road leading to the bay--which was romantic-looking, and almost shut
+in by tall cliffs--as fast as her old legs would take her.
+
+When she got to the bottom of the road, she met four little Piskeys
+coming up, carrying a large Piskey-bag between them; and being very
+anxious to know what they were going to do with the dark-brown thing,
+she said:
+
+'My little dears, will you kindly tell me what you are going to do
+with the Piskey-bag?'
+
+They were evidently too surprised to answer the old woman at once,
+for she had never spoken to them before, and they stared up at her
+open-mouthed.
+
+'To sleep in when the cold weather comes,' answered a Piskey at last.
+
+'They are ever so comfortable to snuggle under when the snow is on
+the ground,' said another little Piskey.
+
+'Sleep in them, do you?' cried old Jinnie, greatly interested. 'To
+think of it now! I expect they are as warm as the blanketing the
+blanket-weavers weave in their looms at Padstow. But I never knew
+before you slept in the bags; I thought you kept your money in them.'
+
+'We don't, then,' cried the Piskeys, grinning all over their little
+elf faces, which were almost as brown as the Piskey-bag they were
+carrying. 'We use the tiny young bags to keep our money in, not big
+ones like this.'
+
+'Up we go!' cried one of the Piskeys to his companions, giving the one
+nearest him a poke in his ribs; and the four little Brown Men began
+to ascend the steep road, carrying the Piskey-bag by its four tails,
+swinging it to and fro, and shrieking with laughter as they swung it.
+
+Jinnie watched them for a few minutes, and then went down to the pebbly
+beach, where she saw dozens of little Brown Men in companies of four,
+each company bearing a Piskey-bag between them.
+
+There was a long string of these Little People from the water's edge
+to where she met them, which was about a dozen yards from the foot
+of the steep road.
+
+The little Brown Men took no notice of her, and swung the bags just as
+did the first quartette, seemingly unconscious that she was watching
+them, and laughed and joked among themselves as they swung them.
+
+Old Jinnie followed them up the beach and road, and she wondered to
+herself where they were going to take the bags; but she never knew,
+for when they reached the top of the cliff where they danced, they
+vanished, Piskey-bags and all!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FAIRY WHIRLWIND
+
+
+A young married woman, who was very pretty, lived with her husband
+in a sweet little cottage by the sea. The cottage was cob-walled,
+and had a small flower-garden in its front, which was a picture
+in the early springtime with periwinkles and gilliflowers, and in
+the summer-time with roses and hollyhocks. There was another garden
+belonging to the cottage, but it was only for vegetables, and was on
+the top of a cliff quite five minutes' walk from the cottage.
+
+This young wife and her husband, who was a waggoner, had one little
+child a few months old. The child was very dear to them both, and
+they thought she was the sweetest and most beautiful little baby in
+all the world. The fairies must have been quite of the same opinion,
+as you will see.
+
+One afternoon the young wife was about to make an Irish stew for her
+husband's supper, when she found she had not enough potatoes in the
+house to make it.
+
+As she took her sun-bonnet from its peg to go up to the cliff garden
+to dig some up, her baby, who was lying in its wooden cradle, puckered
+its fair little face and began to cry.
+
+'I believe the darling knows I am going out,' cried the fond young
+mother. 'I can't leave her here all by her little self; I must take
+her with me.' And when she had put on her bonnet and a basket for
+the potatoes on her arm, she lifted the baby out of the cradle and
+took her with her to the cliff, fondling the dear little thing and
+talking to it as she went.
+
+When she had reached the cliff-garden, she stood on the edge of the
+cliff with her flaxen-haired babe in her arms, looking out over
+the sea. It was a lovely June day, and the water was as quiet as
+a mill-pond and blue as vipers' bugloss, she told her baby. 'Just
+the sort of weather for my pretty to be out in,' she cried, hugging
+the child.
