Celtic fairy traditions
Cornish Piskies
The survey records pisky-pows placed on cottage ridges to provide a dancing place and propitiate the piskies. Their expected interference can reach ordinary household resources such as milk. People may also be pisky-led on the Gump or Goss Moor. Names for prehistoric structures preserve another connection between the fairy people and the inhabited landscape.
Also known as Pixies
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In the sources
Principal account
ReportedThe survey records pisky-pows placed on cottage ridges to provide a dancing place and propitiate the piskies. Their expected interference can reach ordinary household resources such as milk.
Further detail
ReportedPeople may also be pisky-led on the Gump or Goss Moor. Names for prehistoric structures preserve another connection between the fairy people and the inhabited landscape.
Context & interpretation
Evans-Wentz combines named informants, manuscript narratives, and his own psychical theory in a 1911 survey. This entry preserves those distinctions: collected belief and literary tradition do not establish the physical existence of an Otherworld.
Original passages
Source 1
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
cottages, to propitiate the piskies and give them a dancing-place, lest they should turn the milk sour, and St. Just and Morvah folk areOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 195
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0195
- Original scan leaf
- 196
- Recorded leaf number
- 196
- Current Reader position
- 191
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
of prehistoric structures being called * Piskies' Halls ' (there is an alle'e couverte so called at Bosahan in Constantine) , andOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 197
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0197
- Original scan leaf
- 198
- Recorded leaf number
- 198
- Current Reader position
- 193
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Continue exploring
Bucca
A Cornish power that the survey distinguishes from ordinary fairies.
Same subject and traditionBanshee
A warning woman associated with family, mourning, and the dead.
Same subject and traditionFenodyree
The Manx helper whose farm work ends when clothes are offered.
Same subject and traditionKorrigans
Breton fairy beings associated with dances, fountains, and ancient stones.