Cornish piskies

Pixies or piskies are little people, about knee-high. They live in the otherworld and are usually invisible to humans. But if you look very carefully you might just spot them cavorting around in ci…

Boggart -In English folklore, a boggart (or bogart) is a household spirit which causes mischief and things to disappear, milk to sour, and dogs to go lame. Always malevolent, the boggart will follow its family wherever they flee. In Northern England, at least, there was the belief that the boggart should never be named, for when the boggart was given a name, it would not be reasoned with nor persuaded, but would become uncontrollable and destructive.

(Image from Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Boscastle) "See saw; Margery Daw Sold her bed and lay upon straw; She sold her straw, and lay upon hay, Piskies came and carr'd her away." - Notes and Queries, Series 1, Volume 11, Couch (1855) A recent query about pixies in the Fairy Folklore Facebook Group reminded me that I still hadn’t gotten around to writing a blog post about Cornish folklore! I visited in 2013 but for some reason never got around to blogging about it, which I apologise for…

When Beatrice's dad has a heart attack, she takes over the veterinary practice...the small stuff. I'm reminded of a scene in the otherwise forgettable and mildly icky The Truth About Cats and Dogs. Janine (the vet) has to talk Uma (the model pretending to be the vet) through a minor procedure on a turtle. Gloves were required. I have a niggling suspicion that gloves are needed to do all the small stuff. Oliver suggests that she hire a locum "short for the Latin phrase locum tenens (lit…

The Cornish PISKIE is a fairy race or tribe who in appearance look like old men with wrinkled faces, small in stature with red hair. They dress in the colours of the earth especially green, using natural materials such as moss, grass and lichen. Generally piskies are seen as cheerful creatures with a prankish nature, said to be helpful but also mischievous, helping the elderly and infirm whilst sometimes leading the more able bodied traveller astray on the lonely wild moors.

Last week we examined the legends and lore that have grown up around the humble Cornish pasty, and discovered how this pastry delight became the perfect meal for the tin miners in 19th century Cornwall. However the pasty was also popular among the non-human denizens of the mines too... Cornwall is a land rich in faery lore, and as the Cornish people are descended from Celts they have not only their own ancient language - Kernowek, a Brittonic Celtic tongue related to both Welsh to Breton…

Delving deeper into the field of sound on stone, you find the ancients used quartzite stones not only for healing, but for activating powerful Earth energy.

Harry Potter Cornish Pixie close up