The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various CountriesKeightley, Thomas
General
The Fairy Mythology: Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition of Various Countries
Keightley, Thomas
Fairies; Fairy tales; Folk literature; Folklore
Two serving-girls in Tavistock said that the Pixies were very kind to
them, and used to drop silver for them into a bucket of fair water
which they took care to place for them in the chimney-nook every
night. Once it was forgotten, and the Pixies forthwith came up to the
girls' room, and loudly complained of the neglect. One of them, who
happened to be awake, jogged the other, and proposed going down to
rectify the omission, but she said, "for her part she would not stir
out of bed to please all the pixies in Devonshire." The other went
down and filled the bucket, in which, by the way, she found next
morning a handful of silver pennies. As she was returning, she heard
the Pixies debating about what they would do to punish the other.
Various modes were proposed and rejected; at last it was agreed to
give her a lame leg for a term of seven years, then to be cured by an
herb growing on Dartmoor, whose name of seven syllables was
pronounced in a clear and audible tone. This the girl tried by every
known means to fix in her memory. But when she awoke in the morning,
it was gone, and she could only tell that Molly was to be lame for
seven years, and then be cured by an herb with a strange name. As for
Molly, she arose dead lame, and so she continued till the end of the
period, when one day, as she was picking up a mushroom, a
strange-looking boy started up and insisted on _striking_ her leg with
a plant which he held in his hand. He did so, and she was cured and
became the best dancer in the town.
_Pixy-Gratitude._
An old woman who lived near Tavistock had in her garden a splendid bed
of tulips. To these the Pixies of the neighbourhood loved to resort,
and often at midnight might they be heard singing their babes to rest
among them. By their magic power they made the tulips more beautiful
and more permanent than any other tulips, and they caused them to emit
a fragrance equal to that of the rose. The old woman was so fond of
her tulips that she would never let one of them be plucked, and thus
the Pixies were never deprived of their floral bowers.
But at length the old woman died; the tulips were taken up, and the
place converted into a parsley-bed. Again, however, the power of the
Pixies was shown; the parsley withered, and nothing would grow even in
the other beds of the garden. On the other hand, they tended diligently
the grave of the old woman, around which they were heard lamenting and
singing dirges. They suffered not a weed to grow on it; they kept it
always green, and evermore in spring-time spangled with wild flowers.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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