{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40246/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40246","id":"gutenberg_40246","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40246","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Folklore -- England -- Cornwall (County)","Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)"],"text":"NORTH CORNWALL FAIRIES AND LEGENDS\n\n\n                                   By\n                            ENYS TREGARTHEN\n                      Author of 'The Piskey-Purse'\n\n                With introduction by Howard Fox, F.G.S.\n\n                              Illustrated\n\n\n\n                                 London\n                   Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., Ltd.\n                     3, Paternoster Buildings, E.C.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                           Page\n    Introduction                                             xi\n    The Adventures of a Piskey in Search of his Laugh         1\n    The Legend of the Padstow Doombar                        51\n    The Little Cake-bird                                     71\n    The Impounded Crows                                      99\n    The Piskeys' Revenge                                    113\n    The Old Sky Woman                                       125\n    Reefy, Reefy Rum                                        131\n    The Little Horses and Horsemen of Padstow               139\n    How Jan Brewer was Piskey-laden                         149\n    The Small People's Fair                                 159\n    The Piskeys who did Aunt Betsy's Work                   165\n    The Piskeys Who carried their Beds                      177\n    The Fairy Whirlwind                                     183\n    Notes                                                   189\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n                                                           Page\n    Tintagel Castle                                Frontispiece\n    King Arthur's Castle, looking North                       9\n    Tintagel Castle                                          15\n    By Rough Tor's granite-piled height the bright\n        little Lantern went                                  21\n    'Night-riders, Night-riders, please stop!'               37\n    'Which is still called King Arthur's Seat'               45\n    Lifeboat going over the bar of doom                      53\n    Tristram Bird could see over the maiden's head\n        into the pool                                        55\n    Trebetherick Bay                                         62\n    Chapel Stile                                             65\n    'It is the Mermaid's wraith,' cried an old\n        Granfer man                                          67\n    Tregoss Moor                                             73\n    On the way to Tamsin's Cottage                           75\n    'I hear them laughing. Listen, Grannie!'                 83\n    The Roche Rocks                                          85\n    He stepped on to Phillida's nose as light as the\n        feathers of the old Sky Woman                        91\n    'All the crows in the parish came as they were\n        bidden'                                             101\n    'Perhaps you would like to hear the crows' version\n        of the tale?'                                       105\n    The Piskeys got in and ate up the bowl of junket,\n        and passed out the biscuits                         118\n    'The Old Sky Woman sweeping out the Sky Goose's\n        house'                                              128\n    She took to her heels and ran for her life              135\n    Saw them standing on the tile-ridge                     141\n    They galloped much faster than he could run             145\n    Ruins of Constantine Church                             153\n    They began to dance round him                           157\n    Nannie went on the moors again, and Tinker\n        followed her                                        172\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe tales contained in this little volume of North Cornwall fairy\nstories, by Enys Tregarthen, are either founded on folk-lore or they\nare folk-lore pure and simple.\n\nThe scene of the first story is laid amid the ancient walls and\ngateways of 'Grim Dundagel thron'd along the sea,' and other places\nnot quite so well known by those who live beyond the Cornish land,\nbut which, nevertheless, have a fascination of their own, especially\nDozmare Pool, where Tregeagle's unhappy spirit worked at his hopeless\ntask of emptying the pool with a crozan or limpet-shell 'that had a\nhole in it.'\n\nThis large inland lake, one mile in circumference, is of unusual\ninterest, not only because of the Tregeagle legend that centres\nround Dozmare, but from a tradition, which many believe, that it\nwas to this desolate moor, with its great tarn, that Sir Bedivere,\nKing Arthur's faithful knight, brought the wounded King after the\nlast great battle at Slaughter Bridge, on the banks of the Camel.\n\nA wilder and more untamed spot could hardly be found even in Cornwall\nthan Dozmare Pool and the barren moors surrounding it. As one stands\nby its dark waters, looking away towards the bare granite-crowned\nhills and listening to the wind sighing among the reeds and rushes\nand the coarse grass, one can realize to the full the weird legends\nconnected with it, and one can see in imagination the huge figure of\nTregeagle bending over the pool, dipping out the water with his poor\nlittle limpet-shell.\n\nThe Tregeagle legends are still believed in. When people go out to\nDozmare Pool, they do not mention Tregeagle's name for fear that the\nGiant will suddenly appear and chase them over the moors!\n\nOn the golden spaces of St. Minver sand-hills the legends about this\nunearthly personage are not so easily realized, except on a dark\nwinter's night, when the wind rages fiercely over the dunes and one\nhears a fearful sound, which the natives say is Tregeagle roaring\nbecause the sand-ropes that he made to bind his trusses of sand are\nall broken. St. Minver is not only known for its connection with the\nlegend of Tregeagle, but it is one of the many parishes beloved by\nthe Small People or Fairy Folk with whom Enys Tregarthen's little\nbook has mostly to do.\n\nPiskeys danced in their rings on many a cliff and common and moor in\nthat delightful parish, and on other wild moors, commons and cliffs\nin many another parish in North and East Cornwall. Fairy horsemen,\nlocally known as night-riders, used to steal horses from farmers'\nstables and ride them over the moors and commons till daybreak, when\nthey left them to perish, or to find their way back to their stalls.\n\nNumberless stories of the little Ancient People used to be told,\nwhich the cottagers often repeated to each other on winter evenings\nas they sat round the peat fires, and some of these Enys Tregarthen\nhas retold. The author writes concerning them: 'Many of the legends\nwere told me by very old people long since dead. The legend of the\nDoombar was told me when I was quite a small child by a very old person\nborn late in the eighteenth century. The one of Giant Tregeagle came,\nI think, from the same source, but it is too far back to remember. I\nonly know it was one of the stories of my childhood, as were also the\nMole legend and some of the Piskey-tales, handed down from a dim past\nby our Cornish forebears.\n\n'The legends about the Little People are very old, and some assert\nto-day that the tales about the Piskeys are tales of a Pigmy race\nwho inhabited Cornwall in the Neolithic Period, and that they are\nanswerable for most of the legends of our Cornish fairies. If this\nbe so, the older stories are legends of the little Stone Men.\n\n'The legends are numerous. Some of them are very fragmentary; but\nthey are none the less interesting, for they not only give an insight\ninto the world of the little Ancient People, but they also show how\nstrongly the Cornish peasantry once believed in them, as perhaps they\nstill do. For, strange as it may seem in these matter-of-fact days,\nthere are people still living who not only hold that there are Piskeys,\nbut say they have actually seen them! One old woman in particular told\nme not many months ago that she had seen \"little bits of men in red\njackets\" on the moors where she once lived. She used to be told about\nthe Piskeys when she was a child, and the old people of her day used\nto tell how \"the little bits of men\" crept in through the keyhole of\nmoorland cottages when the children were asleep to order their dreams.'\n\nThese stories are given to the world in the hope that many besides\nchildren, for whom they are specially written, will find them\ninteresting, and all lovers of folk-lore will be grateful to know\nthat the iron horse and other modern inventions have not yet succeeded\nin driving away the Small People, nor in banishing the weird legends\nfrom our loved 'land of haunting charm.'\n\n\nH. F.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ADVENTURES OF A PISKEY IN SEARCH OF HIS LAUGH\n\n\n                                                  '... A soft\n                                            Cradle of old tales.'\n\n                                                            W. B. Yeats.\n\n\nThe moon was shining softly down on the grey ruins of King Arthur's\nCastle by the Tintagel sea, and on hundreds of little Piskeys dancing\nin a great Piskey-ring on the mainland, known as Castle Gardens.\n\nIn the centre of the ring stood a Little Fiddler, fiddling away with\nall his might, keeping time with his head and one tiny foot.\n\nThe faster he played and flung out the merry tune on the quiet moonlit\nnight, the faster the Piskeys danced. As they danced they almost\nburst their sides with laughter, and their laughter and the music of\nthe Little Fiddler was distinctly heard by an old man and his wife,\nwho then lived in the cottage near the castle.\n\nOne little Piskey, somewhat taller than a clothes-peg, was the best\ndancer there, and his laugh was the merriest. He was dancing with\na Piskey about his own size, who could hardly keep step with his\ntwinkling feet.\n\nAs the Piskeys careered round and round the Piskey-ring, the tiny\nchap who was the best dancer, and had the merriest laugh, suddenly\nstopped laughing, and his little dancing feet gave under him, and down\nhe went with a crash, dragging his little companion with him. Before\nthey could pick themselves up, the Piskeys who were coming on behind,\nnot seeing the two sprawling on the ring, fell on them, and in another\nmoment Little Fiddler Piskey saw a moving heap of green-coated little\nbodies and a brown tangle of tiny hands and feet.\n\nSo amazed was he at such an unusual sight that he stopped fiddling,\nand let his fiddle slip out of his hand unnoticed on the grass.\n\nWhen the Little Men had picked themselves up, except the one who\nhad caused the mishap, they began to pitch into him for tumbling and\ncausing them to tumble, when something in his tiny face made them stop.\n\n'What made you go down on your stumjacket like that when you were\ndancing so beautifully?' asked a Piskey not unkindly.\n\n'I don't know,' he answered, looking up at his little brother Piskey\nwith a strange expression in his face, which was pinched and drawn,\nand pale as one of their own Piskey-stools; and instead of a laugh\nin his dark little eyes there was misery and woe.\n\nThe strange expression in his eyes quite frightened the Piskeys,\nand one said: 'What is the matter with you? You are looking worse\nthan a cat in a fit.'\n\n'Am I?' said the poor little Piskey. 'I am feeling very queer. It was\na queerness that made me fall on my little stumjacket. Am I ill like\nthose great men and women creatures we sometimes entice into the bogs\nwith Piskey-lights?'\n\n'We have never heard of a Piskey getting ill or sick,' said a little\nbrown Piskey, 'have we?' turning to speak to the Little Fiddler,\nwho had come over to his companions, bringing his fiddle with him.\n\n'I most certainly haven't,' answered the Little Fiddler.\n\n'Then what is the matter with me, if I'm not sick?' asked the little\nPiskey who was looking so queer.\n\n'Perhaps Granfer Piskey will be able to tell you, for I can't,'\nsaid the Tiny Fiddler.\n\n'Where is Granfer Piskey?' asked the poor little sufferer. 'I am\nafraid I am getting worse, for all the dance has left my legs.'\n\n'Granfer Piskey is over on the Island,' cried a little Piskey.\n\n'So he is,' said all the other Piskeys, sending their glance in that\ndirection, where, on the edge of a beetling cliff facing Castle\nGardens, stood a tiny old man, with a white beard flowing down to\nhis bare little feet. He was dressed, as were all the other Piskeys,\nin a bright green coat and a red stocking cap.\n\nHe disappeared into a Piskey-hole the Piskeys had dug in the cliff,\nwhich led down into an underground passage between the Island and the\nmainland, and very soon he reappeared from another hole in Castle\nGardens, a few feet from where the little Piskeys were anxiously\nawaiting him.\n\n'Why are you not fiddling, dancing and laughing?' asked the\nlittle Whitebeard, winking his eyes on the silent little Piskey\ncrowd, standing near their little brother Piskey who was looking\nso queer. 'You are wasting precious time standing here doing\nnothing. Before a great while the moon will have set over Trevose,\nand the time for merry-making and high-jinks will be over,' he added,\nas not a Piskey spoke.\n\n'We are not fiddling, dancing and laughing because of something that\nhas befallen our little brother,' said the Tiny Fiddler at last,\npointing to the poor little Piskey who had raised himself to a sitting\nposition and was seated on the Piskey-ring.\n\n'He is a rum-looking little customer, sure 'nough,' said the old\nWhitebeard, glancing in the direction of the place where the Little\nFiddler pointed. 'What is the matter with him?'\n\n'That is what we want to know,' answered the Little Fiddler. 'Come and\nhave a closer look at him, Granfer Piskey;' and Granfer Piskey came.\n\n'What is the matter with him?' asked one of the Piskeys when the\nWhitebeard had stared down a minute or more on the little atom of\nmisery sitting humped up on the edge of the great green ring like\na toad on a hot shovel. 'You are so old and wise, you will be able\nto tell us what ails him, if anybody can. He thinks he is sick like\nthe big people we lead a fine dance round the fields and commons\nsometimes,' as Granfer Piskey stood stock-still before the little\nafflicted Piskey, winking and blinking and solemnly shaking his head.\n\n'He is not sick like those people of whom you spoke,' said the\nWhitebeard at last. 'He has----'\n\n'The make-outs,' shrilled a little voice with a laugh somewhere in\nthe background.\n\n'No, he hasn't the make-outs, you impudent little rascal!' said\nGranfer Piskey, without lifting his gaze from the poor little fellow\non the edge of the ring. 'That's a complaint from which you apparently\nsuffer.'\n\n'What has he?' asked the Tiny Fiddler, impatiently scraping his\nfiddle-stick over his fiddle, as if to emphasize his words.\n\n'It isn't what he has, but what he hasn't,' said the old Whitebeard,\nin the same slow, solemn voice. 'I was going to say that our poor\nlittle brother has lost his laugh.'\n\n'Lost his laugh!' cried little Fiddler Piskey and all the other little\nPiskeys; and their tiny faces of consternation showed what a terrible\nthing had befallen their poor little brother.\n\n'Yes, he has had the sad misfortune to lose his laugh,' said the\nlittle old Whitebeard, winking and blinking harder than ever as he\nstood before the unhappy little Piskey who had lost his laugh; 'and,\nworse still, he is quite done for till he finds it again.'\n\n'Where has my laugh gone to, Granfer Piskey?' asked the miserable\nlittle Piskey who had met with that dreadful misfortune.\n\n'I don't know more than the Little Man in the moon,' answered the\ntiny old Whitebeard; 'but if I were you I would go and look for it.'\n\n'Where must I go and look for my laugh?' asked the poor little Piskey.\n\n'I have not the smallest idea; but I should go and search for it till\nI found it.'\n\n'Will you come with me and search for my laugh?' asked the little\nPiskey, with a look of anxiety in his wee dark eyes, as Granfer Piskey\nwas moving away.\n\n'I am afraid I can't. It is my duty to stop with your brothers to\nsee that they don't grow silly and lose their laugh. Besides, it is\nnot quite the thing for an old Whitebeard like me to go travelling\nabout the country with a youngster like you, in search of a laugh.'\n\n'Will you go with me to look for my laugh?' asked the little Piskey,\nfixing his gaze on the Tiny Fiddler.\n\n'I would go with you gladly, if I were not Fiddler Piskey,' he\nanswered, touching his fiddle lightly with his bow. 'But if I were\nto go gallivanting up and down the country in search of your laugh,\nthere would be nobody to play the dancing tune when our brothers\ndance in the moonshine.'\n\n'Won't one of you go with me and help me to find my laugh?' begged\nthe miserable little fellow, glancing from one Piskey to another as\nthey crowded round him.\n\n'We would if we hadn't so much dancing to do,' they said. 'We have\nto dance in every Piskey-ring from Tintagel Head to Crackington Hawn\nup St. Gennys, before the moon grows as small as a wren's claw.'\n\n'Must I go by myself to search for my laugh?' said the poor little\nPiskey in a heart-breaking voice.\n\n'Yes, you must go by yourself to look for your laugh,' answered all the\nlittle Piskeys. 'You should not have been so foolish as to lose it;'\nand the selfish little Brown Men--Granfer Piskey, Fiddler Piskey,\nand all the other Piskeys--turned their backs on their unfortunate\nlittle brother, and ran away across the gardens and over the cliffs\ntowards Bossiney, half-way between which was another big Piskey-ring;\nand by-and-by the poor little Piskey who had lost his laugh heard in\nthe distance, as he sat all alone in the great grassy place, their\nmerry laughter and the music of Fiddler Piskey's tiny fiddle.\n\nHe was a very sad little Piskey as he listened to the merriment of\nhis little brother Piskeys, and the moon, sailing along the dark\nvelvety blue of the midnight sky above the ruins of King Arthur's\nCastle and Gardens, never looked down on such a woebegone little\nPiskey before. He had always been happy and gay till now, and having\nno laugh was such a strange experience that it was no wonder he felt\nas miserable and wisht [1] as he did.\n\nAs he sat there all alone on the ring his own little dancing feet\nhad helped to make, two tiny hands were suddenly thrust up out of\na small earth-heap half a foot from where he was sitting. So dainty\nwere the hands, that he thought they belonged to one of the little\nGood People, a distant relation of his; and thinking that somehow one\nhad got buried under the earth, he got up from the ring to help her\nout, and, without waiting to say 'Allow me,' or anything so polite,\nhe caught hold of the wee hands, and pulling with all his strength,\nhe dragged something very dark and soft out of the earth-heap, and saw\nto his surprise and disgust that it was the round plump body of a mole!\n\n'Whatever did you drag me out of the want-hill for, you horrid\ncreature! whoever you are?' cried the mole, who was not as soft as\nshe looked. 'It took me hours to throw up that beautiful hill, and\nnow it has fallen down into my tunnel, and my work will all have to\nbe done over again, thanks to you.'\n\n'I am so sorry,' said the Piskey. 'I saw two dinky little hands\nsticking up, and thought a relation of mine had got buried; and when I\ndid my best to get her out I found it was only a want, as the country\npeople call you moles.'\n\n'A want indeed!' exclaimed the mole. 'Who are you, pray, to speak so\ndisdainfully? If I am only a want, I was not always the poor thing\nI am now. Once upon a time I was a very great lady, and because I\nwas foolish and proud and very vain of my beauty I was turned into\na mole. My little hands are the only things left of me to show who\nI once was.'\n\n'I am very sorry for you,' said the Piskey, with strong note of\nsympathy in his voice, so entirely new to him that he scarcely knew it\nwas himself speaking; for Piskeys, although they are merry and gay, are\noften selfish in the extreme. 'I am more sorry for you than I can say,'\nhe went on. 'It cannot be nice to be only a want, when once you were\na beautiful lady. I am a Piskey,' as the little dark mole was silent.\n\n'A Piskey, are you?' she cried, speaking at last. 'I remember you\nlittle Piskey people quite well, and have cause to remember. Once,\nwhen I was a grand lady and wore fine clothes, you Piskeys led me into\na bog and spoilt my silken gown. I did not bless you then, and I do\nnot bless you now. You are still up to your tricks, I find to my cost,\nfor you have done your best to pull down my house about my ears.'\n\n'I did not mean to do anything so unkind,' said the little Piskey. 'I\nam not merry enough now to play games on anyone.'\n\n'How is that?' asked the mole.\n\n'I have lost my laugh, and my heart is as heavy as lead,' he answered\nsorrowfully.\n\n'Lost your laugh!' cried the mole. 'That is very strange.'\n\n'Yes, it is; and I am quite done for, so Granfer Piskey told my little\nbrothers, till I find it again.'\n\n'Why don't you go and look for your laugh instead of throwing down\nwant-hills?' said the mole severely. 'It would be more to your credit\nif you did.'\n\n'I suppose it would,' replied the Piskey; 'but, unfortunately,\nI don't know where to go and look for my laugh. Have you seen it?'\n\n'No, I haven't,' snapped the mole; 'I can't see without eyes. I\nhave lost my eyesight through working underground for so many long\ncenturies.'\n\n'Do you know anybody who has seen my laugh?' asked the little Piskey,\n'and who would kindly tell me where to go and find it?'\n\n'I am afraid I don't,' answered the mole, 'except the Little Man in\nthe Lantern. He is the most likely person I know to have seen your\nlaugh. He is always flipping about the country in the night-time in\nhis little Lantern, and sees most things that wander by night. He is\na kind-hearted little fellow, and if he has seen your laugh, he'll\nbe sure to help you to find it. You know, of course, where the little\nLantern Man is to be found?'\n\n'I have seen his Lantern in the marshes sometimes.' answered the\nPiskey. 'I saw it rush by a few weeks ago, when I and my brothers were\nlying snug and warm in a great Piskey-bed at Rough Tor Marsh. But as\nI do not happen to know the Lantern Man, will you please come with\nme to Rough Tor Marsh and ask him if he has seen my laugh?'\n\n'What next will you ask me to do?' cried the mole. 'No, I cannot go\nwith you. I am far too busy to go tramping round the country with a\nlittle Brown Piskey like you, in search of a laugh. I have a tunnel\nto make across Castle Gardens for my dear little baby wants to run\nabout in, and I must do it before the sun shines over the Tors. If\nyou really want to find your laugh, you must go and ask the Lantern\nMan yourself. The sooner you go the better, or you may lose the chance\nof asking him if he has seen it.'