North Cornwall Fairies and LegendsTregarthen, Enys
Science
North Cornwall Fairies and Legends
Tregarthen, Enys
Folklore -- England -- Cornwall (County); Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
''Tis a two-legged cat who has eaten up my beautiful biscuits and
junket,' she said to her husband; and she turned and looked at
little Genefer.
'I am not the two-legged cat who ate up all the nice things you made
for Granfer,' cried the child, meeting the old woman's glance with
her honest brown eyes.
'I never said you did,' said Grannie Nankivell; 'but 'tis queer the
junket-bowl is empty and every biscuit gone from the dish.'
'I expect it was a dog which got into the spence and licked up the
junket and ate the biscuits,' put in the old turf-cutter. 'I would
lock and bar the spence-door, if I were you, the next time I put such
nice things in there.'
'I will,' she said.
The next time Grannie Nankivell made biscuits and a junket she barred
the window of the spence and locked the door, and the next morning,
before Genefer dressed, she went to see if her junket and biscuits were
all right; but the little round biscuits, which she had so carefully
made and sugared, were every one gone, and the junket-bowl was quite
empty, and as dry as a bone.
''Tis our little grandcheeld who has eaten it all!' cried Grannie
Nankivell in great anger to the old turf-cutter. 'No cat or dog could
get into a spence with door locked and window barred.'
'I don't believe it was Genefer,' said the old man stoutly.
'If it was not Genefer, who was it, pray? Biscuits and junkets don't
eat up themselves, any more than dogs and cats can get through keyholes
and barred windows.'
'That's true,' said Granfer Nankivell; 'all the same, I am certain sure
that our dear little grandcheeld would not go and eat up the things.'
'Then who did?' asked the old woman with a snap.
'The little Piskeys, I shouldn't wonder,' he answered. 'My
great-grannie told me they were little greedy-guts, and in her
days they used to skim the cream off the milk, and eat all the
cheese-cakes she used to make, unless she put some for them outside
on the doorstep. Regular little thieves the Piskeys were in her
days. P'raps they haven't learnt to be honest yet. There are plenty
about now, and Little Moormen too, by the teheeing and tehoing I have
heard lately, waiting, I dare say, to play some of their pranks on me.'
But Grannie Nankivell was still unconvinced, and still believed it
was Genefer, and not the Piskeys, who ate her biscuits and junket.
One evening the old woman put another bowl of junket and a dish of
biscuits in the spence, and was as careful as before to bar the window
and lock the door; and in the middle of the night, when her husband was
fast asleep and snoring, she got up and came downstairs to see if she
could find out for certain who it was that ate up her good things. When
she came down, whom should she see but her little grand-daughter
Genefer standing by the spence-door in her little bedgown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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