North Cornwall Fairies and Legends Part 1

North Cornwall Fairies and Legends.

by Enys Tregarthen.

INTRODUCTION

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

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

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

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

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

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

Piskeys danced in their rings on many a cliff and common and moor in that delightful parish, and on other wild moors, commons and cliffs in many another parish in North and East Cornwall. Fairy hors.e.m.e.n, locally known as night-riders, used to steal horses from farmers'

stables and ride them over the moors and commons till daybreak, when they left them to perish, or to find their way back to their stalls.

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

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

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

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

H. F.

THE ADVENTURES OF A PISKEY IN SEARCH OF HIS LAUGH

'... A soft Cradle of old tales.'

W. B. Yeats.

The moon was s.h.i.+ning softly down on the grey ruins of King Arthur's Castle by the Tintagel sea, and on hundreds of little Piskeys dancing in a great Piskey-ring on the mainland, known as Castle Gardens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I most certainly haven't,' answered the Little Fiddler.

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

'Perhaps Granfer Piskey will be able to tell you, for I can't,'

said the Tiny Fiddler.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'He is not sick like those people of whom you spoke,' said the Whitebeard at last. 'He has----'