\n\n'I dare say you are right,' said the little Piskey, with a heavy\nsigh. 'But I don't like the idea of travelling all the way from here\nto Rough Tor Marsh. My feet are heavy like my heart, now I have lost my\nlaugh; yet I suppose I must go, for I am a wisht poor thing without it,\nand you would say so, too, Mrs. Mole, if your eyesight wasn't so bad.'\n\n'Mrs. Mole, indeed!' snapped the velvet-coated little creature,\nraising her tiny hands in anger at such an insult. 'I beg to tell\nyou that I am not Mrs. Mole, but the Lady Want, and that, although\nI have fallen from my high estate, I am still a lady of high degree,\nas my tiny hands bear witness;' and she held them out for him to see.\n\n'I'm not up in fine distinctions,' said the little Piskey in a humble\nvoice, 'and I beg your ladyship's pardon.'\n\nThe Piskey's sad little voice so appeased 'the Lady Want' that she\nfully forgave his ignorance, and told him he was quite nice-mannered\nfor a Piskey, and hoped the little Lantern Man had seen his laugh,\nand would be able to tell him where to find it; and then her little\nladyship disappeared into the mole-hill, her tiny lady hands and all!\n\nWhen she had gone, the little Piskey turned his face towards the east,\nwhere the Tors rose up dark and shadowy against the moonlit sky. Then\nhe looked back at the great keep, and turned his glance on the Castle\nGardens, where, in the long ago, courtly knights and great ladies\nwalked among the flowers that blossomed there under the shadow of\nthe loopholed walls, and listened, as they walked, to the music of\nthe Tintagel sea and the great waves that sometimes broke against\nthe dark cliffs of the headland on which the grim old castle stood,\nwhere Good King Arthur was born.\n\nThe little Piskey was saying good-bye to that delightful spot, with\nits soft turf and the beautiful Piskey-ring on which he had danced\ntimes without number; for the poor, lonely little fellow did not\nknow if he should ever come back again. Then he broke off a bit of\na knapweed stem for a staff to help him on his journey to Rough Tor\nMarsh, [2] and before the moon had laid down a lane of silver fire\non the rippling waters between Tintagel Head and Trevose, the little\nPiskey had set out on his travels in search of his laugh.\n\nPiskeys always travel by night, and after many nights of wandering,\nthe little Piskey who had lost his laugh came to the bog country,\nwhere he had last seen the little Lantern.\n\nVery tired and footsore was that poor little Piskey after his long\njourney, for, having lost his laugh, he had no dance in his feet to\nhelp him along, and he felt so done up as he sat by the great bog,\nor Piskey-bed, as he called it, that he did not much care whether he\nfound his laugh or not. But when he had rested awhile he felt better,\nand looked over the great marshy place with eager eyes, to see if\nthe little Lantern Man was anywhere about. To his delight he was;\nfor far away in the distance he saw the white gleam of his Lantern.\n\nHe kept his eyes upon the light, and by-and-by, when the Lantern\ncame rocking over the bog in his direction, he stood up on the edge\nof the water ready to call. It disappeared ever so many times among\nthe bog-myrtles and willows, but every time it reappeared it was\ncloser. When it came near enough for him to see the little Lantern\nMan inside, he shouted:\n\n'Little Man in the Lantern, please stop: I want to ask you\nsomething.' But whether the Lantern Man heard or not, he did not stop,\nand he and his Lantern flipped by the disappointed little Piskey as\nquickly as a widdy-mouse [3] on the wing, and was lost to sight in\nthe reeds and rushes on the other side of the great marsh.\n\nAfter a while the little Lantern Man came back to the place where the\nPiskey was still standing, and the light from the Lantern was brighter\nand softer than a hedge full of glow-worm lights shining all at once.\n\nAs the Lantern was passing the little Piskey, he called out louder\nthan before, 'Little Man in the Lantern, please stop; I want to ask\nyou something.' But the little Lantern Man did not stop, and he and\nhis Lantern rushed by as quickly as before, and the poor little Piskey\nfollowed the rocking Lantern with his eyes over the great marsh.\n\nJust as he was in despair of the wonderful little Lantern coming his\nway again, it came, and so fast did it come, and so afraid was he of\nits passing him without making himself heard, that he shouted with\nall his might, 'Please, little Lantern Man, stop; I want to ask you\nsomething.' And to his joy the little Lantern Man stopped. The door\nof the little Lantern opened wide, and a tiny, shining face looked out.\n\n'Did anybody call?' asked the little Lantern Man in a voice so kind\nthat the Piskey's little heart leaped for joy.\n\n'Yes, I called,' said the little Piskey. 'I called twice before,\nbut you did not stop.'\n\n'I never heard you call till now,' said the little Lantern Man. 'Who\nare you, and what do you want?'\n\n'I am an unfortunate little Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered\nthe Piskey, 'and I have tramped all the way from Tintagel Head to\nRough Tor Marsh to ask if you have seen it.'\n\n'Lost your laugh, you poor little chap!' ejaculated the little Lantern\nMan in the same kind voice. 'How came you to lose it?'\n\nThe little Piskey told him how he had lost his laugh, and what Granfer\nPiskey had said, and how the mole who called herself the Lady Want\nhad told him to come to him.\n\n'I would gladly help you to find your laugh if I knew where it\nwas,' said the Lantern Man when the Piskey had told him all; 'but,\nunfortunately, I have never seen it.'\n\n'Haven't you?' cried the poor little Piskey. 'I am disappointed. As\nyou are always travelling about the country in your little Lantern,\nI felt sure you had seen my laugh.'\n\n'I only travel in marshy ground,' said the little Lantern Man, still\nstanding in the doorway of his tiny Lantern; 'and your laugh may not\nhave passed along my way.'\n\n'Do you happen to know anybody else who has seen my laugh?' asked\nthe little Piskey anxiously.\n\n'Nobody except Giant Tregeagle, of whom I dare say you have heard--that\nunhappy fellow who for some terrible wrong-doing has to dip Dozmare\n[4] Pool dry with a limpet-shell.'\n\n'Yes, I have heard about that great Giant from Granfer Piskey,'\nanswered the little Piskey. 'He was a wicked seigneur who once had a\nfine house at Dozmare Pool and a great park on Bodmin Moors, and he\nis often flying about the country with the Wicked One at his heels.'\n\n'The very same,' cried the little Lantern Man. 'He travels from east\nto west, and from west to south, and back again. He will be sure to\nhave seen your laugh.'\n\n'I am afraid my laugh is too small for a great big giant to have\nnoticed, even if it passed him,' said the little Piskey.\n\n'He isn't so big but what he can see a laugh,' said the little Lantern\nMan. 'You had better go and ask him.'\n\n'I don't know where he is,' said the little Piskey, who was in a most\ndejected frame of mind.\n\n'He is at Dozmare Pool--or was not long since, doing his best to dip\nthe big pool dry.'\n\n'I am rather tired after tramping here from Tintagel,' said the\nlittle fellow, 'and I don't feel like going all the way to Dozmare\nPool. I have no spring in my legs since my laugh left me,' he added,\nas the little Lantern Man smiled rather sadly. 'I never knew what it\nwas to be tired and wisht before I lost my laugh.'\n\n'I don't suppose you did, you poor little chap!' cried the little\nLantern Man, 'and you must do all you can to find your laugh. I am\ngoing to Dozmare Pool, or the Magic Lake, as it was called in the\nlong ago; and if you don't mind travelling in my Lantern, I'll give\nyou a lift as far as that.'\n\n'Will you?' exclaimed the little Piskey, his tiny brown face\nbrightening as the Lantern Man smiled. 'You are very kind, and I will\ngo with you gladly.'\n\n'That's right!' cried the little Lantern Man; and he held out his\nhand, which shone like his face, and helped the little brown Piskey\ninto his Lantern.\n\nWhen the Piskey was safe inside the Lantern, he thought it was the\nvery brightest place he was ever in--'even brighter than a fairy's\npalace,' he said.\n\n'There is no seat in my Lantern except the floor,' said the little\nLantern Man, as the Piskey looked about him. 'The floor is not\nuncomfortable, if you care to sit down. I always sleep on it when\nmy night work of giving light to the poor things that live in the\nmarshes is done.'\n\n'I would rather stand, thank you.' returned the Piskey. 'I can look\nout of your windows better.'\n\n'Do as you like, only it is my duty to tell you that you would be safer\non the floor. My Lantern and I travel so fast that the creatures that\nfly by night often knock up against us and turn us upside down.'\n\nThe little Lantern Man shut the door of his Lantern as he was speaking,\nand in another minute they were rushing over Rough Tor Marsh at a\nfearful speed, and the little Piskey had to hold on to the frame of\none of the tiny windows to keep himself on his feet. By Rough Tor's\ngranite-piled heights the bright little Lantern went. On by Bronwilli\n(Brown Willy) it sped, and by many a solitary hill, almost as wild and\nuntamed as old Rough Tor itself. Over lonely moors, bogs, rivers, and\nstreams, it flew, and rocked and whirled as it went. As it sped on it\nbumped against all manner of strange creatures, and once a night-hawk\n[5] turned the little Lantern upside down, and the Piskey found himself\nstanding on his head with his tiny lean legs sticking up in the air;\nand he looked so funny that the little Lantern Man laughed till the\ntears ran down his shining face, and if the Piskey had had his laugh\nhe would have laughed too!\n\nOn and on the Lantern rushed, zigzagging up and down, down and up,\nand as it went strange moths and queer things that go about only by\nnight fluttered their wings against its bright windows and door. Once\na widdy-mouse, with a face like a cat, looked in, and then vanished\ninto the darkness; and once a short-eared owl gripped the Lantern in\nhis talons, but it sped on all the same.\n\nAbout an hour after midnight the Lantern reached Dozmare Pool,\nwhich lies on the top of a great lonely moor surrounded by desolate\nhills. The moon was only a few days old, and had set long before\nthe sun had gone down; but it was by no means dark by the big pool,\nfor there was starshine from innumerable stars, and also the light\nthat fell from the wonderful little Lantern.\n\nThe little Lantern Man stopped his Lantern on a boulder by the pool,\nwhere was stretched a huge dark form, almost as big as a headland. It\nwas Giant Tregeagle, lying face down on the margin of the pool,\ndipping water with a limpet-shell which had a hole in it.\n\nThe little Lantern Man opened the door of his Lantern, and telling\nthe little Piskey that now was his chance to ask the Giant about his\nlaugh, he helped him out.\n\n'Shout into his ear till he hears you,' he whispered, hanging out of\nhis door, 'and don't despair if he does not hear you just at first.'\n\nThe Piskey stepped up quite close to the great Giant, and he looked\nso tiny beside him that the little Lantern Man laughed, and said he\nwas like a God's little cow [6] by the side of a plough-horse. 'Why,'\nhe said, 'his ear alone would make a dozen little chaps like you and\nme. Now I must be off and give light to the poor things that want\nlight. Good luck to you, my friend, in finding your laugh;' and the\nlittle Lantern Man closed the door of his Lantern, which sped away\nover the big pool, shedding light as it went.\n\nThe Piskey watched the Lantern till it was hidden among the reeds and\nrushes, and then he turned his face to the Giant's ear, and when he\nhad climbed up into it, he shouted:\n\n'Giant Tregeagle, Giant Tregeagle, I am a poor little Piskey who has\nlost his laugh. Please stop dipping water for a minute, and tell me\nif you have seen it.'\n\nBut the Giant took no notice of the little Piskey, and went on dipping\nout water with a limpet-shell that had a hole in it.\n\nAgain and again the tiny brown Piskey shouted into the Giant's ear,\nbut the big Giant took no more notice of his little piping voice than\nif a fly had buzzed close to his ear, and went on dipping.\n\nOnce more the Piskey shouted with all the voice he had, thrusting\nhis red-capped head into the hollow of the Giant's ear as he shouted:\n\n'Giant Tregeagle, Giant Tregeagle, I am a poor little Piskey who has\nlost his laugh. Please stop dipping water for a minute, and tell me\nif you have seen it.'\n\nThis time the Giant heard, and without pausing for a moment his\nhopeless task of emptying the pool dry, he said:\n\n'What tiny squeak did I hear?'\n\nThe Piskey was too frightened to answer, for Giant Tregeagle's voice\nwas almost as loud as the roar of breakers breaking in the cavern\nunder King Arthur's Castle, and the tiny fellow crouched down in the\ncurl of the Giant's ear.\n\n'What tiny squeak did I hear?' again asked the Giant; and the little\nPiskey, taking his courage in both his hands, answered back as loud\nas he could:\n\n'It was a little Piskey who spoke to you--a little Piskey who has\nhad the great misfortune to lose his laugh.'\n\n'A little Piskey has lost his laugh, has he?' roared Giant\nTregeagle. 'Why, that's nothing compared to a Giant who has lost\nhis soul!'\n\n'Have you lost your soul?' cried the little Piskey, who, having got\nthe Giant's ear, could now make his tiny voice distinctly heard.\n\n'Yes, I have lost my soul,' moaned the great fellow, and his moan\nshivered over the surface of Dozmare Pool, and made all the sallows\nthat grew beside it shiver and shake as if a blasting wind had passed\nover them; and the reeds and rushes growing in the water sighed so\nsadly that the little Piskey felt ever so wisht, and sighed too.\n\n'How did you come to lose your soul, Mister Giant?' asked the little\nPiskey after a while.\n\n'That's a question,' answered the Giant, beginning again his hopeless\ntask of emptying the pool.\n\n'Have you never looked for your soul?' queried the tiny fellow who,\nhaving lost his laugh, felt very sorry for the unhappy Giant who had\nlost so precious a thing as his soul.\n\n'It was no good to look for my soul when I gave it away in exchange\nfor wealth,' cried the Giant; 'I can never get it back again unless\nI empty this big pool of every drop of water that is in it.'\n\n'And can't you do that, and you a giant?' asked the little Piskey\nin surprise.\n\n'I am afraid I can't with a limpet-shell that has a hole in it;\nand I am not allowed to use any other.'\n\n'Will you let me help you to empty the pool?' asked the tiny Piskey. 'I\nam only a little bit of a chap compared with you, I know--a God's\nlittle cow by the side of a plough-horse, the Man in the Lantern said,'\nas the Giant laughed sardonically; 'and my dinky hand is nothing for\nsize, but it hasn't a hole in it.'\n\n'You can help me if you like,' said the Giant with another sardonic\nlaugh. 'It will be perhaps another case of a mouse freeing the lion!'\n\n'Who knows?' cried the Piskey, who took the Giant's remark quite\nseriously; and climbing out of the huge ear, he slid down over the\nboulder to the pool, and making a dipper of his tiny hand, began to\ndip out water as fast as he could, and never stopped dipping once\ntill a movement behind him made him pause, and, looking up, he saw\nthe great big Giant on his feet towering above him like a tor, with\nan awful look of rage on his face.\n\n'I can never, never, empty Dozmare Pool with a limpet-shell that has a\nhole in it,' howled the Giant--'no, not if I dip till the Day of Doom;'\nand he flung the shell into the big pool. As he flung it a great blast\nof rage broke from him and lashed the dark water of the big pool in\nfury. He howled and howled, and his howls were heard in every part\nof the lonely waste surrounding the pool, and went roaring round\nand round the far-stretching moors, and were echoed by the desolate\nhills. By-and-by the Giant turned his back on the pool and strode\naway in the direction of the sea, howling and roaring as he went.\n\nThe little Piskey was so terrified by the Giant's roaring that he crept\ninto a water-rat's hole, and never ventured out for a night and a day.\n\nThe second night after the Giant had gone he came out of the hole\nto see if he had returned, but he had not. He was disappointed in\nspite of the fright he had received, for the Giant had never told\nhim whether he had seen his laugh, and he did not know where to go\nin search of it, or whom to ask if it had been seen.\n\nAs he thought about this, he became very miserable--almost as miserable\nas the unhappy Giant who had sold his soul, and he wished with all\nhis heart that the kind little Man in the Lantern would come his\nway again. As he was wishing this he looked over the big pool, which\nwas very dark and unlit by single star, when something very soft and\nbright smote the black water on the opposite side of the pool.\n\nThinking it was the dear little Man in his Lantern come in answer to\nhis wish, he fixed his gaze upon the brightness, and in a minute or\ntwo a little Barge shot out from the reeds and came swiftly towards\nhim, and he saw (for the Piskeys can see in the dark like a cat)\nthat the Barge was being rowed across the big pool by a little old\nman. The soft light that smote the water came from the prow of the\nlittle craft and lit up the face of the Bargeman, which was half\nturned towards the Piskey, and was very seared and brown.\n\nWhen the Barge came near the spot where the Piskey was standing,\nthe Tiny Bargeman said:\n\n'Who are you, looking as if you had the world on your back? and what\nare you doing here this time of night, when all good folk ought to\nbe in bed?'\n\n'I am a poor unfortunate Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered\nthe tiny little Piskey, and his voice was very sad.\n\n'It is a dreadful thing to lose your laugh,' said the little old\nBargeman.\n\n'It is,' responded the little Piskey. 'The little Man in the Lantern\nthought so too, and he brought me all the way from Rough Tor Marsh to\nDozmare Pool in his Lantern to ask Giant Tregeagle if he had seen it.'\n\n'And didn't you ask Giant Tregeagle that important question after the\nlittle Lantern Man had brought you so far?' asked the little Bargeman.\n\n'I did, but he was so troubled about something he had lost--his soul\nit was--that he forgot to say whether he had seen my laugh.'\n\n'That is a pity, for the Giant is now on St. Minver sand-hills\nmaking trusses of sand and sand-ropes to bind them with, and when\nthe sand-ropes break in his hand--which they are sure to do when\nhe tries to lift them--he will fly away to Loe Bar [7] to work at\nanother impossible task.'\n\n'How do you know that?' asked the little Piskey.\n\nThe Tiny Bargeman looked at the green-coated, red-capped little\nPiskey with a strange expression in his dark eyes for a second or two,\nand then he said:\n\n'I have lived so long in the world that I know most things. People\nwho knew me in a far-away time called me Merlin the Magician, and\nsaid I had all the secrets of the world in the back of my head.'\n\n'Then you will be able to tell me where my laugh has gone to?' struck\nin the little Piskey eagerly.\n\n'I was speaking more of the past than of the present,' said the Tiny\nBargeman. 'Since the time of which I spoke, I have lived here by this\nlake, now called Dozmare Pool. I lived sealed up in a stone, into\nwhich the Lady of the Lake shut me till a hundred years or so ago.'\n\n'How very unkind of the Lady to put you into a stone!' said the little\nPiskey indignantly. 'Whatever did she do it for?'\n\n'Thereby hangs a tale which is not good for a small Piskey like you\nto hear,' returned the Tiny Bargeman, with another strange look in\nhis dark, mysterious little eyes. 'When Nimue, the Lady of the Lake,\nshut me up in the stone--like a toad in a hole she said--she thought\nshe had done for me, and that I should soon die. But Merlin, the man\nwho worked magic, was not so easily got rid of.'\n\n'And didn't you die?' asked the Piskey innocently.\n\n'You must have lost your wits, as well as your laugh, to ask such a\nstupid question,' said the Tiny Bargeman. 'I did not die, or I should\nnot be sitting in this Barge now. But I grew down to the tiny old\nfellow you now see me through working my way out of that dreadful\nstone. My magical powers have also dwindled, I fear; for they are as\nnothing to what they once were. Therefore I am no longer Merlin the\nMagician, but only Merlin the Bargeman of Dozmare Pool.'\n\n'And can't you tell me where my laugh is?' asked the little Piskey\nwistfully. 'I am a miserable, poor thing without my laugh.'\n\n'I'm sure you are,' said the Tiny Bargeman, 'and I'll do what I\ncan to help you to find it. I wasn't shut up in a stone all those\ncenturies for nothing, as, perhaps, you have not lost your laugh for\nnothing. I'll tell you at once that your laugh has never been near\nthis desolate spot, but it is possible that Giant Tregeagle may have\nseen it on his wild flight down to St. Minver sand-hills, or maybe he\nhas seen it on the golden dunes. I advise you to go there and ask him.'\n\n'How can I get to the sand-hills?' asked the poor little Piskey. 'It\nwould take me such a long time to get there with no dance in my\nfeet; and there is no little Lantern Man here to give me a lift in\nhis Lantern.'\n\n'You need not trouble your head how you are to get to the\nsand-hills. I'll take you near there in my Barge.'\n\n'In your Barge?' echoed the little Piskey, looking over his shoulder\nto the long stretch of country between him and the sea, and then\nat the great pool set like a cup on the top of the moors, with no\nvisible outlet.\n\n'You are wondering how I can take you to the great outer sea,'\nsaid the Tiny Bargeman. 'For your satisfaction I will tell you that\nthere is an underground waterway that leads down to Trebetherick Bay,\nclose to St. Minver sand-hills. I will take you there in my Barge.'\n\n'Why are you so kind?' asked the little Piskey, looking gratefully\nat the little old Bargeman. 'My brothers were not nearly so kind.'\n\n'I saw you helping the wicked Giant to dip this great mere dry,\nand I thought so kind a deed deserved another,' answered the Little\nBargeman lightly; 'and I told myself as I watched you that I would\ndo you a kindness, if you needed a kindness. Will you let me take\nyou to Trebetherick Bay?'\n\n'Gladly,' answered the little Piskey.\n\n'Get into my Barge, then,' cried the little old Bargeman; and the\nPiskey scrambled in and sat in the stern of the Barge facing the\nBargeman.\n\n'I like rowing about this pool,' remarked the Tiny Bargeman, as he\nput his little craft about and began to row from the shore. 