Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

by Elizabeth Mary Wright

Will come to-morrow night.

Fenodyree, or Phynnodderee (I.Ma.), a fallen fairy, who was banished from fairyland for having paid his addresses to a Manx maiden, and for deserting the fairy court during the harvest moon to dance with her in the Glen of Rushen. Stories are told of the great strength of Fenodyree. On one occasion, when he was cutting grass, harrow-pins were placed in the meadow to annoy him, but he cut them through without effort, merely remarking: ‘Hard stalks, hard stalks.’ Gancanagh (Irel.), who appears in lonesome valleys, and makes love to milkmaids. Collective names are: the Fair Folk, or Gueede Neighbours (ne.Sc.), polite phrases used to avoid mentioning the name Fairies, which they were supposed to dislike; the Gentle People, or Gentry (Irel.), to whom old hawthorn trees growing singly were sacred. An old man who ventured to cut down one such tree was shortly afterwards stricken with rheumatic fever, and the circumstance was declared to be a judgment of the gentry upon him. Henkies (Sh. & Or.I.), so called because they were supposed to henk or limp when they danced, Henkie knowes are the knolls round which these trolls or fairies used to gambol at night; the Hill Folk (Sh.I. Lan.); the Piskies, or Pixies (Sc. n. s. and sw.Cy.), believed in some districts (Dev. Cor.) to be the souls of unbaptized children which have become sprites; the Small Folk, or Small People (Cor.), supposed to have dwindled in size, and turned into muryans [ants], wherefore it is deemed unlucky to destroy a colony of ants. Popular etymology has made out of the common double plural form fairyses, a singular Pharisee (War. Wor. e.An.), which among children gives rise to endless mistakes between the fairies of the story-books and the Pharisees of the Bible.

The Fairies in Plant-names

The associating of the fairies with certain plants and fungi leads to the formation of very picturesque plant-names, for example: Fairy’s-bath, or Fairies’ bath (Sus. Hmp.), the fungus Jew’s ears, or blood-cups; Fairy-butter (n.Cy. e.An. Hmp.), a species of fungus, of yellowish colour and gelatinous consistence, found growing upon rotten wood. The fairies are supposed to amuse themselves at night by flinging their butter so as to make it adhere to gates and doors. It is thought very lucky to find it inside a house. Fairy-bell (Irel.), Fairy-fingers (Dur. Cum. n.Yks.), Fairy-glove (Irel. Dor.), Fairies’-petticoats (Chs.), Fairy-thimbles (Cmb. Nrf. Ess.), the foxglove; Fairies’-table (n.Wal.), the common mushroom; Fairy-cheeses (Yks.), the dwarf mallow; Pixy-glove (Dev.), a thistle; Pixy (Dev.), the greater stitchwort, concerning which children say that if you gather the flowers you will be pixy-led; Pixy-pear (Hmp. Dev.), the hip, the fruit of the dog-rose, or (Dor. Som.) the haw, the fruit of the hawthorn; Pixy-stool (Sc. Hmp. Som. Dev. Cor.), a toadstool or mushroom. To pixy (w.Som.), or to go pixy-wording, is to glean stray apples in an orchard after the trees have been stripped. Fossil echini turned up by the plough, or found on the sea-shore are termed Fairy-loaves, or Pharisee-loaves (Glo. e.An.). There is a saying in Norfolk: If you keep a fairy-loaf you will never want bread. The ‘green sour ringlets’ ‘whereof the ewe not bites’ are still known as Fairy-rings (in gen. dial. use), or Pixy-rings (Som. Dev.). It is thought safer to walk round them rather than across. Old legends say that by running round a fairy-ring nine times on the first night of the full moon, sounds of mirth and revelry may be heard from the subterranean abode of the elves, who make this their dancing-green; or again, that on peaceful nights faint echoes of music, and the pattering of tiny feet, may be wafted down from the hill-sides. It is said that the fairies were wont of old to wash their clothes in Claymore Well (Yks.), and mangle them with the bittle and pin. The bittle is a heavy wooden battledore; the pin is the roller; the linen is wound round the latter, and then rolled backwards and forwards on the table by pressure on the battledore. The strokes of the bittles on fairy washing-nights could be heard a mile away. The following story of a fairy in the capacity of the benevolent sprite used to be told in one of the southern counties of England. Once upon a time there was a young woman who married a thresher. Soon he turned out to be a hopeless drunkard; his work was neglected, and starvation stared them in the face. So the woman dressed herself in her husband’s clothes, and went to the barn to do the threshing whilst he slept off the effects of his drunkenness. On the morning of the second day she found her pile of threshed corn double what she had left there overnight, and this increase was repeated for three or four nights in succession. She determined to watch one night and discover who was her unknown helper. Presently she beheld a little pixy come into the barn, and set to work vigorously to thresh the corn, and as he swung his flail he sang:

Little pixy fair and slim,

Without a rag to cover him.

Fairy Benevolence

Out of pity and gratitude, the woman next day made him a tiny suit of clothes, and hung them up behind the barn door beside his flail. At night when the pixy returned to work, he saw the clothes, and put them on at once. Then, surveying himself with satisfaction, he sang:

Pixy fine and Pixy gay,

Pixy now must fly away.