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)
"But few of them are more than half a yard or so high," the
maid replied; "the women not so tall, yet they looked beautiful,
all dressed like gentry; the women wore gowns as gay as a
flower-garden in summer; their flaxen hair fell, in long curls, on
their necks; and the men were very smart, all like sodjers or
huntsmen, so it seemed to me. But they made frightful faces at
you, and glared as if they would be the death of 'e. I shouldn't
like to be in your shoes."
"Our best cow is as bad as bewitched," said Dame Pendar to
her husband, "and what shall we do to drive the plagues of
sprites?"
Her husband told her not to be so greedy; for old folks said
that the Small People always brought good luck when unmolested
and their doings were not pried into by curious fools; for his
part, he was content to leave well alone. She made no reply, but—determined
to have her way, next morning, betimes, unknown
to her good man—she trotted off to Penberth, or Treen, and
consulted a red-haired woman that Mr. Pendar couldn't "abide,"
because she was reputed, and truly, to be a witch.
"I'll drive them from our best cow, and from Baranhual, too,
if it can be done," said Dame Pendar to the hag. "Nothing
easier," replied she, "for they can't endure the sea, nor anything
that comes therefrom, and, above all, they abhor salt; so
you have only to scatter it over your cow, wash her udder in
brine or sea-water, and sprinkle it about your place."
Dame Pendar hastened home, and, without delay, powdered
Rosy with salt, bathed her udder in brine and sprinkled it about
the fields and town-place.
In the evening, betimes, she went herself to milk her best
cow, and carried two buckets, thinking they would both be filled.
Rosy, without budging, let her be seated and milk a little; but
feeling her udder thumped, "visted," and roughly shaken,
when she withheld her flow, she kicked the pail to shivers, laid
Dame Pendar sprawling, then tossed her greedy mistress heels
over head, and galloped off, "belving" like a mad thing.
All the people in Baranhual couldn't stop her in a corner, and,
from that day, not a drop of milk did they get from her.
For days and nights she would roam about the farm, followed
by her heifer—no hedges stopped them—and both "belving,"
all the time, like cows that had lost their calves. Before
Christmas they became hair-pitched, lean, and lousy; and all
the other cattle on Baranhual were as bad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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