'It has so\nmany memories. It was here by this mere that the Lady of the Lake (not\nthe one who shut me up in a stone) forged the wonderful Excalibur, the\ntwo-handled sword with the jewelled hilt, which she gave to Arthur the\nKing, who, you know, afterwards ruled all the land. It was here that\nSir Bedivere--one of the Knights of the far-famed Round Table--flung\nthe sword by order of the wounded King, and was caught by the Lake\nLady's uplifted arm. It was here---- But you are not listening,'\nhe cried, breaking off his sentence as he noticed that the little\nPiskey was not paying any attention to what he was saying.\n\n'I'm afraid I wasn't,' he said, very much ashamed. 'I am very dull\nand stupid since I lost my laugh.'\n\n'You can't be more stupid than I was when I was shut up in the stone,'\nsaid the tiny old Bargeman; 'and I can well excuse your stupidity.'\n\nHe said nothing more, for just then the Barge reached the shore from\nwhich it had put off, and, without getting out, he reached over and\ntouched a big stone with an oar. He had no sooner touched the stone\nthan it sprang back, and revealed a dark, deep tunnel, into which\nthe little Barge shot like a thing alive.\n\n'This underground waterway was known to the fair ladies who lived by\nthe pool, and who took away the wounded King in their little ship to\nthe Vale of Avilion,' remarked the Bargeman when the stone shut up\nitself behind them.\n\n'Did they?' asked the little Piskey, trying to look interested.\n\n'Yes,' he answered; 'and they also knew of another waterway, which\nwill never be revealed to anybody except by the Good King,' he added\nhalf to himself, looking straight before him into the darkness of\nthe narrow passage as he steered.\n\nThe tiny Barge, which was a very ancient-looking little craft, with a\ngilded dragon forming its prow, sped on. But for its size, it might\nwell have been the same little ship to which Merlin, the little old\nBargeman, had just referred. The waterway was very long and deep,\nand the water ran so swiftly that the Barge did not now require to\nbe rowed. It was also very dark, and the only light that shone was\nthe light from the little boat.\n\nThe little old Bargeman did not speak again till a roaring fell on\ntheir ears.\n\n'It is the noise of water breaking on Padstow Doombar,' he said,\nas the little Piskey looked frightened.\n\n'I thought it was Giant Tregeagle howling,' gasped the little Piskey.\n\n'He hasn't tried to lift his sand-ropes yet, and he won't begin his\nhowl of rage till he finds how brittle they are,' said the Little\nBargeman.' And a very good thing for you,' he added; 'for he will be\nfar too angry to tell you whether he has seen your laugh when the\nropes of sand break in his great hand. There! we are close now to\nthe great outer sea,' he cried, as the thunder of waves broke more\nloudly on their ears, and they saw the light of many stars through\na narrow opening; and the next minute the little Barge came out into\nTrebetherick Bay.\n\n'You only have to go up across the hillocks,' said the little old\nBargeman, helping the little Piskey out of the barge, 'and if you\nfollow your nose you will soon get to where the Giant is busy making\nsand-ropes.'\n\n'Thank you for bringing me,' said the little Piskey; but he never knew\nwhether he was heard or not, for the Tiny Bargeman and his ancient\nBarge vanished as he spoke.\n\nThe Piskey made haste to follow his nose, and he scrambled up a\nsand-bank, and hastened as fast as his feet could take him over the\nsandy common, till he came to the place where Giant Tregeagle was\nsitting making sand-ropes to bind his trusses of sand which lay all\naround him. He was sitting by a hillock, his great head showing just\nabove it, when the Piskey came near.\n\nThe little Piskey climbed nearly to the top of the hillock, and when\nhe got close to the Giant's ear he shouted:\n\n'I am the little Piskey who told you he had lost his laugh. Please\nstop making sand-ropes for a minute and tell me if you have seen it.'\n\nBut the big Giant took no notice of the tiny voice, and went on making\nhis ropes of sand.\n\nThe little Piskey then got into his ear and poked his red-capped head\ninto the hollow of it, and again shouted:\n\n'I am the little Piskey who told you he had lost his laugh, and----'\n\n'Ah! the dinky little fellow who tried to help me to find my soul,'\ninterrupted the great Giant, in a voice almost as loud as the waves\nbreaking on the Padstow Doombar.\n\n'Yes,' answered the Piskey, 'and a dinky Little Bargeman brought me\nfrom Dozmare Pool to Trebetherick that you might answer my question.'\n\n'I know who you mean--Merlin, the little old Master of Magic,' cried\nthe Giant in evident astonishment, pausing in his work of making a\nrope of sand to stare at the little Piskey. 'Fancy his bringing a\ntiny brown fellow like you from Dozmare Pool to Trebetherick Bay in\nhis Magic Barge! Pigs will fly and sing after this!'\n\n'He saw me helping you to dip the pool dry, and said that one kind deed\ndeserved another,' said the Piskey as meek as a harvest-mouse. 'So\nhe brought me all the way down to St. Minver to know if you had seen\nmy laugh. Have you seen it, Mister Giant?'\n\n'No, I have not seen it,' answered the Giant. 'Nothing so cheerful\nas a Piskey's laugh would come near such a mountain of misery as I\nam; and if by an evil chance it did come, it would flee far from my\ndark shadow.'\n\n'Do you know anyone else who has seen my laugh?' asked the little\nPiskey piteously.\n\n'Not one; unless your cousins, the Night-riders, have,' answered the\nGiant, looking at the sand-ropes he had just finished, lying at his\nfeet. 'I must now begin to bind my trusses of sand.'\n\nHe stooped to lift them as he spoke, and as he tried to take them up\nthey fell to pieces in his hand. As they crumbled away his face was\nawful to see, and he began to howl and roar, and his cries of rage\nrang out over the sand-hills and over Trebetherick Bay, and were\nheard above the noise of waves breaking on the Padstow Doombar.\n\nThose roars of rage and anger so frightened the people living in the\nvillages in the neighbourhood of the common that they shook in their\nbeds, and as for the little Piskey, he was so terrified by what he\nhad heard and seen that he tumbled over the hillock up which he had\nclimbed to get into the Giant's ear.\n\nWhen he had picked himself up, Giant Tregeagle was flying away like\nan evil bird towards the south.\n\nThe dawn broke soon after the Giant had gone, and as Piskeys always\nhide by day, he hid himself under a clump of tamarisk, and stayed\nthere till the dark and the stars came again. When he came out he\nremembered what the Giant had said--that perhaps his cousins, the\nNight-riders, had seen his laugh. The moon being several days older\nthan when the kind little Lantern Man had taken him to Dozmare Pool,\nit was now shining brightly over the common, and he knew if the\nNight-riders were in the neighbourhood of the sand-hills they would\nsoon be riding over the common.\n\nAs he was gazing about with wistful eyes a young colt came galloping\nalong with scores of little Night-riders astride his back, and as\nmany more hanging on to his mane and tail.\n\nThe Night-riders, who were little people no bigger than Piskeys,\nand quite as mischievous, had taken the colt from a farmer's stable\nclose to the common, and were enjoying their stolen ride as only\nNight-riders could.\n\nAs they and the colt drew near, the little Piskey stood out in the\nmoonshine and shouted:\n\n'Night-riders, Night-riders, please stop! I want to ask you something.'\n\nBut the little Night-riders were enjoying their gallop too much to\nlisten or stop, and they flew by like the wind.\n\nThe colt was fresh, and galloped like mad, and soon went round the\ncommon and back again; and as he was galloping by, the Piskey once\nmore shouted to the little Night-riders to stop, but they took no heed,\nand once more flew by like the wind.\n\nEver so many times the colt galloped round the sandy common, leaping\nover the hillocks in his mad gallop, and each time he passed, the\nlittle Piskey stood out in the moonshine and called out, but the\nNight-riders took not the slightest notice, nor pulled up the colt\nto see what he wanted.\n\nAt last, when the Piskey had given up all hope of the Night-riders\nstopping, the colt, who was quite worn out with galloping so hard\nround and round the broken common, put his foot into a rabbit-hole\nand came down with a crash, with his many little riders on top of him.\n\nOne little Night-rider, who happened to be astride the colt's left ear,\nwas pitched off at the Piskey's feet.\n\nHe looked as bright as a robin in his little red riding-coat, brown\nleggings, and his bright green cap with a wren's feather stuck in\nits front.\n\nWhen he had picked himself up, he thrust his tiny brown hands into\nhis breeches pocket, stared hard at the little Piskey, and cried:\n\n'What wisht little beggar are you?'\n\n'I am a poor little chap who has lost his laugh,' answered the\nPiskey. 'I shouted every time you galloped the colt past here to ask\nif you had seen it, but you never stopped.'\n\n'Of course we did not stop galloping because a Piskey called,' said\nthe little Night-rider. 'How came you to be such a gawk as to lose\nyour laugh?'\n\n'I have no idea,' the Piskey returned. 'I only know it went away all\nof a sudden, and I have been searching for it ever since. Have you\nseen my little lost laugh?'\n\n'No; but Granfer Night-rider may have,' answered the little\nNight-rider. 'He has wonderful eyes for seeing things that are lost.'\n\n'Is Granfer Night-rider here?' asked the Piskey, sending his glance\nin the direction of the colt, which was almost smothered with\nNight-riders, some standing on his side as he lay, others still in\nthe stirrups they had made in his tail and mane.\n\n'He was on top of the colt's tail a minute ago,' answered the little\nNight-rider, following the Piskey's glance. 'There he is,' pointing\nto a tiny old fellow with a bushy grey beard coming towards them,\ncarrying a tamarisk switch in his hand, with which he lashed the air\nas he came. He wore a red riding-coat, green breeches, red cap and\nfeather like the other little Night-riders.\n\n'What woebegone little rascal are you?' asked the old Greybeard,\nstaring hard at the Piskey.\n\n'A Piskey who has lost his laugh,' answered the little Night-rider\nfor him, 'and he had the impertinence to want us to stop galloping\nto tell him if we had seen it.'\n\n'You were very foolish to lose your laugh,' said Granfer Night-rider,\nstanding in front of the unhappy little Piskey. 'How did you manage\nto lose it?'\n\nAnd the poor little fellow, without lifting his eyes from the sandy\nground, told him.\n\n'You are in Queer Lane, my son,' said Granfer Night-rider, when he\nhad told him how he had lost his laugh, 'and I would not give a grain\nof corn for you.'\n\n'Wouldn't you?' wailed the poor little Piskey.\n\n'No, I wouldn't, nor half a grain either.'\n\nQuite a crowd of scarlet-coated little Night-riders had gathered near\nthe Piskey by this time, and had listened to all that was said, and\none little Night-rider asked if a Piskey had ever had the misfortune\nto lose his laugh before.\n\n'Yes, once in the long ago,' answered the old Greybeard, fixing his\neye on the little Piskey, who trembled beneath his gaze, 'and what\nwas worse still, he never found it again. And so very unhappy was\nthat little fellow without his laugh, and so miserable did he make\neverybody with his bewailings, that at last the Piskey tribe to which\nhe belonged sent out a command that whoever found him wandering about\nthe country was to take him in charge as a Piskey vagrant, put him\ninto a Piskey-bag, and hang him upside down like a widdy-mouse in\nthe first cavern they came to. He was found, put into a Piskey-bag,\nand hung up in a cavern. There he is still, and there he will hang\ntill there are no more Small People!'\n\n'Has the order yet been given for this little Piskey vagrant to be\ntaken up and treated in like manner?' asked another little Night-rider.\n\nThe poor little Piskey did not wait to hear the answer, but took to\nhis heels and ran as fast as he could to the north, and the little\nNight-riders who were still standing on the colt watched him till he\nwas out of sight, and Granfer Night-rider and all the other little\nNight-riders yelled after him to stop, but he did not stop.\n\nThe Piskey ran and ran, and he never stopped running till he came to\nCastle Gardens, whence he had started.\n\nWhen he got there he was as exhausted as a colt ridden all night by\nnaughty Night-riders, and he sank down all of a heap by the side of\na mole-hill, where two tiny hands were again sticking up.\n\n'Is your ladyship under the hill?' asked the little Piskey when he\ncould speak.\n\n'Yes,' answered the mole. 'Who are you?'\n\n'The little Piskey who lost his laugh.'\n\n'What! haven't you found it yet?'\n\n'No,' he answered sadly, 'and I am dreadfully afraid I never shall. If\nI don't find it soon I shall be taken up for a Piskey vagrant, put\nin a bag, and hung upside down like a widdy-mouse in some cavern.'\n\n'That will be a very tragic ending to a bright little Piskey,' said\nthe mole. 'Tell me how you know that that will be your fate if you\ndon't find your laugh.'\n\nAnd the Piskey told her. In fact, the Lady Want was so interested\nabout what Granfer Night-rider had said that she begged him to tell\nher all his adventures from the time he set out to Rough Tor Marsh\nin search of his laugh till his return to Castle Gardens, which he\nwas quite glad to do.\n\n'You ought to find your laugh after all your travels and what you\nhave gone through,' said the Lady Want when he had related everything,\n'and I hope you will.'\n\n'Does your ladyship happen to know anybody else who may have seen my\nlaugh?' asked the little Piskey wistfully.\n\n'Only one.'\n\n'And who may that one be?' queried the little Piskey. 'Will your\nladyship be kind enough to tell me?'\n\n'The Good King Arthur,' the mole answered in a low voice.\n\n'Good King Arthur!' ejaculated the Piskey. 'Why, he is dead, and a\ndead King is no more good than a Piskey without his laugh.'\n\n'King Arthur is not dead,' said the mole.\n\n'Not dead!' echoed the little Piskey in great surprise.\n\n'No; he was seen perched only last evening on his own seat, which is\nstill called King Arthur's Seat, and which, as I dare say you know,\noverhangs the sea.'\n\n'Arthur the King not dead!' whispered the little Piskey, as if he\ncould not get over his amazement.\n\n'A precious good thing for you he isn't,' snapped the mole.\n\n'But how isn't he dead?' asked the little Piskey.\n\n'Because he was changed by magic into a bird,' answered the mole;\n'he haunts the Dundagel [8] cliffs and the ruins of his old castle in\nthe form of a chough. He was wounded almost unto death in his last\ngreat battle, it is true,' she added, for the small man looked as\nif he wanted this strange happening fully explained, 'and the marks\nof the battle he fought and the hurts he received are yet upon him,\nas the legs and beak of the great black bird plainly show--as plainly\nas my own tiny hands that I was once a great lady. But he is still\nalive. If you should see a bird with a red beak and legs flying over\nKing Arthur's Castle as day is beginning to break, you may be quite\ncertain that he is King Arthur. If he has seen your laugh he will be\nsure to tell you. He is very kind and good, as all the world knows.'\n\n'I am glad the Good King is not dead,' said the little Piskey. 'I'll\ntry and keep awake till the dawn so that I can ask him about my laugh;\nbut I am so tired.'\n\nThe little fellow did his best to keep awake, but he was too worn out\nwith his run from St. Minver sand-hills to Tintagel Castle to sit and\nwatch for the coming of the red-legged bird; and long before the sun\nwheeled up behind the Tors and shone upon the sea he was sound asleep\nunder a great mallow growing by one of the grey old walls. When he\nawoke a day and a night had come and gone, and the birth of a new\nday was at hand.\n\nWhen he crawled out from under the mallow, the first thing he saw on\nthe Island facing him was the dark form of a great black chough. He\nwas perched on the wall above the old arched doorway, gazing gravely\nin front of him.\n\nThe Piskey lost not a moment in getting across to the Island, which\nhe did by the Piskey passage known only to the Piskeys; and when he\nhad caught the bird's attention he said:\n\n'I am a poor little Piskey who has lost his laugh, and I am come to\nask the Good King Arthur if he has seen it.'\n\nBut the bird was too high up for him to make himself heard, and he\nhad to wait patiently till it flew down. After waiting a short time\nit did, and perched on a stick stuck in the ground.\n\nThe Piskey ran over, and, clasping his hands, he repeated what he\nhad just said.\n\n'How came you to know I was King Arthur?' asked the chough, ignoring\nthe little fellow's question.\n\n'The mole who says she is the Lady Want told me,' he answered.\n\n'Ah, I know her--the grand lady who considered the ground on which\nshe walked was not good enough for her dainty feet, and has now,\nas a punishment, to walk under the ground--a lesson to all children\nof pride.'\n\n'But please, Good King Arthur, answer my question about my laugh,'\npleaded the little Piskey, in an agony of impatience. 'If I don't\nfind it soon something dreadful will happen to me.'\n\n'Have patience,' said the chough kindly. 'Nothing is ever won by\nimpatience. I have seen something very funny lately running about\nover the grass. It is like nothing I have ever seen before except in\na Piskey's face when he laughs. It is like a laugh gone mad, and it is\nenough to kill a man with laughing only to watch its antics. It made me\nlaugh till I ached when I first noticed it. It does not make a sound,\nbut its grimaces are worth flying a hundred miles only to see.'\n\n'It must have been my laugh you saw,' cried the Piskey--'my dear\nlittle lost laugh that I have travelled so far to find. Where is it\nnow, Good King Arthur?'\n\n'It was here not long since,' answered the bird, who did not deny\nthat he was Arthur the King. 'Why, there it is quite close to you,'\npointing with his long-pointed beak to the most comical-looking\nthing you ever saw, on the grass a foot from where the Piskey was\nstanding. 'It was a laugh gone mad,' as the chough said.\n\nThe Piskey looked behind him, and when he saw the little bit of\nlaughing, grinning absurdity on the grass, he jumped for joy and\nshrieked: 'It is my own little laugh that I lost!'\n\nHolding out both his arms, he cried, 'Oh, dear little laugh, come back\nto me! Oh, dear little laugh, come back to me!' And the droll little\nthing, which was a grin with a laugh and a laugh with a grin, came over\nto the Piskey, and began to climb up his legs, grinning and doubling\nitself up with laughter as it climbed, till it reached his chin,\nwhen it narrowed itself into a tiny grin and vanished into the Piskey.\n\nThe next moment the Piskey was shouting at the top of his voice, 'I\nhave got my laugh! I have got my laugh!' and he ran off laughing and\ndancing to the edge of the cliff and disappeared into the Piskey-hole,\nand in a few minutes more he was on Castle Gardens in the great\nPiskey-ring, laughing and dancing and dancing and laughing.\n\nHis laugh was so loud and so free that his brother Piskeys heard him\nfrom afar, and came running over the cliffs from Bossiney to see what\never had happened.\n\nLittle Fiddler Piskey was the first to reach the Gardens, and the\nfirst glance at the little whirling figure told him that his little\nbrother had found his laugh; and putting his fiddle in position,\nhe began fiddling away as hard as he could.\n\nAs he fiddled, the other Piskeys, including Granfer Piskey, reached\nthe ring, and the next minute they were all dancing and laughing as\nthey had never laughed and danced before; but the one who laughed\nthe heartiest was the little Piskey who had lost and found his laugh.\n\nThey danced for a good hour, the little fiddler in their midst fiddling\nhis fiddle, all the while keeping time with his head and foot, heedless\nthat the daylight was driving the darkness away to the country to which\nit belongs; and King Arthur the Bird flew up on the wall and watched,\nand the mole who called herself the Lady Want let her dainty hands\nbe seen on the mole-hill, till the fiddling, dancing, and laughing\nwere finished, and the Piskeys went off to the Piskey-beds to sleep.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LEGEND OF THE PADSTOW DOOMBAR\n\n\nIn a far-away time Tristram Bird of Padstow bought a gun at a little\nshop in the quaint old market which in those days opened to the quay,\nthe winding river, and the St. Minver sand-hills. When he had bought\nhis gun he began forthwith to shoot birds and other poor little\ncreatures.\n\nAfter a while he grew more ambitious, and told the fair young maids of\nPadstow that he wanted to shoot a seal or something more worthy of his\ngun; and so one bright morning he made his way down to Hawker's Cove,\nnear the mouth of the harbour.\n\nWhen Tristram got there he looked about him to see what he could shoot,\nand the first thing he saw was a young maid sitting all alone on a\nrock, combing her hair with a sea-green comb.\n\nHe was so overcome at such an unexpected sight that he quite forgot\nwhat had brought him to the cove, and could do nothing but stare.\n\nThe rock on which the maiden sat was covered with seaweed, and\nsurrounded by a big pool, called in that distant time the Mermaid's\nGlass.\n\nShe was apparently unconscious that a good-looking young man was\ngazing at her with his bold dark eyes, and as she combed her long and\nbeautiful hair she leaned over the pool and looked at herself in the\nMermaid's Glass, and the face reflected in it was startling in its\nbeauty and charm.\n\nTristram Bird was very tall--six feet three in his stockings--and\nbeing such a tall young man, he could see over the maiden's head into\nthe pool, and the face in its setting of golden hair reflected in its\nclear depths entirely bewitched him, and so did her graceful form,\nwhich was partly veiled in a golden raiment of her own beautiful hair.\n\nAs he stood gazing at the bewitching face looking up from the Mermaid's\nGlass, its owner suddenly glanced over her shoulder, and saw Tristram\nstaring at her.\n\n'Good-morning to you, fair maid,' he said, still keeping his bold\ndark eyes fixed upon her, telling himself as he gazed that her face\nwas even more bewitching than was its reflection.\n\n'Good-morning, sir,' said she.\n\n'Doing your toilet out in the open,' he said.\n\n'Yes,' quoth she, wondering who the handsome youth could be and how\nhe came to be there.\n\n'Your hair is worth combing,' he said.\n\n'Is it?' said she.\n\n'It is, my dear,' he said. ''Tis the colour of oats waiting for\nthe sickle.'\n\n'Is it?' quoth she.\n\n'Yes; and no prettier face ever looked into the Mermaid's Glass.'\n\n'How do you know?' asked she.\n\n'My heart told me so,' he said, coming a step or two nearer the pool,\n'and so did my eyes when I saw its reflection looking up from the\nwater. It bewitched me, sweet.'\n\n'Did it?' laughed she, with a tilt of her round young chin.\n\n'Yes,' he said, with an answering laugh, drawing another step nearer\nthe pool.\n\n'It does not take a man of your breed long to fall in love,' said\nthe beautiful maid, with a toss of her golden head and a curl of her\nsweet red lips.