Polzeath Bay.
Under a hill, and facing Polzeath Bay, a wild, desolate but magnificent porth on the north coast of Cornwall, stood a small stone cottage, thatched with reed, and with tiny casement windows. It was enclosed by a low hedge, also built of stone, which many generations of orange-coloured lichens, pennycakes and moss, had made pleasant to look at and soft to sit on.
The cottage and hedge thus confronting the porth, with its beach of grey-gold sand, commanded the great headland that flanked it on its north side, and leagues and leagues of shining water stretching away to where the sun went down. Three people lived in this cottage—a very old woman called Carnsew, and her two great-grandchildren—Gerna and Gelert.
They were a lonely trio, for they were the only people living at the bay at that time.
The children had nobody but themselves to play with, and nothing much to do all day long save to pick limpets for their Great-Grannie’s ducks, and to help her a bit in the houseplace and in the garden, which grew very little except potatoes, cabbages, herbs, and gillyflowers. They never went to school, for there was no school for them to go to, even if their great-grandmother could have afforded to send them, which she could not; but in spite of that, they were not ignorant children, and although they did not know A from B, they knew a great deal about the Small People, or fairies, of which there were many kinds in the Cornish land.
The Great-Grannie having lived ninety odd years in the world, was well up in everything relating to the Small People, or she thought she was, and it was she who told her great-grandchildren about them.
Gerna and Gelert cared most to hear about what they called their own dear Wee Folk—the merry little Piskeys—who, Great-Grannie said, lived in one of the googs or caverns down in their bay.
Piskey Goog, as their particular cavern was called, was half-way down the beach in Great Pentire itself, and just beyond Pentire Glaze Hawn. On the top of the cliff were large Rings, where the merry Little People held their gammets, or games, and danced in the moonshine.
The children often sat on the hedge of their cottage to watch the Piskeys dancing, and, as the hedge was in view of Pentire Glaze cliffs, they could hear the Piskeys laughing, which they did so heartily that sometimes Gerna and Gelert could not help laughing too. They could also see their lights—Piskey-lights they called them—flashing on the turf until they sometimes wondered if a hundred little dinky[1]-fires were burning there.