The next day the good woman made a complete suit of miniature clothes, and hung them up behind the barn door, and watched to see what pixey would do. I forgot to mention that he hung his flail behind the door when he had done with it.
At the usual time the pixey came to work, went to the door to take down his flail, and saw the suit of clothes, took them down, and put them on him, and surveyed himself with a satisfied air, and sang
"Pixey fine, and pixie gay.
Pixey now must fly away."
It then flew away, and she never saw it more.
In this tale the word was invariably spelt "pixey."
Tysil.
Pixies.—The puckie-stone is a rock above the Teign, near Chagford. In the Athenæum I mentioned the rags in which the pixies generally appear. In A Narrative of some strange Events that took place in Island Magee and Neighbourhood in 1711, is this description of a spirit that troubled the house of Mr. James Hattridge:
"About the 11th of December, 1710, when the aforesaid Mrs. Hattridge was sitting at the kitchen-fire, in the evening, before daylight going, a little boy (as she and the servants supposed) came in and sat down beside her, having an old black bonnet on his head, with short black hair, a half-worn blanket about him, trailing on the ground behind him, and a torn black vest under it. He seemed to be about ten or twelve years old, but he still covered his face, holding his arm with a piece of the blanket before it. She desired to see his face, but he took no notice of her. Then she asked him several questions; viz., if he was cold or hungry? If he would have any meat? Where he came from, and where he was going? To which he made no answer, but getting up, danced very nimbly, leaping higher than usual, and then ran out of the house as far as the end of the garden, and sometimes into the cowhouse, the servants running after him to see where he would go, but soon lost sight of him; but when they returned, he would be close after them in the house, which he did above a dozen of times. At last the little girl, seeing her master's dog coming in, said, 'Now my master is coming he will take a course with this troublesome creature,' upon which he immediately went away, and troubled them no more till the month of February, 1711."
This costume is appropriate enough for an Irish spirit; but here may possibly be some connexion with the ragged clothes of the Pixies. (Comp. "Tatrman," Deutsche Mythol., p. 470.; and Canciani's note "De Simulachris de Pannis factis," Leges Barbar., iii. p. 108.; Indic. Superst.) The common story of Brownie and his clothes is, I suppose, connected.