If piskies are kind and helpful little beings, spriggans or sprites are spiteful creatures, never doing a good turn for anyone. It is they who carry off poor babies from their mothers, when they have been obliged to leave them for a few hours alone, putting their own ugly, peevish brats in their cradles, who never thrive under the foster-mother’s care, in spite of all the trouble they may bestow upon them. Mr. Bottrell tells the story of a spriggan, a married man with a family, who took the place of a poor woman’s child one evening when she was at work in the harvest field. For although an innocent baby held in the arms is thought in Cornwall to protect the holder from mischief caused by ghosts and witches, it has no power over these creatures, who are not supposed to have souls. The scene of this legend was under Chapel Carn Brea, on the old road from Penzance to St. Just in Penwith. The mother, Jenny Trayer by name, was first alarmed on her return one night from her work in the harvest field by not finding her child in its cradle, but in a corner of the kitchen where in olden days the wood and furze for the then general open fires were kept. She was however too tired to take much notice, and went to bed, and slept soundly until the morning. From that time forth she had no peace; the child was never satisfied but when eating or drinking, or when she had it dandling in her arms. The poor woman consulted her neighbours in turn as to what she should do with the changeling (as one and all agreed that it was). One recommended her to dip it on the three first Wednesdays in May in Chapel Uny Well,[2] which advice was twice faithfully carried out in the prescribed manner. The third Wednesday was very wet and windy, but Jenny determined to persevere in this treatment of her ugly bantling, and holding the brat (who seemed to enjoy the storm) firmly on her shoulders, she trudged off. When they got about half-way, a shrill voice from behind some rocks was heard to say,
“Tredrill! Tredrill!
Thy wife and children greet thee well.”
Not seeing anyone, the woman was of course alarmed, and her fright increased when the imp made answer in a similar voice,
“What care I for wife or child,
When I ride on Dowdy’s back to the Chapel Well,
And have got pap my fill?”
After this adventure, she took the advice of another neighbour, who told her the best way to get rid of the spriggan and have her own child returned was “to put the small body upon the ashes’ pile, and beat it well with a broom; then lay it naked under a church stile; there leave it and keep out of sight and hearing till the turn of night; when nine times out of ten the thing will be taken away and the stolen child returned.” This was finally done; all the women of the village after it had been put upon a convenient pile “belabouring it with their brooms,” upon which it naturally set up a frightful roar. After dark it was laid under the stile, and there next morning the woman “found her own ‘dear cheeld’ sleeping on some dry straw,” most beautifully clean and wrapped in a piece of chintz. “Jenny nursed her recovered child with great care, but there was always something queer about it, as there always is about one that has been in the fairies’ power—if only for a few days.”
There are many other tales of changelings, but they resemble each other so much that they are not worth relating. In the one before quoted from Mr. Bottrell he gives a third charm for getting a child restored, as follows: “Make by night a smoky fire, with green ferns and dry. When the chimney and house are full of smoke as one can bear, throw the changeling on the hearthstone; go out of the house, turn three times round; when one enters, the right child will be restored.” Spriggans, too, guard the vast treasures that are supposed to be buried beneath our immense carns and in our cliff castles. No matter if the work be carried on by night or by day, they are sure to punish the rash person who ventures to dig in hopes of securing them. When he has got some way down, he finds himself surrounded by hundreds of ugly beings, in some cases almost as tall as he, who scare the unhappy man until he loses all control over himself, throws down his tools, and rushes off as fast as he can possibly go. The fright often makes him so ill that he has to lie for days in bed. Should he ever summon up courage to return to the spot, he will find the pit refilled, and no traces to show that the ground had been disturbed.
Knockers (pronounced knackers) are mine fairies, popularly supposed to be (as related elsewhere) the souls of the Jews who crucified Christ, sent by the Romans to work as slaves in the tin mines. In proof of this, they are said never to have been heard at work on Saturdays, nor other Jewish festivals. They are compelled to sing carols at Christmas time. Small pieces of smelted tin found in old smelting-works are known as “Jews’ bowels.” These fairies haunt none but the richest tin mines, and many are reputed to have been discovered by their singing and knocking underground; and miners think when they hear them that it is a sign of good luck, because when following their noises they often chance on lodes of good ore. When a miner goes into an “old level” and sees a bright light, it is a sure sign that he will find tin there. Knockers like spriggans are very ugly beings, and, if you do not treat them in a friendly spirit, very vindictive. “As stiff as Barker’s knee” is a common saying in Cornwall; he having in some way angered the knockers, either by speaking of them disrespectfully or by not leaving (as was formerly the custom) a bit of his dinner on the ground for them (for good luck), they in revenge threw all their tools in his lap, which lamed him for the rest of his life. Mr. Bottrell tells a similar story of a man named Tom Trevorrow, who when he was working underground heard the knockers just before him, and roughly told them “to be quiet and go.” Upon which, a shower of stones fell suddenly around him, and gave him a dreadful fright. He seems however to have quickly got over it, and soon after, when eating his dinner, a number of squeaking voices sang,