\n\n'Who told you that?' asked the love-sick young man, going red as\na poppy.\n\n'Faces carry tales as well as little birds,' quoth she.\n\n'If my face is a tale-bearer, it will tell you that I love you more\nthan heart can say and tongue can tell,' he said, drawing yet nearer\nthe pool.\n\n'Will it?' said she, combing her golden hair with her sea-green comb.\n\n'Indeed it will, and must,' he said; 'for I love you with all my soul,\nand I want you to give me a lock of your golden hair to wear over\nmy heart.'\n\n'I do not give locks of my hair to landlubbers!' cried she, with\nanother toss of her proud young head and a scornful curl of her bright\nred lips.\n\n'A landlubber forsooth!' he said, with an angry flash in his bold\nblack eyes. 'Who are you to speak so scornfully of a man of the\nland? One would think you were a maid of the sea.'\n\n'I am,' quoth she, twining the tress of her hair she had combed round\nher shell-pink arm.\n\n'No seamaid is half as beautiful as you,' said Tristram Bird,\nincredulous of what the maid said. 'But, maid of the sea or maid of\nthe land, I love you, sweet, and I want to have you to wife.'\n\n'Want must be your master, sir,' said she, with an angry flash in\nher sea-blue eyes.\n\n'Love is my master, sweet maid,' he said. 'You are my love, and you\nhave mastered me.'\n\n'Have I?' said she, with a little toss of her golden head.\n\n'Yes,' he said; 'and now that I have told you you are my love, and\nI want you to marry me, you will give me a lock of your golden hair,\nwon't you, sweet?'\n\n'I cannot,' said she.\n\n'Give me one little golden wire of your hair, if you won't give me a\nlock,' he pleaded, coming close to the edge of the pool. 'I will make\na golden ring of it,' he said, 'and wear it in the eye of the world.'\n\n'Will you?' said she.\n\n'I will, my dear,' he said.\n\n'But I will not give you a hair of my head even to make a ring with,'\nsaid she.\n\n'Then give me one for a leading-string,' he said. 'If you will,\nmy charmer, you shall take the end of it and lead me whithersoever\nyou will.'\n\n'Even to the whipping-post?' said she.\n\n'Even to the whipping-post,' he said. 'So you will be my fair bride,\nwon't 'ee, sweet? If you will consent to love me, I'll make you as\nhappy as the day is long.'\n\n'Will you?' cried she, with a warning look in her sea-blue eyes and\na strange little laugh.\n\n'Yes,' he said, thinking her answer meant consent. 'And I've got a\ndear little house at Higher St. Saviour's, overlooking the river and\nPadstow Town low in the valley.'\n\n'Have you?' said she.\n\n'I have,' he said. 'And the little house is full of handsome things--a\nchestful of linen which my own mother wove for me on her loom against\nthe time I should be wed to a pretty maid like you, an oaken dresser\nwith every shelf full of cloam, [9] and a cosy settle where we can\nsit hand in hand talking of our love. You will marry me soon, won't\nyou, sweet? The little house, and all that's in it, is waiting for\nmy charmer.'\n\n'Is it?' cried the beautiful maid, taking up another tress of her\ngolden hair, and slowly combing its silken length with her sea-green\ncomb. 'But let me tell you once and for ever, I would not marry\nyou if you were decked in diamonds and your house a golden house,\nand everything in it made of jewels and set in gold.'\n\n'Wouldn't you?' cried Tristram Bird, in great amazement.\n\n'I wouldn't,' said she.\n\n'You are a strange young maid to refuse an upstanding young man like\nme,' he said, 'who has a house of his own, to say nothing of what is\ninside it. Why, dozens of fair young maidens up to Padstow would have\nme to-morrow if I was only to ax them.'\n\n'Then ax them,' cried the beautiful maid, turning her proud young head,\nand looking out towards Pentire, gorgeous in its spring colouring.\n\n'But I can't ask any of them to marry me when I love you,' cried the\ninfatuated youth. 'You have bewitched me, sweet, and no other man\nshall have you. If I can't have you living, I'll have you dead. I\ncame down to Hawker's Cove to shoot something to startle the natives\nof Padstow Town, and they will be startled, shure 'nough, if I shoot\na beautiful little vixen like you and take home to them.'\n\n'Shoot me if you will, but marry you I will not,' said the beautiful\nmaiden, with a scornful laugh. 'But I give you fair warning that if\nyou shoot me, as you say you will, you will rue the day you did your\nwicked deed. I will curse you and this beautiful haven, which has\never been a refuge for ships from the time that ships sailed upon the\nseas;' and her sea-blue eyes looked up and down the estuary from the\nheadlands that guarded its mouth to the farthest point of the blue,\nwinding river.\n\n'I will shoot you in spite of the curse if you won't consent to be\nmine,' cried the bewitched young man.\n\n'I will never consent,' said she.\n\n'Then I will shoot you now,' he said, and Tristram Bird lifted his gun\nand fired, and the ball entered the poor young maiden's soft pink side.\n\nShe put her hand to her side to cover the gaping wound the shot\nhad made, and as she did so she pulled herself out of the water,\nand where the feet should have been was the glittering tail of a fish!\n\n'I have shot a poor young Mermaid,' Tristram cried, 'and woe is\nme!' and he shivered like one when somebody is passing over his grave.\n\n'Yes, you have shot a poor Mermaid,' said the maid of the sea,\n'and I am dying, and with my dying breath I curse this safe harbour,\nwhich was large enough to hold all the fighting ships of the Spanish\nArmada and your own, and it shall be cursed with a bar of sand which\nshall be a bar of doom to many a stately ship and many a noble life,\nand it shall stretch from the Mermaid's Glass to Trebetherick Bay on\nthe opposite shore, and prevent this haven of deep water from ever\nagain becoming a floating harbour save at full tide. The Mermaid's\nwraith will haunt the bar of doom her dying curse shall bring until\nyour wicked deed has been fully avenged;' and looking round the great\nbay of shining waters, laughing and rippling in the eye of the sun,\nshe raised her arms and cursed the harbour of Padstow with a bitter\ncurse, and Tristram shuddered as he listened, and as she cursed she\nuttered a wailing cry and fell back dead into the pool, and the water\nwhere she sank was dyed with her blood.\n\n'I have committed a wicked deed,' said Tristram Bird, gazing into\nthe blood-stained pool, 'and verily I shall be punished for my sin;'\nand he turned away with the fear of coming doom in his heart.\n\nAs he went up the cove and along the top of the cliffs the distressful,\nwailing cry of the Mermaid seemed to follow him, and the sky gloomed\nall around as he went, and the sea moaned a dreadful moan as it came\nup the bay.\n\nWhen he reached Tregirls, overlooking the Cove, he stood by the gate\nfor a minute and gazed out over the beautiful harbour. The sea, which\nonly half an hour ago was as blue as the eyes of the seamaid he had\nshot, and full of smiles and laughter, was now black as ash-buds,\nsave where a golden streak lay across the water from Hawker's Cove\nto Trebetherick Bay.\n\n'The Mermaid's curse is already working,' moaned Tristram Bird, and\nhe fled through the lane leading to Padstow as if a death-hound was\nafter him.\n\nWhen he reached Place House he met a little crowd of Padstow maids\ngoing out flower-gathering.\n\n'Whither away so fast, Tristram Bird?' asked a little maid. 'You\naren't driving a teem of snails this time, 'tis plain to see. Where\nhast thou been?'\n\n'Need you ask?' said a pert young girl. 'He has been away shooting\nsomething to startle the maids of Padstow with! What strange new\ncreature did you shoot, Tristram Bird?'\n\n'A wonderful creature with eyes like blue fire,' returned the unhappy\nyouth, looking away over St. Minver dunes towards the Tors--'a sweet,\nsoft creature with beautiful hair, every wire of which was a sunbeam\nof gold, and her face was the loveliest I ever beheld. It clean\nbewitched me.'\n\n'A beautiful maid like that, and yet you shot her?' cried all the\nyoung maids of Padstow Town.\n\n'Yes, I shot her, to my undoing and the undoing of our fair haven,'\ngroaned Tristram Bird; and he told them all about it--where he had\nseen the beautiful Mermaid, of his bewitchment from the moment he saw\nher face of haunting charm looking up at him from the Mermaid's Glass,\nand of the curse she uttered ere she fell back dead into the pool.\n\nAll the smiles went out of the bright faces of the Padstow maids,\nas he told his tale.\n\n'What a pity, Tristram Bird, you should have been so foolish as to\nshoot a Mermaid!' they said; and they did not go and pick flowers as\nthey had intended, but went back to their homes instead, and Tristram\nBird went on to Higher St. Saviour's, where he lived in a little\nhouse overlooking Padstow Town nestling like a bird in its nest.\n\nA fearful gale blew on the night of the day Tristram Bird shot\nthe Mermaid, and all the next day, too, and the next night; and\nthrough the awful howling of the gale was heard the bellowing of the\nwind-tormented sea.\n\nSuch a terrible storm had never been known at Padstow Town within the\nmemory of man, so the old Granfer men said, and never a gale lasted\nso long.\n\nWhen the wind went down the natives of Padstow ventured out to see what\nthe gale had wrought, and sad was the havoc it had made; and some went\nout to Chapel Stile, where a small chapel stood overlooking the haven,\nand what should meet their horrified gaze but a terrible bar of sand\nwhich the Mermaid's curse had brought there; and it stretched from\nHawker's Cove to the opposite shore, and what was worse, the great\nsand-bar was covered with wrecks of ships and bodies of drowned men.\n\n'It is the bar of doom brought there by the fearful curse of the\nmaid of the sea whom I shot with my brand-new gun,' cried Tristram\nBird, who was one of the first to reach the stile when the wind had\ngone down; and he told them all, as he had told the Padstow maids,\nof what the Mermaid had said before and after he had shot her. 'And\nbecause of the wicked deed I did,' he said, 'I have brought a curse\non my native town, and Padstow will never be blessed with a safe and\nbeautiful harbour till the poor Mermaid's death be avenged.'\n\nThere was a dreadful silence after Tristram Bird had spoken, and the\nmen and women of Padstow Town gazed at each other, troubled and sad,\nknowing that what the youth, who had been bewitched by the Mermaid's\nface, had said was true, for there below them was the great bar of\nsand dividing the outer harbour from the inner, and on it lay the masts\nand spars of broken ships and the lifeless bodies of the drowned. The\nwind was quiet, but the sea was still breaking and roaring on the\nback of the Doombar, and as the waves thundered and broke, a wailing\ncry sounded forth, like the wail that Tristram heard when the Mermaid\ndisappeared under the water; it sounded like the distressful cry of\na woman bewailing her dead, and all who heard shivered and shook,\nand both old and young looked down on the Doombar with dread in their\neyes, but they saw nothing but the dead bodies of the sailors and\ntheir broken ships.\n\n'It is the Mermaid's wraith,' cried an old Granfer man, leaning\nagainst the grey walls of the ancient chapel, 'and she is wailing the\nwail of the drowned; and, mark my words, everyone,' letting his eyes\nwander from one face to another, 'each time a ship is caught on this\ndreadful bar and lives are lost--as lost they will be--the Mermaid's\nwraith will bewail the drowned.'\n\n\n\nAnd it came to pass as the old man said, and whenever vessels are\nwrecked on that fateful bar of sand lying across the mouth of Padstow\nHarbour and men are drowned, it is told that the Mermaid's distressful\ncry is still heard bewailing the poor dead sailors.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LITTLE CAKE-BIRD\n\n\nOn the Tregoss Moors, where in the long-ago King Arthur and his Noble\nKnights went a-hunting, was a quaint old thatched cottage built of\nmoorstone, and in it lived an old woman called Tamsin Tredinnick and\nher little grand-daughter Phillida; it stood between Castle-an-Dinas--a\ngreat camp-crowned hill--and the far-famed Roche Rocks.\n\nIt possessed only one room, which, fortunately, was fairly large, for\nit had to contain most of old Tamsin's possessions, including a low\nwooden bedstead, an old oak dresser, a hutch for the grail--a coarse\nflour of which she made bread for herself and little Phillida--and\nher spinning-wheel.\n\nAt the side of the cottage was a small linhey, or outhouse, the door\nof which the old woman always kept open in inclement weather that the\nwild creatures of the moors might take shelter from the cold and from\nthe storms that swept over the great exposed moorland spaces.\n\nTamsin was very poor, and could only earn enough to pay the rent of her\ncottage and to keep herself and little grandchild, who was an orphan,\nin grail-bread and coarse clothes. This she did by spinning wool,\nwhich she sold to a wool-merchant at St. Columb, a small market-town\nsome miles away. She was advanced in years, and getting more unfit\nto spin every year, she told herself; and the less wool she spun\nthe less money she had to spend on food and clothes for herself\nand Phillida. But, poor as she was, she was honest and good, and so\nwas her little orphaned grandchild. They seldom complained, and when\nthings were at their worst, and there was no grail left to make bread,\nor money to buy any, they told each other they had what bettermost\npeople had not--wide moors to look out upon, and pure moorland air,\nfragrant with moor-flowers, to breathe into their lungs, little birds\nto sing to them most of the year, and dear little Piskeys to laugh\noutside their window in the dusk when they were very wisht. [10]\n\nTamsin was a child of Nature, and she loved the big, lonely moors,\ngorgeous with broom and gorse in the spring-time and fading bracken\nin the autumn months, with all her simple heart, and so did little\nPhillida. They loved all the moor-flowers--even the duller blossoms\nof the mint and nettle tribes--that made those great, lonely spaces\nso wonderful and so full of charm. There was not a flower that broke\ninto beautiful life on the moors but had a place in their hearts. They\nwere their near and dear relations, they said, and as for the birds\nand other creatures that lived on the moorland, they were to them, as\nto St. Francis, their brothers and sisters, and even the Piskeys--the\nCornish fairies--had a warm place in their affections.\n\nNot a great way from Tamsin's cottage was a large Piskey Circle where\nthe Tregoss Piskeys danced when the nights were fine and the moon\nwas up, and often when they danced the old grandmother and her little\ngrandmaid would come out on the step of their door and watch them.\n\nThey could see the Piskey Circle quite distinctly from the doorstep,\nand the Piskey-lights which the Piskeys held in their hands when\nthey danced. But they never saw the Piskeys, for the Dinky Men, as\nPhillida called them, were very shy, and did not often let themselves\nbe seen by human eyes. The old woman and the child never ventured\nnear their Circle when the Small People were having their high flings,\npartly from a feeling of delicacy, and partly for fear of driving them\naway. The Dinky Men were as touchy as nesting-birds, Tamsin declared,\nand said that if either she or Phillida spied upon them when they\nwere having their frolics they would, perhaps, forsake Tregoss Moor,\nwhich would have been a great misfortune. It was lucky, she said, to\nhave the Small People living near a house. So she and her grandchild\nwere content to watch them dancing from a respectable distance.\n\nThe place where the Piskeys made their Circle was very smooth and\nsoft with grass, and the Circle lay upon the close, thick turf like\na red-gold ring. Behind the Circle was a small granite boulder, and\nabove the boulder a big furze-bush, which burnt like a fire when the\nfurze was in bloom, and there little yellow-hammers sang their little\nsongs year in and year out.\n\nThe Tregoss Moor Piskeys were quite nice for Piskeys, and took a\ngreat interest in Phillida and her old grandmother. They never tried\nto Piskey-lead them into the bogs and stream-works, of which there\nwere many on the moors, nor set up Piskey-lights to slock [11] them\ninto the Piskey Circle, which, we must confess, they did to their\nbetters when they had the chance. They were ever so sorry when they\nknew the grail-hutch was getting empty, which somehow they always did,\nand that Grannie Tredinnick, as they called her, because Phillida did,\nhad no money to buy grail to fill it; and they hastened to the cottage\nand peeped through the window and keyhole to see if they were looking\nwisht, and if they were they would begin to laugh in order to cheer\nthem up and make them forget how hungry and sad they were.\n\nA Piskey's laugh is a gay little laugh, and as unfettered as the song\nof a lark, and anybody hearing it is bound to feel happy and gay,\nno matter how wisht he happens to be before. Perhaps that is the\nreason the old saying 'laughing like a Piskey' is so often quoted in\nthe Cornish land.\n\nOld Tamsin and little Phillida always felt better when the Dinky Men\ncame and laughed outside their door. Their laugh acted like a charm\non the old woman, and often after the Piskeys came and laughed she\nlaughed too, because she could not help it, and she would forget her\naches and her pains, and would go to the spinning-wheel and try to\nspin. She generally found she could, and soon spun enough wool to\nbuy grail to fill the grail-hutch.\n\nTamsin suffered from rheumatism, and when the weather was very wet\nand raw on the moors her hands and feet were crippled with pain; she\ncould not spin at all, and not even the Piskeys' gay little laughs\ncould charm the pain out of them.\n\nOne autumn and the beginning of the following winter were unusually\nwet, and the old woman's rheumatism was very bad, and, what was worse\nstill, the Dinky Men went away from the moors. Where they had gone\nshe did not know, and fervently hoped that she and Phillida had not\noffended them in any way.\n\nThe hum of the spinning-wheel was silent as the grave, the grail-hutch\nwas empty, and they had had to feed on berries like the birds. When\nthings were at their worst the clouds left off raining, the weather\nbrightened, the sun shone out, and the little brown Piskeys came back\nto the moors. Finding out how matters were in the little moorland\ncottage, they came outside the door and laughed their gay little laugh\nonce more. They laughed so much and so funnily that Grannie Tredinnick,\nweak as she was, couldn't help laughing to save her life; and when\nthey saw her rise up from her chair and go over to the spinning-wheel\nand make the wheel whirl, they were delighted and laughed again.\n\nThe weather not only changed for the better, but warm soft days came,\nand the yellow-hammers and the black and white stone-chats must have\nthought summer had come again, and they sang their bright little\nsongs, and the larks went up singing into the blue of the winter\nsky. Tamsin felt better than she had been for months, and became so\nwell and cheerful, what with the brighter weather, the music of the\nbirds, and the free laughter of the Dinky Men, that she was able to\nspin from morning shine till evening dark, and very soon she had spun\nall the wool she had. She sent it in a farmer's cart to St. Columb,\nand the farmer's man who took it for her brought back a great big bag\nof flour and some more wool to spin. But when that was all paid for,\nand the rent money put aside, all her earnings were gone, which made\nthe good old woman very sad, for she wanted to make a little Christmas\ncake for Phillida.\n\nChristmas was on its way, and Phillida, like most children, looked\nforward to it; why, she could hardly have told, except that it was\nthe Great Festival of the Nativity, and that Grannie always told\nher of the nice Christmasses she had had when she was a croom [12]\nof a cheeld, and that her mother always made her a Christmas cake,\nwith a little bird on top, to remind her of the Great White Birds\nwhich sang when the Babe was born.\n\nWhen Christmas drew near Phillida could think and talk of nothing\nelse but the beautiful Christmasses Grannie had had when she was a\nlittle maid, and of the Christmas cake with the little bird on top her\nmother had made for her. A few days before Christmas, as she and her\ngrandmother were sitting down to their dinner of grail-bread, she said:\n\n'Christmas Eve will soon be here now, Grannie. Do you think you can\nmake me a little Christmas cake with a little cake-bird on top like\nthose you had? Ever such a dinky cake and ever such a dinky bird will\ndo, Grannie,' she added, as the old woman shook her head, 'just to see\nwhat a Christmas cake tastes like and the little cake-bird looks like.'\n\n'I would gladly make 'ee a cake and a little bird,' said Tamsin,\n'if only I was rich; but I am afraid I can't afford to make 'ee even\na dinky one. You can't buy sugar and spice and other things to make\na cake without money, and I ent a got no money, not even a farthing.'\n\n'Haven't you?' cried little Phillida, her sweet child eyes full of\ntears. 'I am so disappointed, Grannie; I did so hope you could afford\njust a dinky cake.'\n\n'I had hoped so, too, cheeld,' said the kind old woman. 'Never mind,\nI'll ask the Piskeys to come in and order you a little dream-cake an'\na little dream-bird.'\n\n'What is a little dream-cake, Grannie, and a little dream-bird?' asked\nthe child.\n\n'The Piskeys used to come in through the keyhole to pass over the\nbridges of children's noses, when I was a little maid like you,\nto order their dreams. It would be ever so nice if they passed over\nthe bridge of your nose and ordered you a little dream-cake and a\nlittle dream-bird.'\n\n'But you can't eat cakes in your dreams,' said little Phillida,\n'and you can't hold little dream-birds in your hands.'\n\n'Can't you?' cried Grannie. 'That's all you know about it. I will\nask the Dinky Men to come through our keyhole to order your dreams\nthe very next time they are outside our cottage.'\n\n'They are outside now,' said Phillida. 'I hear them laughing. Listen,\nGrannie!' And the old woman listened, and she knew that the child\nwas right, and that the Piskeys were outside their window, for she\ntoo heard their laughter.\n\n'The Dinky Men be there right enough,' said Tamsin, 'an' they are\ntickled about something, by the way they are laughing.'\n\n'P'raps they heard what you said about asking them to come in and\norder me a little dream-cake and a little dream-bird,' suggested the\nlittle maid.\n\n'I shouldn't wonder,' laughed Grannie; 'an' I'm sure they'll\nbe willing. I'll ask them now;' and getting up from her wooden\narm-chair, she went to the door and called softly: 'Little Piskeys,\nare you there?'\n\nBut the Piskeys made no response to the old woman's question save by\na gay little laugh.