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Pixies love humility and honesty. They often become vexatious towards those who seek praise, are conceited or are not true to their word. Like brownies, pixies will help out any mortals they grow fond of. However, many books describe what happens when persons have dared to meddle with pixies. Again and again, victims of pixie pranks have described how they heard the elfish laughter of their invisible tormentors. The expression "laughing like a piskey" is still proverbial amongst inhabitants of the Dutchy of Cornwall, England. "There are tales of persons spirited away to fairyland to wait upon the small people's children and perform various domestic offices and where time passed so pleasantly that they forgot about their homes. But if they were to do forbidden things or incur their master's anger, they were punished by being thrown into a deep sleep, and on awakening found themselves close to home. These unhappy creatures never, after their return, settled down to work but roamed aimlessly doing nothing, hoping and longing one day to return to the place from whence they had been banished." "Pixies would often mislead mortals, who might wander about for hours without being able to find their way. Lone travellers (where help was not at hand) had been led so far astray that they had sunk down to the bare ground exhausted. Such folk are said to be 'pixie-mazed' or 'pixy-led' and might only save themselves by turning their coats inside out. " "Pixies also have the habit of stealing people's horses and riding them in circles at night issuing peels of laughter." "Country people in East Cornwall put a prayer book under their child's pillow at night as a charm to keep away the pixies. One poor woman, near Launceston, was fully persuaded that one of her children was taken away and a pixie substituted, the disaster being caused by the absence of the prayer book one night." I can provide many examples of things happening to me that I can only attribute to the action of the Pixie. Walking to work one day, wearing my new snowshoes, I was deep in thought about the effectiveness of the snowshoes. I decided that, when I arrived at work, I would make a point of telling my colleagues about the efficacy of these superb snowshoes. I instantly slipped and fell, ripping my jacket. The Pixie had paid me back for being so conceited. I was taking my daughter to Glasgow by car - normally a 7-hour journey. After one hour, I remarked on the good progress we were making, which I suggested was due to the excellent choice of route that I had made. Within two minutes we hit a 6-mile tailback to join the M6 Motorway at Birmingham. We were stuck in that traffic jam for two hours. Seeking praise makes pixies vexatious! Pixies bring good luck, but don't meddle with pixies! |
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