_A Pisky Changeling._--'A woman who lived near Breage Church had a fine
girl baby, and she thought the piskies came and took it and put a
withered child in its place. The withered child lived to be twenty years
old, and was no larger when it died than when the piskies brought it. It
was fretful and peevish and frightfully shrivelled. The parents believed
that the piskies often used to come and look over a certain wall by the
house to see the child. And I heard my grandmother say that the family
once put the child out of doors at night to see if the piskies would
take it back again.'
_Nature of Piskies._--'The piskies are said to be very small. You could
never see them by day. I used to hear my grandmother, who has been dead
fifty years, say that the piskies used to hold a fair in the fields near
Breage, and that people saw them there dancing. I also remember her
saying that it was customary to set out food for the piskies at night.
My grandmother's great belief was in piskies and in spirits; and she
considered piskies spirits. She used to tell so many stories about
spirits [of the dead] coming back and such things that I would be afraid
to go to bed.'
EVIDENCE FROM CONSTANTINE
Our witnesses from the ancient and picturesque village of Constantine
are John Wilmet, seventy-eight years old, and his good wife, two most
excellent and well-preserved types of the passing generation of true
Cornish stock. John began by telling me the following tale about an
_allée couverte_--a tale which in one version or another is apt to be
told of most Cornish megaliths:--
_A Pisky-House._--'William Murphy, who married my sister, once went to
the pisky-house at Bosahan with a surveyor, and the two of them heard
such unearthly noises in it that they came running home in great
excitement, saying they had heard the piskies.'
_The Pisky Thrasher._--'On a farm near here, a pisky used to come at
night to thrash the farmer's corn. The farmer in payment once put down a
new suit for him. When the pisky came and saw it, he put it on, and
said:--
Pisky fine and pisky gay,
Pisky now will fly away.
And they say he never returned.'
_Nature of Piskies._--'I always understood the piskies to be little
people. A great deal was said about ghosts in this place. Whether or not
piskies are the same as ghosts I cannot tell, but I fancy the old folks
thought they were.'
_Exorcism._--'A farmer who lived two miles from here, near the Gweek
River, called Parson Jago to his house to have him quiet the ghosts or
spirits regularly haunting it, for Parson Jago could always put such
things to rest. The clergyman went to the farmer's house, and with his
whip formed a circle on the floor and then commanded the spirit, which
made its appearance on the table, to come down into the circle. While on
the table the spirit had been visible to all the family, but as soon as
it got into the ring it disappeared; and the house was never haunted
afterwards.'
AT ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT, MARAZION
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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