\n\n'If you be there, an' can hear me,' said Tamsin, 'I want 'ee to be so\ngood as to come through my keyhole on the evening of Christmas Eve\nan' pass over the bridge of Phillida's nose, an' order her a little\ndream-cake with a little dream-bird on top. I shall be so obliged to\n'ee if you will, for I am too poor to make the cheeld a real cake an'\na little cake-bird.'\n\nWhen the old woman had said all this, such a burst of laughter broke\non the winter air outside the cottage that Phillida rushed to the\ndoor and looked out.\n\nShe could not see the Dinky Men, but their laughter was more than\nenough to tell her that they were there, and Grannie said she was\nsure they had heard what she asked, and would do it gladly.\n\nAs they stood on their doorstep they heard the sound of tiny tripping\nfeet going away from the cottage in the direction of the Piskey\nCircle; and as they followed the sound they noticed how bright the\nCircle was on the soft green turf.\n\nIt was a perfect day--one of those very rare days we are privileged\nto have once or twice in December month--and the moors were full\nof charm. The many pools on it were full of light, the boulder near\nthe Piskey Circle was diamond bright in the sunshine,  and above it\nthe furze was already breaking into golden blossom. The purple had\n'pulsed' out of the heath and the pink from the ling, but each little\nsprig was a marvel of brown, and showed up the silver lichen that\nsplashed the brown. The bracken was brilliant in warm tones of orange\nand gold, the brambles were every shade of crimson and red, and the\nhaze on the moors was like the bloom of the hurts, [13] which still\nsupplied food for the birds on the hills. In the direction of Roche,\nwhere the great Roche Rocks stand in lonely solitude, six hundred and\neighty feet above the level of the sea, with the ruins of the little\nchapel dedicated to holy St. Michael on their summit, a lark went up\nsinging into the blue, for larks, as most observers of nature know,\nare seldom out of song. The yellow-hammers were as bright as the\nbrightly-coloured bracken, and sang their cheerful little lays from\nbramble and bush, and the streams rippled over the moors.\n\nThe old grandmother and her little grandmaid stood on the doorstep\ntaking in the quiet beauty of the moors. They even went out on to\nthe moor, and turned their gaze towards the Roche Rocks to see if\nthey could see the little sky-bird. After listening ten minutes or\nlonger to the lark and other birds, and to the Piskeys laughing,\nthey returned to the cottage.\n\nFine weather seldom lasts long in winter-time, and when Christmas\nEve came it was bitterly cold. A bitter wind blew over the moors\nfrom the north, which brought snow in its wake, and Phillida said\nthe Old Woman was up in the sky picking her goose and throwing down\nthe feathers as fast as she could throw them.\n\nThe child, who was healthy and strong, did not mind the cold, and she\nliked watching the feathers of the great Sky Goose whirling down on\nthe hills and moors; but she was somewhat afraid the Dinky Men would\nnot come over the snow to order her dreams. But her grandmother told\nher that she was certain the Small People no more minded the cold\nthan she did, and would be sure to come in through the keyhole when\nthey were in bed and asleep.\n\nIf Phillida did not mind the severe weather, Tamsin did. She could\nhardly keep herself warm in spite of a great fire that blazed on the\nhearthstone. Whatever else she and the child lacked, they always had\na good fire to sit by, for the moors supplied them with furze and\nother firewood.\n\nAs it grew towards evening the old grandmother told her little\ngrandchild about Christmas, as was her wont whenever Christmas Eve came\nround, and why they were told to keep it as a hallowed time. She also\ntold her of the Christmas cakes taken hot out of the oven on Christmas\nEve, and Christmas birds on top of them, which had made her Christmas\nso bright in those far-away years when she was young like Phillida.\n\nGrannie's tales of the long ago were of absorbing interest to the\nchild, who almost forgot that the Dinky Men were coming to order her\ndreams that night.\n\nWhen the day had gone, and night had come, Tamsin banked up the fire\non the hearthstone, and then she and Phillida went to bed. The old\nwoman knew that the Piskeys would not come in through the keyhole\nuntil they were in bed and asleep.\n\nThe child and the old grandmother slept in the same bed, the latter\nat the head and Phillida at the foot. The head of the bed was against\nthe wall by the side of the hearthplace, and Tamsin as she lay was in\ndeep shadow, and only her white nightcap could be seen; but Phillida's\ncharming little face was towards the hearth, and the fireshine fell\nfull upon it.\n\nThe child had a fair, smooth skin and clear-cut features, and her\nnose had a beautiful bridge! Her hair was thick and wavy, and of a\ndeep red gold--only a little redder than the Piskey Circle--and her\neyes, when they were open, were the soft sweet blue of the Cornish\nTors when the skies were grey.\n\nThe red peat and furze fire, like a Master of Magic, made the interior\nof the poor little moorland cottage look quite beautiful. The rough\nwalls that went up to the brown of the thatch, where they caught the\nfireshine, glowed like the Small People's lanterns; the old dresser,\nwhich stood by the wall facing the hearth, looked as if it were painted\nin fairy colours, and the china on it glittered like the boulder\nnear the Piskey Circle; and even the grail-hutch,  a unique piece of\nfurniture often seen in Cornish cottages, was turned into a thing of\nbeauty. It was painted orange colour, and its little knobs were black,\nto which the shine of the fire gave depths and tones and undertones.\n\nBy the side of the bed where Phillida slept was a fiddle-back chair,\nand on its seat lay her little blue weekaday frock, that added to\nthe quaint and beautiful picture. Only a small part of the cottage\nwas in shadow, and this intensified the brightness of the room where\nthe firelight held sway.\n\nThe cottage was looking its brightest, and was as warm as a zam [14]\noven, when a gay little laugh came through the keyhole, and a merry\nlittle face peeped into the room. In another minute a Dinky Man came\nout of the keyhole and sat on the wooden latch of the door and gazed\ncuriously about him.\n\nHe was ever so dinky, but as cheerful-looking as a robin, in his\nbright red cloak and his quaint steeple hat; the face under the hat\nwas almost as brown as an apple-pip, and only a shade or two lighter\nthan his whiskers and beard, and his queer little eyes were full of\nlaughter and fun.\n\n'Are the little maid and her grannie asleep?' called a voice through\nthe keyhole as the Dinky Man sat on the latch surveying the room.\n\n'I think so,' he answered. 'They are still as mice when Madam Puss\nis close to their hole. You are safe to come in.'\n\n'Then in we'll come,' cried the little voice; and in the twinkling of\nan eye a tiny little fellow dressed in green came through the keyhole\nand pushed off the Dinky Man sitting on the latch, who fell on his\nhead on old Tamsin's lime-ash floor.\n\nScores of little whiskered Piskeys--some in steeple hats and red\nflowing cloaks, some in green coats and red caps--came through the\nkeyhole, and when they had swung themselves down by the durn [15]\nof the door, they looked towards the bed.\n\n'I'll get up on the bed and see if the little maid is really\nasleep,' said one of the Piskeys; and he climbed up to the top of\nthe fiddle-back chair close to the bed and looked down on the child.\n\n'Is she asleep?' asked the other little Piskeys eagerly.\n\n'As sound asleep as a seven-sleeper,' [16] answered the Dinky Man,\n'and so is Grannie Tredinnick,' sending his glance to the head of the\nbed. 'Get up on to the bed as soon as you like, to order the little\nmaid's dreams--the sooner the better. We are powerless to do harm\nafter twelve o'clock, being the night of the Birth.'\n\n'But we have come to do good, not to do harm,' cried the Piskeys one\nand all, 'and we will begin at once.'\n\nThey scrambled up the legs and back of the old fiddle-back chair,\nand were on the bed in a quick-stick, and took their places near the\nsleeping child. Some sat all in a row on the edge of the patchwork\nquilt; some sat, or stood, on the pillow behind the child's bright\nlittle head; others were low down on the pillow; and one winking,\nblinking little Piskey perched himself on her arm and sat cross-legged\nlike a tailor.\n\n'I will be the first to order the little maid's dream,' said one of the\nPiskeys sitting on the edge of the quilt, and scrambling up, he stepped\non to Phillida's nose as light as the feathers which the old Sky Woman\nhad flung down on the moors, and as he walked over the bridge he said:\n\n'Dream, little maid--dream that you are wide awake, and that you and\nGrannie Tredinnick are sitting at a table covered with a cloth as\nwhite as Piskey-wool, [17] and that in the middle of the table is a\nlovely cake made\n\n\n                  '\"Of the finest of flour\n                    And fairy cow's cream--\n                    As sweet as your dream--\n                    And Small People's spice,\n                    And everything nice,\n                    Kneaded and mixed,\n                    And done in a trix\n                    In a little dream-bower,\"\n\n\nand on the top of the cake is a dinky bird with wings spread out all\nready to fly.'\n\nPhillida dreamt as she was ordered, and in her dream she saw the\ncake, and that it was a beautiful cake, and the little cake-bird was\na sweet little bird!\n\n'What a handsome cake!' she cried out aloud in her sleep; 'and the\nlittle cake-bird is a dear little bird, and it looks as if it can fly\nand sing:' and she laughed so heartily that the Piskeys laughed too,\nand one of the Dinky Men turned head over heels on the patchwork\nquilt out of sheer delight that the child was so pleased with her\nbeautiful dream-cake and the little dream-bird.\n\n'Dream that Grannie Tredinnick is as pleased with the cake and the\ncake-bird as you are,' said another little Piskey, stepping on to the\nbridge of Phillida's nose, 'and that she thinks it is even better than\nthe cakes which were made for her when she was a croom of a cheeld,\nand the little cake-bird is more like a real bird than those that\nwere on top of her Christmas cakes.'\n\nThe child dreamt as the Piskey ordered, and much beside that the\nDinky Man never thought of ordering. In her dream she not only\nheard her grandmother say what a beautiful cake it was, and that\nthe little cake-bird looked like a real bird, but that she said:\n'We must cut and eat the cake, but spare the little cake-bird.' In\nher sleep she saw the old woman, dressed in her Sunday gown and cap,\nlean over the small oak table and cut her such a big slice of the\ncake that she cried out in amazed delight:\n\n'What a great big piece you have given me, Grannie!' and her laugh\nwas as happy and gay as a Piskey's laugh. 'But I must not eat all this\nmyself; I must crumble some of it for the little moor-birds, and put\na piece out on the doorstep for the Dinky Men. It isn't a dream-cake,\nGrannie, but a Christmas cake, and it has a little Christmas bird\non top!'\n\nThe Piskeys looked at one another with a peculiar expression in\ntheir round little eyes when the child spoke of putting a bit of her\nChristmas cake on the step of the door for them, and one said, 'Dear\nlittle maid!' and another said 'Pretty child!' and one little fellow,\nwith a beard reaching to his feet, cried, 'How kind of her to want us\npoor little Piskeys to have part in the Christmas joy!' One little\nDinky Man whispered: 'Perhaps it is not true what the old whiddle\n[18] says, after all--that we are not good enough for heaven nor bad\nenough for hell. The child does not think so, evidently, or she would\nnot be so anxious for us to share her little Christmas cake.'\n\nThe Piskey who sat cross-legged on Phillida's arm uncrossed his lean\nlittle legs, rose up and stepped on to her nose, and as he walked\nover its bridge he said ever so tenderly:\n\n'Dream, sweet little Phillida--dream that you shared your cake with\nthe dicky-birds, and put a piece of it on the doorstep for the Dinky\nMen, which they will treasure as long as there are any Dinky Men.'\n\nThe child dreamt as she was ordered, and when she had put a bit of\nthe cake on the doorstep for the Piskeys, she saw in her dream a\ncrowd of Dinky Men in quaint little green coats, and caps as red as\nbryony berries, and tiny fellows in red cloaks and green hats, come\nand take up the cake with solemn faces and bent heads, and carry it\naway over the moors towards the Piskey Circle. When they had gone,\nshe stood on the doorstep looking out over the moors, white with\nthe feathers the old Sky Woman had thrown down; then she lifted her\nsweet little face to the sky, and saw that it was free from clouds\nand full of stars, which, she thought, were chiming the wonderful\nnews of the Nativity. She was so happy listening to the music of the\nChristmas stars that she forgot she had not tasted her cake till a\nlittle Piskey sprang on to her nose to turn her dream.\n\n'Dream that you are come over to the table and eating your cake,'\nhe said, slowly passing over the bridge of her nose.\n\n'How can I dream that when I am out here on the doorstep listening to\nthe ringing of the star-bells?' murmured the child in her sleep. 'I\nwonder if the Dinky Men like listening to the star-bells' music? They\nare ringing up there in the dark because the Babe was born and laid\nin the cratch.'\n\n'We shall never get her to dream our dreams if we let her stay there on\nthe doorstep,' cried the Piskeys, looking strangely at one another. 'We\nnever had such trouble to make a cheeld dream our dreams before.'\n\n'Dream your poor old Grannie feels the cold from the open door,' said\na Dinky Man, jumping on to Phillida's nose with all his weight, which\ncaused her to jerk her head in her sleep, and made the Dinky Man lose\nhis balance, and over he toppled on the heads of his tiny companions\nsitting at the bottom of the pillow near the child's soft white neck,\nmuch to the amusement of the other Piskeys and his own. They laughed\nso much, including the wee fellow who was heavy-heeled, that he could\nnot order the dream, and a Piskey, when he could stop laughing for a\nminute, jumped up and stepped on to Phillida's nose, and as he passed\nover its bridge he said:\n\n'Dream that you shut the door on the cold and the Sky Goose's feathers,\nand come back to the table.' And Phillida reluctantly dreamt as the\nDinky Man ordered, and in her dream she saw herself sitting at the\ntable facing her grandmother, who was munching a bit of the cake and\nsmacking her withered old lips.\n\n'This is a lovely cake, cheeld-vean. [19] We must eat every crumb of\nit, for we shall never have such another.'\n\nPhillida was glad her Grannie liked the cake, and she began to eat\nthe generous slice the old woman had given her, and as she ate it she\nthought it was so delicious that she must go on eating cake for ever\nand ever. 'I shan't want to eat grail-bread after this,' she said,\nlaughing out loud in her sleep. 'I shall always eat cake made\n\n\n                  '\"Of fairy cow's cream\n                    And every good thing.\"'\n\n\nShe was enjoying her dream-cake so very very much in her sleep that\nthe Dinky Men would have liked her to go on eating it; but the quick\nticking of Tamsin's clock told them that time was flying, and they\nhad not yet finished ordering her dreams.\n\n'Dream, little Phillida--dream that you and Grannie Tredinnick\nhave eaten all the cake, and there is nothing left but the little\ncake-bird,' said one of the Dinky Men passing over the bridge of her\nnose; 'and that Grannie says the little cake-bird is yours.'\n\nPhillida dreamt all that, and in her dream her grandmother said, in\nher kind old voice: 'The little bird on the top of the cake belongs\nto the cheeld of the house, and Phillida is the only cheeld in my\nlittle house. Take the cake-bird, Phillida, my dear;' and Phillida\ntook it and held it in her little warm hand.\n\nAs she was holding it thus a Piskey stepped lightly as a ladybird on\nto her nose, and as he passed over its bridge he said:\n\n'Dream, Phillida, dream that your little cake-bird is alive and wants\nto fly and sing;' and the child dreamt that the little cake-bird was\nalive, and was fluttering in her little warm hand, and then it flew\nout of her hand up to the thatch, and began to sing a wonderful song.\n\n'What is my little cake-bird singing?' asked Phillida in her sleep.\n\n'It is singing it is a fairy-bird,' said a Dinky Man, passing over\nthe bridge of her nose, 'and that it is going to sing with other\nlittle fairy-birds in the Dinky People's land.'\n\n'I don't think my little cake-bird is singing it is a fairy-bird\nand going to sing in the Dinky People's country,' said the child in\nher sleep. 'Its song is much too happy and beautiful for that. What\nis it singing? Please tell me. I do want to know. Can't you tell\nme?' she asked as the Piskeys looked at one another. 'Ah! I know now\nwhat its song is about. My little cake-bird is singing a little song\nbecause it is a little Christmas bird, and was on top of a Christmas\ncake! Isn't it a lovely song? It has changed its tune now, and it\nis singing a golden song about the Babe who was born on Christmas\nDay in the morning. I am a little Christian cheeld and know! Listen,\nlisten!' she cried, clasping her hands and lifting her sweet child-face\nto the thatch. 'Isn't it wonderful? It thinks it is a little golden\nbird, and one day will sing with the Great White Angel Birds Grannie\ntold me about.'\n\n'Somebody far greater than we little Piskeys is ordering Phillida's\ndreams,' said the Dinky Men one to another, 'which are much more\nbeautiful than we can order.'\n\nJust then old Tamsin's clock struck the midnight hour, and the Piskeys\ngot off the bed, went across the room, climbed up the durn of the door\nand out through the keyhole on to the moors, and in a little while\nthey were hastening over the snow-covered turf to the Piskey Circle,\nwhich was a big round door to the Dinky People's land under the moors.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE IMPOUNDED CROWS\n\n\nA small boy called Jim Nancarrow was sitting one day eating a pasty\non top of the Crow Pound, a large enclosure built on a common by the\nfar-famed St. Neot to impound the pilfering crows of the parish that\nbears his name.\n\nJim was the son of a thatcher, and he was waiting to accompany his\nfather to a distant hamlet to help him to thatch a cottage. He looked\na nice little lad in his clean white smock and nankeen breeches and\nsoft felt hat--much the worse for wear--shading his bright young face\nand clear blue eyes.\n\nAs he was waiting for his father and eating his pasty, which his mother\nhad given him for his dinner, he saw a crow flying over Goonzion Downs,\nof which the Crow Pound common was a part.\n\nAs he watched it he thought of the pilfering crows which, according\nto the old tale, little St. Neot impounded there from morning till\nevening on Sundays, that his people might go to church undisturbed\nby fear of the great black thievish birds which ate up the corn sown\nin their fields. Jim had often heard this story from the old people\nof the parish, and whenever he saw a crow he wondered if it were a\nrelation of the wicked crows their patron Saint had impounded.\n\nThe crow that the boy was watching was flying in the direction of the\nCrow Pound, and when it came near it alighted on the top of the wall\nquite close to the lad.\n\nThe crow was lean to look at, and scanty of feathers, and such a\nsorry-looking bird that Jim broke off a piece of his pasty and threw\nto him, which he ate as if he were starving.\n\n'One would think you were one of the pilfering crows of St. Neot's\ntime,' said Jim, tossing him another piece of his pasty; and to his\nsurprise, the bird answered back:\n\n'I am!'\n\n'Are you?' cried Jim, staring hard at the crow. 'Well, you look ancient\nenough to be one of those birds, though I have always understood that\nour patron Saint lived ever so long ago, when Alfred the Great was\na little chap like me. But p'r'aps crows tell lies as well as pilfer.'\n\n'If I am not one of the identical crows St. Neot was unkind enough\nto put into this pound,' croaked the big black bird, eyeing Jim and\nhis pasty with his bright little eye, 'I am a descendant of theirs\nin the direct line. I truly am,' as the lad stared as if he did not\nbelieve the assertion. 'Those poor impounded crows learnt the language\nof men during the long hours of their imprisonment, listening to all\nthe little Saint and his people said about them outside  this pound,\nand they passed on their dearly-bought knowledge to their children\nthrough long generations.'\n\n'Then you are quite \"high learnt,\" as the old Granfer men say,'\ncried Jim, gazing up at the bird in open-eyed amazement.\n\n'I confess I am,' returned the crow with due modesty, 'especially in\nthe old Cornish tongue, in which I can swear to any extent. I am not\ngoing to use bad language now,' as Jim took up a stone to throw at\nhim. 'You would not understand it if I did. I am also \"high learnt\"\nin the needs of the body, and I shall be ever so grateful for a bit\nmore of your pasty. It isn't nice to have an aching void inside one's\nlittle feather stumjacket.'\n\n'I suppose it can't be,' said the lad, dropping the stone and breaking\noff a large piece of his pasty to toss to the bird.\n\nHe was a feeling-hearted little fellow, and the crow's quaint appeal\ntouched him, and the sorry-looking bird, with his bedraggled tail,\nhad most of his pasty.\n\n'I have had a good meal for once in my life, and am full fed,' said\nthe crow, when the last of the pasty was eaten; and he perched on a\nstone, starred with stonecrop, and fluffed out all the feathers he\npossessed, and looked with a comical expression at Jim.\n\n'I am better fed than little St. Neot after his poor little meal\nof fish,' he continued, still eyeing the boy, 'and I am feeling so\ncomfortable that I am inclined for a chat.'\n\n'Are you?' cried Jim, who thought this great black crow was a wonderful\ncrow, which he certainly was. 'I don't know what to yarn about.'\n\n'I do, then,' answered the bird quickly. 'I suppose you have heard\nthe old whiddle [20] how the little St. Neot put the poor crows into\nthis pound.'\n\n'Yes, I have heard about it from the Granfer men and Grannie women\nhere at Churchtown,' said Jim, turning his face towards a little\nvillage close to the church which he could just see from where he\nwas sitting. 'But they never made much of a story of it.'\n\n'Didn't they? Then perhaps you would like to hear the crows' version of\nthe old tale,' said the crow. 'It will tell you that their morals were\nnot so black as the farmers in this parish made out to the Holy Man.'\n\n'I don't mind, if you are quick about it,' said Jim. 'I am going\nto a farm with my father to help him do some thatching when he has\nfinished his dinner.'\n\n'I cannot be driven after such a heavy meal of pasty,' croaked the\ncrow; 'and if I may not take my time, I won't tell it at all.'