+
+Mrs. Davies, as the young woman was called, after gazing out over
+the sea for a few minutes, laid her baby down on the top of a potato
+ridge, close to where a succory and a knapweed grew side by side,
+and interlaced their blue and purple blossoms. When the babe had
+fixed its eyes upon the flowers and cooed to them in baby fashion,
+she set to work to dig up the potatoes.
+
+She had not been digging very long when she heard a curious noise
+behind her, like the sound of soft wind in trees, but there were
+no trees in the cliff-garden, and not wind enough to move even the
+potato leaves.
+
+She dropped the biddix [32] to see what it was that made so strange a
+sound, and as she dropped it she was caught in a whirlwind--a Fairy
+Whirlwind, she said it was--which whirled her round and round like
+a whirligig; and as she whirled she was enveloped in a cloud of fine
+grey pillum, or dust, and she could not see anything beyond her nose.
+
+When the whirlwind went away--and it vanished as suddenly as it
+came--she found herself close to the edge of the cliff ever so far
+away from her baby.
+
+Fearing she knew not what for her child, she ran over to it to see
+if it was quite safe; and to her horror, there, where her own fair
+little baby had lain, she saw a dark, wizen little creature, with a
+face wrinkled all over like an old woman's!
+
+'That is not my little maid,' she shrieked; 'it's a changeling! The
+wicked Little People envied us our little beauty, and have stolen her
+away, and left one of their own ugly brats in her place. They raised
+a Fairy Whirlwind to hide from me what they were doing, the wicked,
+wicked little things!'
+
+Mrs. Davies never knew how long she stood staring down in hopeless
+misery upon the ugly babe the Small People had left there on the
+potato ridge in place of her own; but in the end she took it up in
+her arms and carried it down to the cottage.
+
+Her husband was at home by this time, wondering what had become of
+his wife and child, and you might have knocked him down with a straw
+when she poured out her woe to him, and showed him the ugly dark babe
+the fairies had exchanged for their own beautiful babe.
+
+'What must I do with it?' she asked piteously, when her husband turned
+away from it with grief in his eyes and sorrow in his heart.
+
+'Keep it till the Small People are tired of our little handsome,' he
+said, 'and be good to it if you can. If we ain't kind to the fairies'
+cheeld, they won't be kind to ours, that's certain.'
+
+So the young woman and her husband, for the sake of their own
+flaxen-haired, blue-eyed little darling the Small People had envied and
+taken away, were very kind to the babe they had left in its place. They
+hoped, as they took care of it, although they never loved it, that the
+fairies would quickly grow tired of their child and bring her back;
+but they hoped in vain.
+
+A year after the Small People had raised a whirlwind, the fairies'
+cheeld, as Mrs. Davies and her husband called the babe left on the
+potato ridge in place of their own, pined away and died; but the
+little human child with its flaxen curls and eyes of Cornish blue
+was never seen by mortal eyes after the fairies had stolen it.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+
+'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.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] Sad.
+
+[2] A bog near Rough Tor.
+
+[3] A bat.
+
+[4] Pronounced Dozmary.
+
+[5] Nightjar.
+
+[6] The ladybird.
+
+[7] Near Helston.
+
+[8] Tintagel.
+
+[9] China.
+
+[10] Sad.
+
+[11] Coax.
+
+[12] Tiny child.
+
+[13] Whortleberries.
+
+[14] An oven when half heated.
+
+[15] Frame.
+
+[16] The speckled, or ermine, moth.
+
+[17] Cotton-grass.
+
+[18] Tale.
+
+[19] Child-little.
+
+[20] Tale.
+
+[21] A small storeroom for victuals.
+
+[22] Power of utterance.
+
+[23] Mad.
+
+[24] Waving.
+
+[25] Little.
+
+[26] Wood-lice.
+
+[27] Mare's nest.
+
+[28] China.
+
+[29] Well.
+
+[30] A very small bird.
+
+[31] Mushrooms.
+
+[32] A double digging tool--one end pointed, the other flattened.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of North Cornwall Fairies and Legends, by 
+Enys Tregarthen
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40246 ***