Fairies.
Where the scythe cuts and the sock rives,
No more fairies and bee-hives.
Laugh like a pixy (i.e., fairy).
Waters locked! waters locked! (A favourite cry of fairies.)
Borram! borram! borram! (The cry of the Irish fairies after mounting their steeds. Equivalent to the Scottish cry, “Horse! horse and hattock!”)
To live in the land of the Fair family. (A Welsh fairy saying.)
God grant that the fairies may put money in your shoes and keep your house clean. (One of the good wishes of the old time.)
Fairies comb goats’ beards every Friday.
He who finds a piece of money will always find another in the same place, so long as he keeps it a secret. (In reference to fairy gifts.)
It’s going on, like Stokepitch’s can.
A pixey or fairy saying, used in Devonshire. The family of Stokespitch or Sukespic resided near Topsham, and a barrel of ale in their cellars had for many years run freely without being exhausted. It was considered a valuable heirloom, and was esteemed accordingly, till an inquisitive maidservant took out the bung to ascertain the cause why it never run dry. On looking into the cask she found it full of cobwebs, but the fairies, it would seem, were offended, for on turning the cock, as usual, the ale had ceased to flow.
It was a common reply at Topsham to the inquiry how any affair wen on: “It’s going on like Stokepitch’s can,” or proceeding prosperously.
To laugh like Robin Goodfellow.
To laugh like old Bogie;
He caps Bogie.
(Amplified to “He caps Bogie, and Bogie capped old Nick.”)
To play the Puck. (An Irish saying, equivalent to the English one, “To play the deuce or devil.” Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology.”)
He has got into Lob’s pound or pond. (That is, into the fairies’ pinfold. Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology.”)
Pinch like a fairy. (“Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.” “Merry Wives of Windsor.”)
To be fairy-struck. (The paralysis is, or rather perhaps was, so called. Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology.”)
There has never been a merry world since the Phynoderee lost his ground. [A Manx fairy saying. See Train’s “Isle of Man,” ii. p. 148. “Popular Rhymes of the Isle of Man,” pp. 16, 17.]
To be pixey-led.
Led astray by fairies or goblins. “When a man has got a wee drap ower muckle whuskey, misses his way home, and gets miles out of his direct course, he tells a tale of excuse and whiles lays the blame on the innocent pixies” (see Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology”). Also recalling Feufollet, or the Will o’ the Wisp, and the traveller who
“thro’ bog and bush
Was lantern-led by Friar Rush.”
Gypsies have from their out of doors life much familiarity with these “spirits” whom they call mullo dūdia, or mūllo doods, i.e., dead or ghost lights. For an account of the adventure of a gypsy with them, see “The English Gypsies and their Language,” by C. G. Leland. London: Trübner & Co. “Pyxie-led is to be in a maze, to be bewildered as if led out of the way by hobgoblins or puck, or one of the fairies. The cure is to turn one of your garments the inside outward; some say that is for a woman to turn her cap inside outward, and for a man to do the same with some of his clothes” (MS. “Devon Glimpses”—Halliwell). “Thee pixie-led in Popish piety” (Clobery’s “Divine Glimpses,” 1659).
The fairies’ lanthorn.