\n\n'As you like,' cried Jim with fine indifference; but the bird was\nanxious to tell the whiddle, and he began:\n\n'We crows always considered it within our right to take what we could,'\nsaid the crow, 'and pilfering, as the farmers hereabouts were pleased\nto call it, was the only way the crows had of picking up a living,\nand they watched their opportunity to take what they needed to\nsatisfy their hunger when the farmers were not about. But back in\nthose far-away days when St. Neot dwelt here to try and make people\ngood, times were dreadfully bad, especially for crows. The people\nwere all tillers of the land in those days, and lived by the sweat\nof their brow, as crows did by pilfering. There was no other way\nopen to them, and the farmers had their eyes on the land and on us\npoor hungry birds from dawn to dark, except on the Rest Day; and the\nonly chance the crows had of filling their stomachs was on Sunday,\nwhen the people went to church.\n\n'The starving crows looked forward to Sunday as only poor starving\nbirds with empty crops could, and the moment one of the elder crows\ngave the signal, which he did in the crow way, they all flew off to\nthe corn-sown fields, and had a regular feast. My word! and didn't\nthey feed! They picked out with their sharp beaks every grain of corn\nthey could find.\n\n'When the farmers found out the hungry crows had eaten up all the\ncorn they had sown, there was the Black Man to pay, and the poor\ncrows were anathematized from one end of the parish to the other.\n\n'The farmers resowed their fields, but they took good care to watch\nand see that the crows did not rob them of their toil; and they were\nalways about the corn-sown land, Sundays as well as week-days, and\nthe crows had to go supperless to bed, and little St. Neot had to\npreach to bare walls.\n\n'The Saint was greatly distressed at his people's neglect of their\nreligious duties, and he told them how wicked it was to stay away\nfrom church. The people said they were sorry, but declared it was\nthe fault of the pilfering crows.\n\n'\"The pilfering crows!\" cried the Holy Man. \"What have the crows to\ndo with your stopping away from the House of God?\"\n\n'\"Everything,\" answered the farmers; and they told little St. Neot that\nwhenever they sowed bread-corn in their fields the wicked crows came\nand ate it all up, and that if he could not prevent them from doing\nthis wickedness, they must keep away from church and watch their\nfields. \"We and our children must have bread to eat,\" they added,\nwhich was true enough--true for crows as well as men.\n\n'The Holy Man was very much grieved to hear the cause of their not\ncoming to church, and he said he would devise some means to prevent\nthe crows from robbing the fields whilst they were attending to\ntheir worship.\n\n'St. Neot was as good as his word, and it was noised about in the\nparish that he was building a great square enclosure of moorstone and\nmould about half a mile from the church; and when it was finished,\nhe told his wondering people it was a pound for crows, which he meant\nto impound on Sundays from dawn till dusk, so that the farmers might\ncome to church and worship without having their minds disturbed by\nfear of those black little robbers eating their corn.\n\n'There was a fearful to-do among the poor hungry crows when they\nlearned what St. Neot had done; and although they knew they were\nwithin their right to steal when they were hungry--and they were\nalways hungry, poor things!--they were sorry they ate up the corn\nthe farmers had sown, and every crow looked forward to the coming\nRest Day with fear and trembling.\n\n'Well, Sunday came, as Sundays will,' continued the crow, 'and before\nthe sun had risen little St. Neot made known his will to the crows\nthat they were to come to be impounded, and such power had the Saint\nover beast and bird that the crows had no choice save to obey, and\nlong before St. Neot's bell rang out to call his people to worship\nin the little church which he had built for them by the aid of his\ntwo-deer team and one-hare team, all the crows in the parish came as\nthey were bidden to be impounded in the Crow Pound.\n\n'And, my gracious! what a lot of them came! There were crows of all\nsorts and conditions, all ages and sizes! There were great-great-great\nGranfer and Grannie Crows! there were great-great Granfer and Grannie\nCrows! great Granfer and Grannie Crows by the score! Grannie Crows\nby the hundred! Mammie and Daddy Crows by the thousand! and as for\nthe children, and great-great-grand-children, they could hardly be\ncounted! Even poor little Baby Crows, just able to fly, were there!\n\n'The Crow Pound was chock-full of crows, and all the place was as\nblack as St. Neot's gown. And as for the noise they made, it was\nenough to turn the Holy Man's brain; but it didn't.\n\n'The little Saint did not expect to see so many crows, it was certain,\nthough he expected a goodly number, by the big enclosure he had made;\nand the old tale says that, when he saw so many birds, he exclaimed\nwith uplifted hands, \"My goodness! what a lot of crows!\" and he\nlooked round at this great assemblage--all in respectable black--in\nopen-eyed amazement.\n\n'The people who came flocking to church when they heard that the crows\nwere safe in the Crow Pound were almost as astonished as St. Neot to\nsee such a big congregation of birds.\n\n'The church was too far away from the pound for the crows to hear the\nlittle Saint preaching, but when the wind blew up from Churchtown they\ncould hear the singing, and to show you they were not so bad as the\nfarmers made out to the Holy Man, they croaked as loud as ever they\ncould when Mass was sung, and were as silent as the grave during the\ntime St. Neot was preaching.\n\n'Every year, from sowing time till the corn was reaped and safe in\nthe barn, the crows were impounded every Sunday from the early morning\ntill evening whilst little St. Neot lived.'\n\n'Is that all?' asked Jim, who listened to the crow's version of the\nold tale till it was finished.\n\n'Yes,' answered the great black bird with a croak, and when he had\nsaid that he took to his wings and flew away as fast as he could fly\nover Goonzion Downs, the way he had come.\n\n'That wisht-looking crow did not tell the old whiddle half bad,'\nsaid Jim to himself, as he watched the bird fly away. 'Shouldn't\nI like to have seen this old pound full of crows! It must have\nbeen terribly funny when St. Neot looked in upon them and cried,\n\"My goodness! what a lot of crows!\" It must have been as good as a\nChristmas play. There, father is coming. That sharp-eyed old crow\nmust have seen him climbing the hill.'\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PISKEYS' REVENGE\n\n\nOnce upon a time, so the old story begins, there were an old man and\nhis wife called Granfer and Grannie Nankivell, who lived on a moor,\nand a small grand-daughter who lived with them.\n\nGenefer was the name of this little girl. She was a small brown\nchild. Brown as a Piskey, her grandfather said; but, brown as she was,\nshe was exceedingly pretty. Her lips were as red as the reddest of\nberries, and the glow on her cheeks matched her lips.\n\nHer grandfather was a turf-cutter, and most of his days had been\nspent cutting turf on the Cornish moors.\n\nWhen this old man was between sixty and seventy he cleared out a\nwhole bog, which happened to be a Piskey-bed.\n\nThe Piskeys never like their sleeping-places to be disturbed, and when\nthey found out Granfer Nankivell had done it, they were very angry,\nand set up Piskey-lights to lead him astray when he came home. But\nthey did it in vain as far as he was concerned. The old turf-cutter\nwas very learned in Piskeys' wiles, and never ventured across the\nmoors without wearing one of his garments inside out, and this made\nhim Piskey-proof, which means that the Piskeys had no power to harm\nhim or to lead him out of his way.\n\nBut the sly Little People knew a thing or two as well as Granfer\nNankivell, and when they found out that their Piskey-lights failed,\nthey set their sharp little wits to work to do him harm in some\nother way.\n\nAfter much watching they discovered that the old turf-cutter had\na weakness for sweet things, and that the greatest treat his wife\ncould give him was sugar biscuits of her own making and a big plate of\njunket. They also found out that Grannie Nankivell, whenever she made\nthese delicacies, put them overnight into her spence [21] for safety.\n\nThey made up their minds that they would punish the old turf-cutter\nfor taking away their nice soft green Piskey-bed by doing him out\nof his junket and biscuits, and they told some distant relations of\ntheirs, the Fairy Moormen, to keep an eye upon the spence-window,\nand whenever they saw Grannie Nankivell bring a bowl of junket and a\ndish of biscuits into her spence, they must come with all speed and\ntell them.\n\n'We'll watch too,' they said; 'but in case we are away dancing or\nsetting up Piskey-lights, you must watch for us,' which the Tiny\nMoormen were quite pleased to do.\n\nBut the moor fairies watched in vain for many a week, and just as\nthey were beginning to fear that Grannie Nankivell was never going\nto make any more biscuits and junket for her husband, she set to and\nmade some, and when they were made she took them into the spence,\nas she always did.\n\nThe spence opened out from the kitchen, and was quite a little room\nin itself, with a tiny window facing the moors. In front of the window\nwas a stone bench, and near it a square oak table.\n\nThe Tiny Moormen were peeping in at the window when the old woman\nput the bowl of junket on the table and the dish of sugar biscuits\non the bench, and the moment her back was turned they tore off to\nthe Piskeys with the news.\n\n'A big round basin full of lovely cool junket,' they cried, 'and a\ndish heaping full of round biscuits, yellow and white with eggs and\nsugar, with which they are made. I heard the old woman say that she\nhad never made better, and all for Granfer Nankivell, 'cause 'tis\nhis birthday to-morrow.'\n\n'Birthday or no birthday, Granfer Nankivell shan't taste one,' cried\nthe little Piskeys. 'No fy, he shan't! He turned us out of our beds,\nand we'll do him out of his biscuits and junket, see if we won't!'\n\n'That's right!' said the Fairy Moormen, who were hand and glove with\nthe Piskeys, 'only please save some for us.'\n\nThey and the Piskeys hastened away to the turf-cutter's cottage,\nand when the turf-cutter and his wife had gone to bed, the Piskeys\ngot into the spence and ate up the big bowl of junket, and passed\nout the biscuits to the Tiny Moormen.\n\nWhen Grannie Nankivell went to her spence the next day she found the\njunket-bowl empty and every biscuit gone.\n\nShe said she could not imagine who had taken the things, but looked\nsuspiciously at her little granddaughter Genefer.\n\n'The cat must have got into the spence and done me out of my birthday\ntreat,' said the old turf-cutter. 'You must shut the spence-window\nthe next time you put a junket in there.'\n\n'But the biscuits have gone as well as the junket,' said the old\nwoman, still looking at little Genefer. 'Cats have no liking for\nsugar biscuits, that ever I heard tell of.'\n\nThe next time Grannie Nankivell took biscuits and a junket into\nher spence she shut the window and also the door; but when she got\nup the following morning and went to see if they were safe, lo and\nbehold! the junket-bowl was again empty and the biscuits were gone.\n\n''Tis a two-legged cat who has eaten up my beautiful biscuits and\njunket,' she said to her husband; and she turned and looked at\nlittle Genefer.\n\n'I am not the two-legged cat who ate up all the nice things you made\nfor Granfer,' cried the child, meeting the old woman's glance with\nher honest brown eyes.\n\n'I never said you did,' said Grannie Nankivell; 'but 'tis queer the\njunket-bowl is empty and every biscuit gone from the dish.'\n\n'I expect it was a dog which got into the spence and licked up the\njunket and ate the biscuits,' put in the old turf-cutter. 'I would\nlock and bar the spence-door, if I were you, the next time I put such\nnice things in there.'\n\n'I will,' she said.\n\nThe next time Grannie Nankivell made biscuits and a junket she barred\nthe window of the spence and locked the door, and the next morning,\nbefore Genefer dressed, she went to see if her junket and biscuits were\nall right; but the little round biscuits, which she had so carefully\nmade and sugared, were every one gone, and the junket-bowl was quite\nempty, and as dry as a bone.\n\n''Tis our little grandcheeld who has eaten it all!' cried Grannie\nNankivell in great anger to the old turf-cutter. 'No cat or dog could\nget into a spence with door locked and window barred.'\n\n'I don't believe it was Genefer,' said the old man stoutly.\n\n'If it was not Genefer, who was it, pray? Biscuits and junkets don't\neat up themselves, any more than dogs and cats can get through keyholes\nand barred windows.'\n\n'That's true,' said Granfer Nankivell; 'all the same, I am certain sure\nthat our dear little grandcheeld would not go and eat up the things.'\n\n'Then who did?' asked the old woman with a snap.\n\n'The little Piskeys, I shouldn't wonder,' he answered. 'My\ngreat-grannie told me they were little greedy-guts, and in her\ndays they used to skim the cream off the milk, and eat all the\ncheese-cakes she used to make, unless she put some for them outside\non the doorstep. Regular little thieves the Piskeys were in her\ndays. P'raps they haven't learnt to be honest yet. There are plenty\nabout now, and Little Moormen too, by the teheeing and tehoing I have\nheard lately, waiting, I dare say, to play some of their pranks on me.'\n\nBut Grannie Nankivell was still unconvinced, and still believed it\nwas Genefer, and not the Piskeys, who ate her biscuits and junket.\n\nOne evening the old woman put another bowl of junket and a dish of\nbiscuits in the spence, and was as careful as before to bar the window\nand lock the door; and in the middle of the night, when her husband was\nfast asleep and snoring, she got up and came downstairs to see if she\ncould find out for certain who it was that ate up her good things. When\nshe came down, whom should she see but her little grand-daughter\nGenefer standing by the spence-door in her little bedgown.\n\n'I am fine and glad you have come, Grannie,' whispered the child,\nbefore the old woman could say anything. 'I believe it is the Piskeys\nwho have eaten the junket and things you made for Granfer. I saw a\ndinky little fellow not much bigger than your thumb go in through\nthe keyhole just now. They are having a fine time in there, anyhow,'\nas her grandmother looked at her oddly. 'If I were you, I would look\nthrough the keyhole and see what they are doing.'\n\nAnd through the keyhole the old woman looked, and saw, to her\namazement, scores and scores of green-coated little men, whiskered\nlike a man, on the oak table, standing round the junket-bowl ladling\nout the rich, thick junket with their tiny little hands, and half\na dozen other little chaps were up in the window-sill passing out\nher delicious sugar biscuits to the Tiny Moormen, who were even more\nwhiskered and bearded than their distant relations, the Piskeys.\n\nBy their faces, they were all greatly enjoying themselves, and at\nthe expense of Granfer Nankivell, the turf-cutter!\n\nGrannie Nankivell was so astonished that she lost her mouth-speech,\n[22] but when she found it her old voice shrilled through the keyhole:\n\n'Filling your little bellies with the junket and biskeys I made for\nmy old man, be 'ee?' she cried. 'I'll wring the necks of every one\nof you--iss fy, I will!'\n\nThe old woman spoke too soon to carry out her threat, for she had no\nsooner spoken than the Piskeys vanished, the Tiny Moormen as well,\nand where they went she never knew.\n\nBut her husband told her the little rascals were still in the spence\nwhen she could not see them.\n\n'They have the power to make themselves visible or invisible, whichever\nis most convenient to them,' he said.\n\n'They have done you out of your biscuits and junket a good many times,\nanyhow,' cried the old woman.\n\n'Iss,' said Granfer Nankivell, 'they have; and as I did away with\nthe Piskey-beds, we are quits. I only hope they will be of the same\nmind, and won't come any more and eat up those nice things you make\nfor me. I am quite longing for a plateful of junket and one of your\nsweet biscuits.'\n\nWhether the Piskeys thought the old turf-cutter was sufficiently\npunished for clearing out their sleeping-places, or whether Grannie\nNankivell's threat to wring their necks frightened them away, we\ncannot tell. At all events, they and the Tiny Moormen kept away\nfrom the cottage on the moor, and whenever the old woman made sugar\nbiscuits and sweet junket, and put them in the spence, no two-legged\ncat, Moormen or Piskeys, ever ate up those specially-made dainties;\nand little Genefer's honesty was never again doubted.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE OLD SKY WOMAN\n\n\nWhen winter brought the cold north wind, and the snowflakes began to\nfall, the little North Cornwall children were always told that the\nOld Woman was up in the sky plucking her Goose.\n\nThe children were very interested in the Old Sky Woman and her great\nWhite Goose, and they said, as they lifted their soft little faces to\nthe grey of the cloud and watched the feathers of the big Sky Goose\ncome whirling down, that she was a wonderful woman and her Goose a\nvery big Goose.\n\n'I want to climb up to the sky to see the Old Woman plucking her\nGoose,' cried a tiny boy; and he asked his mother to show him the great\nSky Stairs. But his mother could not, for she did not know where the\nSky Stairs were; so the poor little boy could not go up to see the Old\nSky Woman plucking the beautiful feathers out of her big White Goose.\n\n'Where does the Old Woman keep her great White Goose?' asked another\nchild, with eyes and hair as dark as a raven's wing, as he watched\nthe snow-white feathers come dancing down.\n\n'In the beautiful Sky Meadows behind the clouds,' his mother said.\n\n'What is the Old Sky Woman going to do with her great big Goose\nwhen she has picked her bare?' queried a little maid with sweet,\nanxious eyes.\n\n'Stuff it with onions and sage,' her Granfer said.\n\n'What will she do then with her great big Goose?' the little maid\nasked.\n\n'Hang it up on the great Sky Goose-jack and roast for her Christmas\ndinner,' her Granfer said.\n\n'Poor old Goose!' cried the little maid.\n\n'I don't believe the Old Sky Woman would be so unkind as to kill and\npluck her great big Goose,' said a wise little maid with sunny hair\nand eyes as blue as the summer sea. 'Winter-time is the Sky Goose's\nmoulting time, and the Old Sky Woman is sweeping out the Sky Goose's\nhouse with her great Sky Broom, and the White Goose's feathers are\nflying down to keep the dear little flowers nice and warm till the\nnorth wind has gone away from the Cornish Land.'\n\n'Perhaps that is so, dear little maid,' her Granfer said.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nREEFY, REEFY RUM\n\n\nA small girl called Nancy Parnell came down from Wadebridge to Padstow\none St. Martin's summer to stay with her Grannie.\n\nThe Grannie was old and weak in her legs, and could not take her\ngranddaughter out to see the sights of the little old-world town,\nwith its narrow streets and ancient houses, so the child had to go\nby herself.\n\nWhen she had seen all there was to be seen in the town, she went up\nto look at the church, of which she had heard from her mother, who\nwas a Padstow woman, and the quaint little figures on the buttresses\nof the south wall.\n\nIt was between the lights when she got there, but she could see the\ncarved figures quite distinctly, which were a lion with its mouth wide\nopen, a unicorn with a crown encircling its neck, and a young knight,\nstanding between them, holding a shield; and when she had taken them\nall in she repeated a funny old rhyme which her mother told her she\nused to say when she was a little maid and lived at Padstow. The\nrhyme was as follows:\n\n\n                   'Reefy, reefy rum,\n                    Without teeth or tongue;\n                    If you'll have me,\n                    Now I am a-come.'\n\n\nThe rhyme--a taunt and an invitation in one--was very rude, and so\nwas the little girl who repeated it; but the lion, the unicorn,\nand the little knight did not take any notice of her, and looked\nstraight before them as they had done ever since they were carved on\nthe wall. But Nancy was somewhat afraid of the effect of the rhyme\non those quaint little figures, especially on the open-mouthed lion,\nwho had no sign of teeth or tongue; and she ran round the great\nsquare-turreted tower, and took refuge under the pentice roof of\nthe gateway, and sat on the bench to see if they would leave their\nstations on the wall and come after her; but they did not.\n\nThe little stone knight and the two animals had a strange fascination\nfor the little Wadebridger, and the next evening again found her in\nthe beautiful churchyard gazing up at them with her bright child-eyes,\nand as she gazed she repeated the same rude rhyme:\n\n\n                   'Reefy, reefy rum,\n                    Without teeth or tongue;\n                    If you'll have me,\n                    Now I am a-come.'\n\n\nBut they took not the smallest notice of her, nor of her rhyme, and\nthe young knight did not lift as much as an eyelash; but the child,\nnow the rhyme was said, was even more apprehensive than ever of the\neffect it might have, and ran round the tower and again took refuge\nin the old gateway, and waited to see if they would come down from\nthe wall and try to catch her; but they never came.\n\nThe last evening of her stay at Padstow, Nancy went once more to the\nchurchyard to have another look at the figures, and to taunt them\nwith having no teeth or tongue.\n\nIt was not quite so late as the first two evenings she had come\nthither, and the robins were singing their evensong in the churchyard\ntrees.\n\nAs she stood staring up at the figures, a shaft of light from the\nsun setting between the trees fell across their faces, and the eyes\nof the little knight seemed to look down in sad reproach at the rude\nlittle maid as she again repeated the rhyme which was even ruder than\nshe knew.\n\nHer voice was shrill and loud, and was heard above the robins'\ncheerful song.\n\nShe had hardly finished the rhyme when she saw the lion move from\nhis place on the wall, followed by the unicorn and the young knight,\nand come sliding down. She did not wait to see them reach the bottom,\nfor she took to her heels and ran for her life; but she could hear\nthe figures carved in stone coming after her as she flew round the\ntower, and her heart was beating faster than the church clock when\nshe reached the gateway.\n\nThe gate, fortunately for her, was open wide, and she caught hold of\nit, and banged it behind her as the lion with his gaping mouth came\nup to it.