458 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 294. 



told, the only material difference being that in 

 our story it was the accidental application to her 

 eye of the soap with which she was washing the 

 baby, that opened to her the secrets of fairy land. 

 (Abridged by Keightley, Fairy Myth., Bohn's 

 edit., p. 301.) 



I have been unable to discover any traces of a 

 belief in the existence of water-spirits. An old 

 man was accustomed to relate that he saw, one 

 stormy day, a woman, with long dank locks, sit- 

 ting on the rocks in Talland Bay, and apparently 

 weeping ; and that, on his approach, she slid into 

 the water and disappeared. This story is easily 

 accounted for by supposing that he saw a seal (an 

 animal that occasionally frequents that locality), the 

 long hair being an allowable embellishment. Our 

 fishermen talk of " mormaids ;" and the egg-cases 

 of the rays and sharks, which sometimes strew our 

 beaches, are popularly called " mormaid's purses ;" 

 but it is extremely doubtful whether these notions 

 are a part of our old mythology. 



Besides the piskies, but of a widely different 

 character and origin, are the spectre-huntsman 

 and his pack, now known as " the Devil and his 

 dandy-dogs." The genius of the tradition is es- 

 sentially Scandinavian, and reminds us of the 

 grim sights and terrible sounds which affright the 

 belated peasant in the forests of the north. The 

 tradition has become variously altered in its pas- 

 gage down to us, but it still retains enough of the 

 terrible to mark its derivation. " The Devil and 

 his dandy-dogs" frequent our bleak and dismal 

 moors on tempestuous nights, and are more rarely 

 heard and seen in the cultivated districts by the 

 coast, where they assume a less frightful character. 

 They are most commonly seen by those who are 

 out at night on wicked errands, and woe betide 

 the wretch who crosses their path. A very in- 

 teresting legend is told here, though it has re- 

 ference to the wild moorland district far inland. 



T/ie Devil and his Dandy-dogs. — A poor herds- 

 man was journeying homeward across the moors 

 one windy night, when he heard at a distance 

 among the tors the baying of hounds, which he 

 soon recognised as the dismal chorus of the dandy- 

 dogs. It was three or four miles to his home ; 

 and, very much alarmed, he hurried onward as 

 fast as the treacherous nature of the soil and the 

 uncertainty of the path would allow ; but, alas ! 

 the melancholy yelping of the hounds, and the 

 dismal halloa of the hunter came nearer and 

 nearer. After a considerable run, they had so 

 gained upon him, that on looking back — oh, 

 horror ! — he could distinctly see hunter and dogs. 

 The former was terrible to look at, and had the 

 usual complement of saucer-eyes, horns, and tail, 

 accorded by common consent to the legendary devil. 

 He was black of course, and carried in his hand a 

 long hunting-pole. The dogs, a numerous pack, 

 blackened the small patch of moor that was visible ; 



each snorting lire, and uttering a yelp of an inde- 

 scribably frightful tone. No cottage, rock, or tree 

 was near to give the herdsman shelter, and nothing^ 

 apparently remained to him but to abandon him- 

 self to their fury, when a happy thought suddenly 

 flashed upon him, and suggested a resource. Just 

 as they were about to rush upon him, he fell on 

 his knees in prayer. There was strange power in. 

 the holy words he uttered : for immediately, as if' 

 resistance had been ofiered, the hell-hounds stood 

 at bay, howling more dismally than ever ; and the 

 hunter shouted " Bo shrove ! " " which," says my 

 informant, " means, in the old language, the boy 

 prays.'' At which, they all drew off on some other 

 pursuit, and disappeared. 



This ghastly apparition loses much of its ter- 

 rible character as we approach more thickly popu- 

 lated districts, and our stories are very tame after 

 this legend of the Moors. Many of the tales 

 which I have heard are so well attested, that there^ 

 is some reason to conclude that the narrators- 

 have really seen a pack oi fairies (the local name,, 

 it is necessary to add, of the weasel) ; of which it^ 

 is well known that they hunt gregariously at night- 

 time, and, when so engaged, do not scruple to- 

 attack man. 



We have no Duergar, Troll, or swart fairy of 

 the mine ; for ours is not a mining neighbourhood, 

 and our hills have no fissures or caverns such as 

 they delight to haunt. 



Another object of superstition among our fisher- 

 men is the white hare, a being resembling the 

 letiche. It frequents our quays by night; and is 

 quite harmless, except that its appearance is held' 

 to predict a storm. 



Very palpable modifications of the old creed 

 are to be noticed in the account of the "Devils 

 and his Dandy-dogs," as well as in the opinion- 

 commonly held, that the fairy ranks are recruited, 

 by infants who are allowed to die without the rite- 

 of baptism. 



It is with a feeling of jealousy that we first. 

 make the discovery, that the familiar tales which 

 we have been taught from earliest days to asso- 

 ciate with particular localities are told in foreign 

 tongues by far-oif firesides. But they soon assume 

 a loftier interest when we become awake to their 

 significance ; and find that in them may be traced, 

 as an eminent antiquary remarks, — 



" The early formation of nations, their identity or ana- 

 logy, their changes, as well as the inner texture of the 

 national character, more deeply than in any other cir- 

 cumstances, even in language itself" — Wright, .Assays 

 on Subjects connected with the Literature, ^c. of England 

 in the Middle Ages. 



The stories of the "Pisky Threshers" and the 

 "Pisky Midwife" frequently occur, with varia- 

 tions, in the legends which Keightley has so in- 

 dustriously collected in his learned and interesting 

 Fairy Mythology ; but the " Voyage of the Piskies" 



