Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Second SeriesBottrell, William
General
Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Second Series
Bottrell, William
Cornwall (England : County) -- Social life and customs; Legends -- England -- Cornwall (County)
"As there was nothing that she could so readily turn inside-out,
and drop on them, as one of her gloves, which reached to
her elbows, she drew off one, inside-out, and dropped it, as it
seemed to her, right on the buckles. Her hand nearly touched
them; but, in trying to grasp them under her glove, a palm of
pins or needles, so small that she didn't notice them, stuck into
her fingers, and she cried out, 'Oh! Cuss 'e! You little buccas.'
That instant all the lights went out, and all the fair, and most of
the small people, vanished like shadows among the rocks or sunk
into the earth, like muryans (ants) into their holes.
"Yet many of the frolicsome sprights were still about her, as
she soon found to her cost.
"Whilst she was still stooping, and groping for her glove and
the buckles, she felt a great number of the small tribe—a score
or more—leap on her back, neck, and head. At the same time
others, tripping up her heels, laid her flat on the ground and
rolled her over and over. More than once, when her face was
uppermost, she caught a glimpse of Piskey, all in rags as usual,
mounted on a year-old colt, his toes stuck in the mane, holding a
rush in his hand to guide it. There he sat, putting on the smaller
sprights to torment her, making a tee-hee-hee and haw-haw-haw,
with his mouth open from ear to ear.
"When she spread out her arms and squeezed herself down,
that they shouldn't turn her over, they would squeak and grunt
in trying to lift her; but all her endeavours to hinder their game
were of no use. Somehow or other over she went, and every time
they turned her face downwards some of the small fry would
jump on her back and there jig away with 'heel-and-toe' from
her head to her feet. In the pitch and pass of their three-handed
reels, it was who and who should get on her stays; the steel and
whalebone in that, she supposed, served them as a springing-board.
In the finishing off of their double shuffles they would leap
more than three times their height, turn a summersault over each
others' heads, and so make the pass. An' Pee twisted her head on
one side, saw what they were at, and tried to beat them off with
her stick, but they got it from her hand, laid it across her waist,
and mounting on it astride, as many as could, bobbed up and
down, singing,
'See-saw-see,
Lie still, old Peepan Pee.
See-saw-see,
Upon old Peepan Pee,
Who should better ride than we?
See-saw-see.'
[164]
"The old woman, not to be beaten with such imps, tossed back
her feet to kick them off; then they held her legs doubled back
and pulled off her shoes; some jumped up and balanced themselves
on her upturned toes, whilst others pricked at, and tickled, the
soles of her feet till she fell into fits of crying and laughing
by turns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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