\n\nShe looked over her shoulder as she turned to run down the street,\nand she saw the three figures all in a row--the young knight in\nthe middle holding his shield--gazing at her through the round\nwooden bars of the gate. The lion looked savage, and but for the\nbrave little knight with his pure young face, who seemed to have a\nrestraining power upon both animals, he might have broken the bars\nand come through the gate and made small bones of the child who had\ninvited them three times to come down and have her!\n\nThe little Wadebridger ran back to her Grannie, and told her about the\nrhyme she had said to the little stone figures on the wall of Padstow\nChurch, and how they had come down and run after her to the gate. Her\ngood old Grannie said it would have served her right if they had broken\nthe gate and got her. 'A lesson to you, my dear,' she cried, 'never to\nbe rude to man or beast, especially to figures carved on church walls.'\n\nThe three little stone figures stood all in a row on the gate step\ntill the child was out of sight, and finding she did not return, they\nwent back to their places on the buttresses of the grey old church,\nand there they are still; and, as far as we know, they have never left\nthem since Nancy Parnell, the little Wadebridger, repeated 'Reefy,\nreefy rum' three times, and that was when our great-great-grandmothers\nwere children.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LITTLE HORSES AND HORSEMEN OF PADSTOW\n\n\nAt the bottom of the same old town there is a house which has two\ntiny little men on horseback on the top of its roof. They have stood\nthere for hundreds of years, and they never leave their places save\nwhen they hear the great church clock strike the hour of midnight,\nwhen, it is said, they leave the red tiles, and gallop round the\nmarket-place and through the streets of the little town.\n\nThese gallant little horsemen have seen the house on which they\nstand almost rebuilt--changed from an old-world building with quaint\nwindows and doors into quite a modern one--and they have the sorrow\nof knowing that the only things left that are ancient are the walls,\nthe red tile-ridge, their little horses, and themselves.\n\nLong generations of Padstow children have seen these quaint little men\non horseback, and many a question have they asked concerning them;\nbut the only thing they ever learnt was that whenever they hear the\nchurch clock strike twelve in the middle of the night they come down\nfrom the roof, gallop round the market, and through the streets, as\nwe have just said. But as children are generally in bed at that late\nhour, none were ever fortunate enough to see them do this wonderful\nfeat, except little Robin Curgenven, the son of a toymaker, and it\nhappened in this way:\n\nOne evening when Robin was about nine years old his father and mother\nwent to a party; and as it was a party only for grown-up people,\nthey left him at home asleep in bed.\n\nRobin slept sound as a ringer till just before twelve, when he awoke,\nand finding he was alone in the house, he crept out of bed, opened the\nfront door, which was under the roof, and went out and stood on the\ntop of an external stone stairway which led down to the market-place.\n\nThe house where he lived was as quaint and old as the one on which\nthe little men rode so gallantly, and it faced it. As he stood at\nthe head of the steps the church clock began to strike the hour of\nmidnight.  It had only struck four or five when he remembered what\nhe had heard about those wonderful little horsemen and their steeds,\nand he looked across the market to see if what he had been told about\nthem was really true.\n\nHe could see the house quite plainly, and the little horses and\nhorsemen, for it was a clear night and full moon.\n\nThe moment the clock had done striking Robin saw to his great delight\nthe two little men on their two little horses leave the housetop and\nleap into the street, and go galloping round and round the market-place\nas his parents assured him they did when they heard the clock strike\ntwelve.\n\nThe little horses galloped so funnily, and the tiny riders sat so bolt\nupright on their quaint little steeds, that Robin laughed to see them,\nand said they looked exactly like the wooden toy horses and horsemen\nin his father's shop. And as they went galloping, galloping that queer\nlittle gallop, he clapped his hands and cheered like a Cornishman.\n\nThe tiny little horsemen took no notice of the excited boy on the top\nof the stairs, and the moment they had finished their gallop round\nthe old market they came through the narrow opening at the foot of\nthe stairs, and galloped away up the street as fast as they could.\n\nSo excited was little Robin Curgenven when he saw the tiny horsemen\ngallop away that he flew down the steps and tore after them, quite\nforgetting that his feet were bare, and that he had nothing on save\nhis little white nightshirt.\n\nHe ran very fast; but fast as he ran, he could not overtake those\nswift little horses, and by the time he got to the bottom of Middle\nStreet they were nearly at the top.\n\nWhen they reached the head of that street the tiny horsemen pulled\nup their horses for a minute outside an ancient-looking house with a\nporch-room set on wooden pillars, and then they turned up Workhouse\nHill and disappeared.\n\nRobin ran faster than before, and the tails of his little nightshirt\nflew out behind him on the wind as he ran; and he never stopped running\ntill he was half-way up Church Street, when he saw the little horses\nand their riders galloping down towards him.\n\nThey had been to the head of the town, and were returning; and he got\non the footpath and stood near an arched passage, and waited for them\nto pass.\n\nHe did not have to wait long, and so fast did they come you would have\nthought they were galloping for a wager. They seemed to be enjoying\ntheir gallop through the streets of the sleeping old town amazingly;\nand Robin, as he fixed his bright young eyes upon them, saw, or thought\nhe saw, a broad grin on their queer little faces as they galloped by.\n\nThe barefooted little lad, in his little night-garment, ran beside\nthe quaint little horses and the little horsemen for a short distance,\nbut they galloped much faster than he could run, and soon outdistanced\nhim; and, run as hard as ever he could, he could not overtake them,\nbut he heard the ringing of the tiny horses' hoofs on the hard road\nas they went galloping down through the town.\n\nWhen he reached the bottom of the town and the house where the little\nmen and their horses usually stood, he glanced up, and to his surprise\nsaw them standing on the tile-ridge, looking as if they had never\nleft it.\n\nRobin gazed at them till he began to feel cold, and then he went\nback across the market to his own house; and half an hour later,\nwhen his father and mother came home from the party, they found him\nfast asleep on one of the steps with his toes tucked up under him.\n\n'The funny little horses and little horsemen did hear the clock strike\ntwelve, and galloped round the market and through the town same as\nyou told me,' said Robin in a sleepy voice, when his father picked\nhim up and carried him into the house. 'I saw them with my own eyes,\nand I ran after them up as far as Church Street. They galloped so\nfunnily and so fast; I am glad I saw them.'\n\n'So am I,' said his father, laughing, thinking his small son had\ndreamt it as he lay asleep on the step. 'You are the first little\nchap who ever saw them come down from the roof and gallop, and I\nfancy you will be the last.'\n\nLittle Robin Curgenven may have been the first to see them gallop as\nhis father said, but he may not be the last, for the quaint little\nhorses and horsemen are still on the roof of the house, and it is\ntold that they still gallop through Padstow streets, and round what\nonce was the market, when they hear the church clock strike twelve!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHOW JAN BREWER WAS PISKEY-LADEN\n\n\nThe moon was near her setting as a tall, broad-shouldered man called\nJan Brewer was walking home to Constantine Bay to his cottage on the\nedge of a cliff.\n\nHe was singing an old song to himself as he went along, and he sang\ntill he drew near the ruins of Constantine Church, standing on a\nsandy common near the bay. As he grew near the remains of this ancient\nchurch, which were clearly seen in the moonshine, he thought he heard\nsomeone laughing, but he was not quite sure, for the sea was roaring\non the beach below the common, and the waves were making a loud noise\nas they dashed up the great headland of Trevose.\n\n'I was mistaken; 'twas nobody laughing,' said Jan to himself, and he\nwalked on again, singing as before; and he sang till he came near a\ngate, which opened into a field leading to his cottage, but when he\ngot there he could not see the gate or the gateway.\n\n'I was so taken up with singing the old song, that I must have\nmissed my way,' he said again to himself. 'I'll go back to the head\nof the common and start afresh,' which he did; and when he got to the\nplace where his gate ought to have been, he could not find it to save\nhis life.\n\n'I must be clean mazed,' [23] he cried. 'I have never got out of my\nreckoning before, nor missed finding my way to our gate, even when\nthe night has been as dark as pitch. It isn't at all dark to-night;\nI can see Trevose Head'--looking across the bay--'and yet I can't see\nmy own little gate! But I en't a-going to be done; I'll go round and\nround this common till I do find my gate.'\n\nAnd round and round the common he went, but find his gate he could not.\n\nEvery time he passed the ruins of the church a laugh came up from the\npool below the ruins, and once he thought he saw a dancing light on\nthe edge of the pool, where a lot of reeds and rushes were growing.\n\n'The Little Man in the Lantern is about to-night,' he said to himself,\nas he glanced at the pool. 'But I never knew he was given to laughing\nbefore.'\n\nOnce more he went round the common, and when he had passed the ruins\nhe heard giggling and laughing, this time quite close to him; and\nlooking down on the grass, he saw to his astonishment hundreds of\nLittle Men and Little Women with tiny lights in their hands, which\nthey were flinking [24] about as they laughed and giggled.\n\nThe Little Men wore stocking-caps, the colour of ripe briar berries,\nand grass-green coats, and the Little Women had on old grandmother\ncloaks of the same vivid hue as the Wee Men's coats, and they also\nwore fascinating little scarlet hoods.\n\n'I believe the great big chap sees us,' said one of the Little Men,\ncatching sight of Jan's astonished face. 'He must be Piskey-eyed,\nand we did not know it.'\n\n'Is he really?' cried one of the Dinky [25] Women. ''Tis a pity,' as\nthe Little Man nodded. 'But we'll have our game over him all the same.'\n\n'That we will,' cried all the Little Men and Little Women in one voice;\nand, forming a ring round the great tall fellow, they began to dance\nround him, laughing, giggling, tehoing, and flashing up their lights\nas they danced.\n\nThey went round him so fast that poor Jan was quite bewildered, and\nwhichever way he looked there were these Little Men and Little Women\ngiggling up into his bearded face. And when he tried to break through\ntheir ring they went before him and behind him, making a game over him,\nhe said!\n\nHe was at their mercy and they knew it; and when they saw the great\nfellow's misery, they only laughed and giggled the more.\n\n'We've got him!' they cried to each other, and they said it with such\ngusto and with such a comical expression on their tiny brown faces,\nthat Jan, bewildered as he was, and tired with going round the common\nso many times, could not help laughing, they looked so very funny,\nparticularly when the Little Women winked up at him from under their\nlittle scarlet hoods.\n\nThe Piskeys--for they were Piskeys--hurried him down the common,\ndancing round him all the time; and when he got there he felt so\nmizzy-mazey with those tiny whirling figures going round and round him\nlike a whirligig, that he did not know whether he was standing on his\nhead or his heels. He was also in a bath of perspiration--'sweating\nleaking,' he expressed it--and, putting his hand in his pocket\nto take out a handkerchief to mop his face, he remembered having\nbeen told that, if ever he got Piskey-laden, he must turn his coat\npockets inside out, when he would be free at once from his Piskey\ntormentors. He immediately acted on this suggestion, and in a minute\nor less his coat-pockets were hanging out, and all the Little Men\nand the Little Women had vanished, and there, right in front of him,\nhe saw his own gate! He lost no time in opening it, and in a very\nshort time was in his thatched cottage on the cliff.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SMALL PEOPLE'S FAIR\n\n\nIn the same parish where Jan Brewer was Piskey-laden on Constantine\nCommon there is a beautiful lane called Tresallyn. It has high mossy\nhedges, where ferns grow in abundance, and where speedwells love to\ndisplay their multitude of blue blossoms.\n\nThis lane is said to be a regular Piskeys' haunt, where all the Wee\nFolk in the neighbourhood meet. People who have passed through this\nlane in the evening or late at night have heard the Piskeys laughing;\nbut nobody, as far as we know, except one young fellow, ever had the\ngood fortune to see them, and he, like Jan Brewer, had the gift of\nseeing what others could not.\n\nHender Bennett was the name of this young fellow, and he lived at a\nfarm near Tresallyn Lane. One night, after he had been over to Towan,\na village about a mile and a half away, to see a young girl whom he\nwas courting, he was returning home through this beautiful old lane,\nwhen he was startled by a burst of music quite close to him. The\nmusic was so sweet and yet so stirring that he wanted to dance to\nthe tune. He looked about to see whence the sound was coming, but he\ncould see nothing unusual.\n\nIt was a glorious night, and the big moon floated like a silver ball\nin the cloudless blue of the midnight sky, and shone so brightly that\nhe could even see fronds of the ferns standing out quite clearly from\nthe mossy hedge-banks.\n\nAs he was looking around, the music grew louder, sweeter, and more\nstirring, and sending his gaze down the lane to where the trees arched\nit, he saw a big crowd of Small People holding a fair.\n\nHe had heard of Little People's fairs from his great-grannie, but had\nnever hoped to see one, and he was as glad as a bird that he happened\nto be going down Tresallyn Lane when they were holding one.\n\nThe Wee Folk were holding their fair near a gate about a dozen yards\nor so from where he was standing. As the moon was just then floating\nover the gate, he could see all the Little People quite plainly,\nand what they were doing.\n\nThe Little Men and the Little Women were all dressed up to the nines\nin the way of clothes, and although he could not have described the cut\nof their coats or the style of their gowns, he knew that all the Little\nWomen were lovely, that dear little faces peeped out of quaint bonnets,\nthat they carried frails in their hands, and that Piskey-purses hung\nby their sides in the same way that his great-grannie's big cotton\npurse bag hung under her gown.\n\nThere were ever so many little standings or stalls on the grass--one\nhere and one there, like currants in his mother's buns, Hender told\nhimself. Every standing was laid out with all sorts of tempting\nthings pleasing to Small People, on which they gazed with evident\ndelight. They asked the price of this thing and that of the little\nstanding women behind the stalls; and to see the Little People opening\ntheir tiny brown Piskey-purses and taking out their fairy money to\npay for their purchases was as good as a play.\n\nBut what delighted the young fellow most were the Tiny Fiddlers and\nPipers; and to watch the way the Fiddlers elbowed their fiddle-sticks\nand fiddled was worth walking twelve miles any night to see, he\nsaid, to say nothing of watching the Little Men and the Little Women\ndancing to the tunes the Fiddlers fiddled and the Pipers piped. It\nwas merrymaking with a vengeance, he told himself, and the fiddling,\nthe piping, and the merrymaking at Summercourt Fair were nothing to it!\n\nThe fair itself was held a few feet away from the standings and the\nmerrymaking, and when Hender could turn away his gaze for a few minutes\nto look at the Little People's Fair Park, he saw a sight he feared he\nshould never see again. There were scores of fairy horses, and as many\nbullocks and cows, and flocks of sheep and goats, none of them much\nbigger than those quaint little animals in toy farmyards; but these\nwere all alive, he could tell, by the prancing of the horses! The\nsheep were confined within hurdles. There were pigs there as well,\nonly to Hender's eyes they looked exactly like very large sow-pigs,\n[26] all of which were in small stone enclosures. Moving about among\nthe animals were Little Men who were dressed like farmers, but whether\nthey were farmers or not he could not tell.\n\nIt was all so wonderfully interesting to Hender that he stood still\nlike one in a dream, till one of the Little Men in a smart green coat\nwent over to a very pretty Little Lady, who reminded him of his own\nsweetheart whom he had not very long kissed good-night, and asked her\nif he might treat her to some fairing, and he took hold of her little\nhand and led her up to the standing. And when he opened his purse to\npay for what he bought for his lady-love Hender had to give vent to\nhis feelings, and he cried out: 'I could not have done it better--no,\nnot even if I had bought a fairing for my own little sweetheart! No\nfy! I couldn't.'\n\nThe words were no sooner spoken when the Small People's fair vanished,\nLittle People and all, and the only thing left to show that a fair\nhad been held were a dozen sow-pigs in a stone enclosure!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PISKEYS WHO DID AUNT BETSY'S WORK\n\n\nIn our great-great-grandmothers' days people very seldom went away\nvisiting, and when little Nannie Sando received an invitation from\nher Aunt Betsy--great-aunt really--who lived quite twenty miles from\nher home on a lonely moor, near Liskard, there was great excitement\nin Nannie's home.\n\nNannie's father did not like the thought of her going away so far from\nhome, and her mother did not like it either, but she said Aunt Betsy\nwas well-to-do, and had a stockingful of gold hidden away somewhere;\nit would not do for them to offend her by refusing to let the child\ngo. So the invitation was accepted, and Nannie was sent off by coach,\nand met by her aunt in a donkey-cart in Horn Lane, at Liskard, where\nthe coach put up; and that same evening she reached the little house\non the moor.\n\nIt was quite a nice little house, with two rooms up and two down,\nand a large garden behind, sheltered by granite boulders fantastically\npiled one on top of the other. In front of the house were the moors,\nwhich, at the time Nannie came to stay with her aunt, were gorgeous\nwith the bloom of heather and other flowers.\n\nNice as the house was, and beautiful as the moors were, with their\nbackground of Kilmar and other Cornish tors, it was a lonely spot\nfor a child to come and stay at, with only an elderly woman for\ncompany. But, then, there was the charm of novelty, and there were\ndelights in the shape of her aunt's donkey and cow, and a big black\ntom-cat called Tinker, to say nothing of the far-stretching moors,\nwhich were so beautiful to look at and run wild on.\n\nWhen Nannie was leaving to go and stay with Aunt Betsy, her mother,\nwith a view to possessing some of the old lady's golden hoard some\nday, told her little daughter to be very attentive to her aunt. 'Get\nup when she does,' she said, 'and help her to do her work, and make\nyourself very useful;' and the child said she would.\n\nNannie, when she was going to bed on the evening of her arrival,\nremembered her mother's injunction, and said to her aunt:\n\n'Please call me when you get up; I want to help you to clean up\nthe houseplace.'\n\nBut the old woman did not call her grand-niece, and let her stay in\nbed till breakfast-time; and when the child came down she found all\nthe work done, and everything clean and shining.\n\n'You never called me, Aunt Betsy,' said Nannie reproachfully. 'Mother\ndid so want me to help you.'\n\n'Did she?' cried the old woman sharply. 'If your mother told you to\nhelp me, she had a motive for it. I know your mother's little ways!'\n\n'She said you were getting up in years,' said Nannie innocently,\n'and that the young should spare the old as much as they could.'\n\n'The dear little Brown Piskeys spare my old legs,' said the old woman,\nlooking at the child. 'They come in and do my work before the world\ngets up.'\n\n'The Piskeys!' cried the child. 'Who are the Piskeys? I never heard\nof them before.'\n\n'You must be a very ignorant little girl not to have heard tell of\nthe Piskeys,' cried Aunt Betsy, lifting her hands in surprise. 'They\nare dear Little People who take strange likes and dislikes to human\nbeings. If they happen to like people very much, they come into their\nhouse and do their work for them. They have taken quite a fancy to me,\nand come into my house every night and clean up the houseplace, polish\nthe candlesticks till they shine like gold, scour the pots and pans,\nand wash and clean everything that wants cleaning.'\n\n'How very kind of them!' said Nannie. 'They must be dear Little\nPeople. I do wish I could see them doing your work, Aunt Betsy. It\nwould be something to tell father and mother when I go home.'\n\n'I don't expect you will have the good fortune to see the Piskeys,'\nsaid the old woman. 'They are little invisible Men and Women, and\nnobody ever sees them unless they happen to be Piskey-eyed. As you\nhave never heard about these dear Wee Folk till now, it is quite\ncertain you have not the gift.'\n\n'Are you Piskey-eyed, Aunt Betsy?' asked Nannie eagerly.\n\nHer aunt did not answer, and told her little grand-niece to sit up\nat table and eat her breakfast.\n\nThe child was too full of the Little People to eat much breakfast,\nand the more she thought about them, the more anxious she became to\nsee those dear Wee Folk, who were so very, very kind to her Aunt Betsy.\n\nThe next morning Nannie got up ever so early, with the hope of\nseeing the Piskeys, but, early as it was, Aunt Betsy was down before\nher. The work was all done, and the table laid for breakfast, as on\nthe previous day.\n\n'The Piskeys came and did it long before I was up,' remarked her aunt,\nnot noticing the child's face of disappointment, glancing round the\nbig kitchen, with its stone-flagged floor, just washed, and looking\nas blue as the tors, and up at the dresser, with its china looking\nas if it had been washed in sunshine, it was so sparkling; and as\nfor the tall brass candlesticks on the high mantelpiece, they were\ndazzling in their brightness.\n\n'It isn't fair that the Little People should come in and do all your\nwork when I wanted to help,' said Nannie.\n\n'I am used to Piskeys, but not to children,' returned the old\nwoman. 'If you really want to do something for me, you shall go out\non the moors and pick me a nosegay of wild flowers. It will make the\nkitchen look nice, and will complete the work of the Piskeys.'\n\nNannie was willing, as she had nothing to do, and she put on her\nsun-bonnet to go.\n\n'The clover is in blossom,' said her aunt, as the child was going out\nat the door, 'and if you happen to find one with four leaves you may\nperhaps get Piskey-eyed, and if you also find a Wee's Nest [27] you\nwill have the good fortune to see all the Little People in Cornwall!'\n\n'A Wee's Nest is a thing that is never found,' said Nannie; 'but\nI'll look for a four-leaved clover till I find it. P'raps you found\na four-leaved clover, and that is how you can see the Piskeys,'\nlooking round at her aunt with a smile.\n\nThe old woman was not given to answering questions, and she only said\nthat four-leaved clovers were not so easy to find as she imagined.\n\nThere was an abundance of flowers everywhere on the moors, and Nannie\nsoon gathered a great big nosegay; but although she looked for a\nfour-leaved clover, she could not find one.\n\nHer aunt was very pleased with the flowers when she took them to her,\nand told her to put them into an earthenware pot, which she did; and\nwhen she had had her dinner, she went on the moors again. Tinker, the\ngreat tom-cat, with whom she had already made friends, followed her.\n\nNannie stayed out on the moors till it was almost bedtime, searching\nfor a four-leaved clover, but she searched in vain.\n\nThe next morning, the child, hearing her aunt dressing, got up and\ndressed too, and, being young and nimble, she was dressed and down\nfirst.\n\nWhen she got to the kitchen, she heard the clatter of pans and\na tripping to and fro of tiny feet, and little bursts of laughter\ncame from the big spence at the upper end of the kitchen; but she saw\nnothing living, except Tinker, cleaning his face in front of the fire,\nand then she heard a patter of small feet going towards the outer\nkitchen door, and there was silence.\n\n'You have driven away the Piskeys, you young good-for-nothing!' cried\nAunt Betsy, coming into the kitchen, buttoning the sleeve of her gown\nas she came. 'The Little People don't like to be spied on when they\nare busy working. You should not have got up so early.'\n\nThe old woman seemed as much put out as the Piskeys, and she flew\nround the kitchen doing the work the Small People had left undone,\nand would not allow Nannie to help at all, not even to lay the cloth\nfor breakfast.\n\nAfter breakfast, the child, in order to put her aunt in a better\nmood, went out on the moors to get another nosegay of wild flowers,\nand she gathered one of every sort she could find.\n\nAs she was picking them, Tinker, the cat, who had followed her again\nto the moors, put his paw on a clover and mewed; and, fearing a bee\nhad stung him, she looked to see, and quite close to his paw was a\nwhite four-leaved clover!\n\n'I shall be able to see the Piskeys now!' said Nannie joyfully;\nand she and Tinker returned to the house.\n\nAunt Betsy was out at the back looking for a hen who had stolen her\nnest, and she did not come in till dinner-time.\n\nNannie amused herself meanwhile in arranging the flowers, and when\nshe had done that to her own satisfaction, she passed the four-leaved\nclover over her eyes three times, and looked round the kitchen to see\nwhat she could see. She saw nothing unusual, but she thought she saw\na tiny brown laughing face peeping round the kitchen door.\n\nWhen Aunt Betsy came in from watching the hen, the child told her\nshe had found the four-leaved clover, thanks to Tinker.\n\nHer aunt looked at her queerly, and asked her to show the clover\nwhich she had found; and when she saw that it was a four-leaved one,\nshe only said: 'But you have not yet found the Wee's Nest, and you\nmust not expect to see the dear little Brown Piskeys unless you do.'\n\nNannie hoped she would, all the same, and this hope made her\nso excited she could not sleep; and when daylight began to creep\ninto the sky she got up, and without waiting to put on more than\nher little petticoat, she crept downstairs, holding the four-leaved\nclover in her hand. When she got to the door of the kitchen, leading\ninto it from the passage, she opened it softly and peeped in; and to\nher delight she saw scores and scores of Little People, all as busy\nas bees in a field of clover. Some were sweeping the flagged stones,\nsome were washing the cloam [28] and scouring the pots and pans, some\nwere polishing the candlesticks with a soft leather, and others were in\nthe big spence scrubbing the stone benches and doing it all as keenly\n[29] as Aunt Betsy herself, which was most wonderful, she thought,\nconsidering how tiny they were. For they were not much bigger than\na miller's thumb. [30]\n\nIt was the Little Women Piskeys who were the busiest workers. The\nLittle Men were less industrious; and when Tinker came into the\nkitchen, they stopped their work of cleaning the milk-pans to\npull his great bushy tail and his whiskers. One little scamp of a\nPiskey--perhaps unconscious that Nannie was now Piskey-eyed--put his\nthumb to his nose, after the manner of naughty little boys, and made\na face at her.\n\nThe Piskeys were a merry little lot, and laughed at their work as if\nit were all play, which perhaps it was; and one little red-capped\nPiskey danced a hornpipe on the table as several of his companions\nwere about to lay the cloth for Aunt Betsy's breakfast. They stood\non the edge of the table, waiting for him to finish his dance, and\nas he did not seem inclined to do this, they caught hold of him by\nhis legs and tickled him.\n\nThe little Piskey who was being tickled, and those who tickled him,\nlooked so comical that Nannie laughed, which made them stop and\nlook round.\n\n'There is a little maid watching us from the door!' said one of the\nPiskeys in a whisper. 'She is Piskey-eyed, the same as Aunt Betsy,\nand she will be spying upon us now, sure as eggs are eggs. I think\nwe had better forsake this house and go and do work for some other\nold woman.' And, to Nannie's distress, they went, and ever after Aunt\nBetsy had to do her own work, which made her so cross that she sent\npoor Nannie home to her parents at the first opportunity she had; and\nwhen she died, which was not a great while after, she left her little\nhoard of gold to strangers. Nannie's father said 'twas a great pity,\nbut that his wife was to blame, for if she had not urged their little\nmaid to help the old lady to do her work with the unworthy motive of\nhaving some of her gold, Nannie would never have wanted to see the\nPiskeys doing Aunt Betsy's work.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PISKEYS WHO CARRIED THEIR BEDS\n\n\nMany years ago the Piskeys used to dance on a grassy place on the top\nof the cliffs overlooking Newtrain Bay in the parish of Padstow. They\ndanced there so often that the grass was worn quite bare, and until\nthe cliffs on which they danced were undermined and broken down by\nthe rough sea, the marks of their tiny feet were plainly seen.\n\nAn old woman who lived a short distance from Newtrain Cliffs used\nto tell people interested in fairies that she had often seen them\ndancing there. 'They danced two and two,' she said, 'and so near the\nedge of the cliff, you would have thought they would dance over. But\nthey never did; they were far too clever for that.'\n\nJinnie Chapman was the name of this old woman. She was quite a\ncharacter in her way, and almost as interesting as the Small People\nshe loved to talk about.\n\nShe was a little quick woman, with twinkling dark eyes, and whenever\nshe went over to Newtrain to watch the Piskeys, she wore a black\ncottage-bonnet over her neat jinnie-guick cap, a blue print apron, and\na quaint little black turnover with a wide border of red cones. This\nturnover she called a 'q' shawl, because the cones on its border were\nthe shape of q's, she said.\n\nIt was the great pleasure of her dull, uneventful life to see the\nPiskeys dancing, which she was simple enough to believe they did to\ngive her pleasure; and she embraced every opportunity to get to the\nNewtrain Cliffs to watch them.\n\nJinnie had watched the Small People so often that she knew every one\nof them by sight, and how many there were that danced.\n\nThey never took any notice of the little old woman in the\ncottage-bonnet, the quaint shawl, and blue print apron, watching\nthem dancing near a low stone hedge green and gold with samphire;\nand they laughed and talked to each other just the same as if she\nwere not present.\n\nThey never danced, as far as Jinnie knew, except when the moon was\nhigh, and they left off dancing when the moon set like a ball of fire\nover the great headlands. But she did not know where they went after\nthe moon had gone down.\n\nOne very bright moonlight night in the early autumn, when the\nPiskey-stools [31] were thick on Newtrain Cliffs, old Jinnie came\nagain to watch the Piskeys; and when she got there, there were not any\nto be seen. She could not understand it, and she went and looked at\nthe Piskey-stools to see if they were sitting on any of them having\na chat, which they sometimes did when they were tired of dancing;\nbut every Piskey-stool on the cliffs was unoccupied.\n\nAs she was wondering what had become of the Piskeys, she heard\nshrieks of tiny laughter, like the giggles of kittiwakes, coming up\nfrom Newtrain Bay under the cliffs; and she hastened down the steep\nroad leading to the bay--which was romantic-looking, and almost shut\nin by tall cliffs--as fast as her old legs would take her.\n\nWhen she got to the bottom of the road, she met four little Piskeys\ncoming up, carrying a large Piskey-bag between them; and being very\nanxious to know what they were going to do with the dark-brown thing,\nshe said:\n\n'My little dears, will you kindly tell me what you are going to do\nwith the Piskey-bag?'\n\nThey were evidently too surprised to answer the old woman at once,\nfor she had never spoken to them before, and they stared up at her\nopen-mouthed.\n\n'To sleep in when the cold weather comes,' answered a Piskey at last.\n\n'They are ever so comfortable to snuggle under when the snow is on\nthe ground,' said another little Piskey.\n\n'Sleep in them, do you?' cried old Jinnie, greatly interested. 'To\nthink of it now! I expect they are as warm as the blanketing the\nblanket-weavers weave in their looms at Padstow. But I never knew\nbefore you slept in the bags; I thought you kept your money in them.'\n\n'We don't, then,' cried the Piskeys, grinning all over their little\nelf faces, which were almost as brown as the Piskey-bag they were\ncarrying. 'We use the tiny young bags to keep our money in, not big\nones like this.'\n\n'Up we go!' cried one of the Piskeys to his companions, giving the one\nnearest him a poke in his ribs; and the four little Brown Men began\nto ascend the steep road, carrying the Piskey-bag by its four tails,\nswinging it to and fro, and shrieking with laughter as they swung it.\n\nJinnie watched them for a few minutes, and then went down to the pebbly\nbeach, where she saw dozens of little Brown Men in companies of four,\neach company bearing a Piskey-bag between them.\n\nThere was a long string of these Little People from the water's edge\nto where she met them, which was about a dozen yards from the foot\nof the steep road.\n\nThe little Brown Men took no notice of her, and swung the bags just as\ndid the first quartette, seemingly unconscious that she was watching\nthem, and laughed and joked among themselves as they swung them.\n\nOld Jinnie followed them up the beach and road, and she wondered to\nherself where they were going to take the bags; but she never knew,\nfor when they reached the top of the cliff where they danced, they\nvanished, Piskey-bags and all!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE FAIRY WHIRLWIND\n\n\nA young married woman, who was very pretty, lived with her husband\nin a sweet little cottage by the sea. The cottage was cob-walled,\nand had a small flower-garden in its front, which was a picture\nin the early springtime with periwinkles and gilliflowers, and in\nthe summer-time with roses and hollyhocks. There was another garden\nbelonging to the cottage, but it was only for vegetables, and was on\nthe top of a cliff quite five minutes' walk from the cottage.\n\nThis young wife and her husband, who was a waggoner, had one little\nchild a few months old. The child was very dear to them both, and\nthey thought she was the sweetest and most beautiful little baby in\nall the world. The fairies must have been quite of the same opinion,\nas you will see.\n\nOne afternoon the young wife was about to make an Irish stew for her\nhusband's supper, when she found she had not enough potatoes in the\nhouse to make it.\n\nAs she took her sun-bonnet from its peg to go up to the cliff garden\nto dig some up, her baby, who was lying in its wooden cradle, puckered\nits fair little face and began to cry.\n\n'I believe the darling knows I am going out,' cried the fond young\nmother. 'I can't leave her here all by her little self; I must take\nher with me.' And when she had put on her bonnet and a basket for\nthe potatoes on her arm, she lifted the baby out of the cradle and\ntook her with her to the cliff, fondling the dear little thing and\ntalking to it as she went.\n\nWhen she had reached the cliff-garden, she stood on the edge of the\ncliff with her flaxen-haired babe in her arms, looking out over\nthe sea. It was a lovely June day, and the water was as quiet as\na mill-pond and blue as vipers' bugloss, she told her baby. 'Just\nthe sort of weather for my pretty to be out in,' she cried, hugging\nthe child.\n\nMrs. Davies, as the young woman was called, after gazing out over\nthe sea for a few minutes, laid her baby down on the top of a potato\nridge, close to where a succory and a knapweed grew side by side,\nand interlaced their blue and purple blossoms. When the babe had\nfixed its eyes upon the flowers and cooed to them in baby fashion,\nshe set to work to dig up the potatoes.\n\nShe had not been digging very long when she heard a curious noise\nbehind her, like the sound of soft wind in trees, but there were\nno trees in the cliff-garden, and not wind enough to move even the\npotato leaves.\n\nShe dropped the biddix [32] to see what it was that made so strange a\nsound, and as she dropped it she was caught in a whirlwind--a Fairy\nWhirlwind, she said it was--which whirled her round and round like\na whirligig; and as she whirled she was enveloped in a cloud of fine\ngrey pillum, or dust, and she could not see anything beyond her nose.\n\nWhen the whirlwind went away--and it vanished as suddenly as it\ncame--she found herself close to the edge of the cliff ever so far\naway from her baby.\n\nFearing she knew not what for her child, she ran over to it to see\nif it was quite safe; and to her horror, there, where her own fair\nlittle baby had lain, she saw a dark, wizen little creature, with a\nface wrinkled all over like an old woman's!\n\n'That is not my little maid,' she shrieked; 'it's a changeling! The\nwicked Little People envied us our little beauty, and have stolen her\naway, and left one of their own ugly brats in her place. They raised\na Fairy Whirlwind to hide from me what they were doing, the wicked,\nwicked little things!'\n\nMrs. Davies never knew how long she stood staring down in hopeless\nmisery upon the ugly babe the Small People had left there on the\npotato ridge in place of her own; but in the end she took it up in\nher arms and carried it down to the cottage.\n\nHer husband was at home by this time, wondering what had become of\nhis wife and child, and you might have knocked him down with a straw\nwhen she poured out her woe to him, and showed him the ugly dark babe\nthe fairies had exchanged for their own beautiful babe.\n\n'What must I do with it?' she asked piteously, when her husband turned\naway from it with grief in his eyes and sorrow in his heart.\n\n'Keep it till the Small People are tired of our little handsome,' he\nsaid, 'and be good to it if you can. If we ain't kind to the fairies'\ncheeld, they won't be kind to ours, that's certain.'\n\nSo the young woman and her husband, for the sake of their own\nflaxen-haired, blue-eyed little darling the Small People had envied and\ntaken away, were very kind to the babe they had left in its place. They\nhoped, as they took care of it, although they never loved it, that the\nfairies would quickly grow tired of their child and bring her back;\nbut they hoped in vain.\n\nA year after the Small People had raised a whirlwind, the fairies'\ncheeld, as Mrs. Davies and her husband called the babe left on the\npotato ridge in place of their own, pined away and died; but the\nlittle human child with its flaxen curls and eyes of Cornish blue\nwas never seen by mortal eyes after the fairies had stolen it.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n\n'THE ADVENTURES OF A PISKEY IN SEARCH OF HIS LAUGH.'\n\nThe Piskeys are said to have 'a kind of music,' and to dance to the\nstrains of fairy fiddles.\n\nThere are Piskey-rings on many of the Cornish cliffs and headlands. The\ncountry people say the Piskeys make them in the night. The rings,\nanyhow, spring up suddenly like mushrooms!\n\nThe legend of the mole is still current in North Cornwall, and its\ntiny hands are shown as evidence that it was once a very proud and\nvain lady, who said that the ground was not fit for her dainty feet\nto walk on. As a punishment for her overwhelming vanity and pride,\nshe was turned into a mole to walk underground.\n\nThere is more than one quaint conceit about Jack-o'-the-Lantern or\nthe little Man-o'-the-Lantern. Some say he walks about carrying a\nlantern, others that he goes over the moors in his lantern. He is\nthe Piskey Puck.\n\nThere are many weird stories told about Giant Tregeagle. I have\ngiven one of the simplest, but only as far as it has to do with North\nCornwall. It is said that his shadow still flits over the moorlands\nin the neighbourhood of Dozmare Pool, and that the pool itself is\nthe Mother of Storms, being moved by supernatural influences.\n\nThere has always been a tradition that an underground waterway led\nfrom Dozmare Pool to the sea, but there is no tradition that Merlin\never came out of the place where the Lady of the Lake put him, or\nthat he was the Bargeman of the moorland lake.\n\nThe little fairy riders, or 'night-riders,' as we Cornish call them,\nare, I believe, peculiar to North and East Cornwall. They do not seem\nto have been a kind Little People. They never had any consideration\nfor the horses and colts which they took out of farmers' stables near\ntheir haunts, but rode them over the moors and commons till they were\nready to drop, and then left them to perish or to find their way back\nto their stables as best they could. They made stirrups out of the\ncolts' manes and tails.\n\nThe legend that King Arthur never died is still extant, and it is\nsaid that he haunts the dark Tintagel cliffs and the ruins of the\nold castle where he was born in the form of a red-legged chough.\n\n\n\n'LEGEND OF THE PADSTOW DOOMBAR.'\n\nThe above legend is doubtless a myth, but it is a fact that a wailing\ncry is sometimes heard on the Doombar after a fearful gale and loss\nof life on that fateful bar, like a woman bewailing the dead.\n\n\n\n'THE LITTLE CAKE-BIRD.'\n\nIn the neighbourhood of St. Columb the children used to be told\nthat when they were in bed and asleep the dear little Piskeys would\npass over their noses and order their dreams. One of the strange\nconceits about the Piskeys was told to me not long ago by a native of\nCornwall. He said he had heard the old Granfers and Grannies say that\nthe Piskeys were the spirits of still-born and unbaptized children,\nwhich will perhaps explain the curious belief that Small People were\nnot good enough for heaven nor bad enough for hell. The gay little\nPiskeys seem to have their wistful moments and yearnings for higher\nthings. They are said to listen at windows and doors in moorland\nvillages when Christian people are saying their prayers.\n\nIt was the custom in some parts of Cornwall to put a piece of dough\nin the shape of a bird on the top of the children's Christmas Eve\nbuns, to remind the children that the white-winged Angels sang when\nthe Babe of Bethlehem was born. If I remember rightly, the buns were\neaten hot from the oven.\n\n\n\n'THE IMPOUNDED CROWS.'\n\nThis is a well-known legend. The Crow Pound, where little St. Neot\nimpounded the pilfering crows, was in existence not a great while\nago. It is now a field.\n\n\n\n'THE OLD SKY WOMAN.'\n\nWherever the snow falls in North Cornwall, especially at Padstow,\nlittle children cry one to the other that the Old Woman is up in the\nsky plucking her goose.\n\n\n\n'THE LITTLE HORSES AND HORSEMEN OF PADSTOW.'\n\nThe quaint little figures on the housetop in the old town of Padstow\nare visible to all the passers-by, and sometimes strangers ask why\nthey were put there--a difficult question to answer, as nobody knows\nfor certain. Perhaps they were placed on the ridge of the house for\nthe Piskeys to dance on, or for the fairy riders to ride. Or maybe\nthey were put there in the days of the Civil Wars, as a token that the\nhouse on which the little steeds and the little horsemen were perched\nwas a refuge for King Charles' cavaliers. There is no tradition about\nthe small horses and their riders, but the children were always told,\nas the tale says, that when they heard the clock strike twelve they\ngalloped round the market and town.\n\n\n\n'THE PISKEYS' REVENGE.'\n\nIt used to be held, and is still told, that the Piskeys came in\nthrough the keyhole and ate up the good things. Children, when they\nknew that cakes were made and asked to have some, were told that the\nPiskeys had eaten them all. They had a special liking for junkets\nand sugar biscuits.\n\n\n\n'THE PISKEYS WHO DID AUNT BETSY'S WORK.'\n\nSome of the Piskeys were kindly disposed, and were credited with doing\nkindly acts, and it is said that they often came into the cottages\nin the night-time and cleaned them. When the cottages looked very\nclean and neat it was said that the Piskeys had done it.\n\n\n\n'HOW JAN BREWER WAS PISKEY-LADEN.'\n\nLegends about Piskey-led people are as plentiful as blackberries. The\npresent one comes from the neighbourhood of Constantine.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] Sad.\n\n[2] A bog near Rough Tor.\n\n[3] A bat.\n\n[4] Pronounced Dozmary.\n\n[5] Nightjar.\n\n[6] The ladybird.\n\n[7] Near Helston.\n\n[8] Tintagel.\n\n[9] China.\n\n[10] Sad.\n\n[11] Coax.\n\n[12] Tiny child.\n\n[13] Whortleberries.\n\n[14] An oven when half heated.\n\n[15] Frame.\n\n[16] The speckled, or ermine, moth.\n\n[17] Cotton-grass.\n\n[18] Tale.\n\n[19] Child-little.\n\n[20] Tale.\n\n[21] A small storeroom for victuals.\n\n[22] Power of utterance.\n\n[23] Mad.\n\n[24] Waving.\n\n[25] Little.\n\n[26] Wood-lice.\n\n[27] Mare's nest.\n\n[28] China.\n\n[29] Well.\n\n[30] A very small bird.\n\n[31] Mushrooms.\n\n[32] A double digging tool--one end pointed, the other flattened.","title":"North Cornwall Fairies and Legends","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":33673}