514 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 61. 



was " a cross flourie, and under the cross a ser- 

 pent" (AVeever, p. 549.), and the inscription is 

 thus translated in Chauncy's Hertfordshire, p. 143. : 



" Nothing of Cadmus nor St. George, those names 

 Of great renown, survives them, but their fames ; 

 Time was so sharp set as to make no bones 

 Of theirs nor of their monumental stones, 

 But Shonke one serpent kills t'other defies, 

 And in this wall as in a fortress lyes." 



Whilst in the north wall of Rouen Cathedral is the 

 tomb of an early archbishop, who having acci- 

 dentally killed a man by hitting hiin with a soup 

 ladle, because the soup given by the servant to the 

 poor was of an inferior quality, thought himself 

 unworthy of a resting-place within the church, 

 and disliking to be buried without, was interred in 

 the wall itself. 



Miraadous Cures for Lameness. — The holy well 

 Yfynnonfair, or Our Lady's Well, near Pont yr 

 allt Goch, close to the Elwy, has to this day the 

 reputation of curing lameness so thoroughly, that 

 those who can reach it walking on crutches may 

 fling their crutches away on their return home. 

 Welsh people still come several miles over the hills 

 to this holy spring. A whole family was there 

 when I visited its healing waters lust month. 



The same virtue is ascribed at Rouen to a walk 

 to the altar at St. Katherine's Cliurch, at the top 

 of St. Katherine's Hill, where the cast-off crutches 

 have been preserved. In the latter case something 

 less than a miracle may account for the possibility 

 of going away without crutches; for they may be 

 required to mount to a lofty eminence, and may well 

 be dispensed with on coming down : but as tliis 

 supposition wouhl lessen the value of a tradition 

 implicitly believed, of course all sensible men will 

 reject it at once. Wm. Dukraint Coopee. 



81. Guilford Street. 



riXEY LEGENDS. 



In reference to your correspondent H. G. T.'s 

 article on pixies (Vol. ii., p. 475.), allow me to 

 say that I have read the distich which he quotes in 

 a tale to the following effect : — In one of the 

 southern counties of England— (all the pixey tales 

 which I have lieard or read have their seat laid in 

 the south of England) — there lived a lass who 

 was courted and wed by a man who, after marriage, 

 turned out to be a drunkard, neglecting his work, 

 which was that of threshing, thereby causing his 

 pretty wife to starve. Cut after she could bear 

 this no longei-, slie dressed herself in her husband's 

 clothes (whilst he slept off the effects of his drun- 

 kenness), and went to the barn to do her husband's 

 work. On the morning of the second day, when 

 she went to the barn, she Ibund a large pile of 

 corn threshed, which she had not done ; and so she 

 found, for three or four days, her pile of corn 

 doubled. One night she determined to watch and 

 see who did it, and carrying her intention into 



practice, she saw a little pixey come into the 

 barn with a tiny flail, with which he set to work 

 so vigorously that he soon threshed a large quan- 

 tity. During his work he sang, 



" Little pixey, fair and slim, 

 Without a rag to cover him." 



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-sUme is a rock above the 

 Teign, near Chagford. In the A/hencermi I men- 

 tioned the rags in which the pixies generally appear. 

 In A Narrative of some strange Events that look 

 place in Island Magee and Neighhourhood in 1711, 

 is this description of a spirit that troubled the 

 liouse of Mr. James Ilattridge : 



" About the Uth of December, 1710, when the 

 aforesaid Mrs. Hattridge was sitting at the kitchen-fire, 

 in the evening, l)efore daylight going, a little boy (as 

 she and the servants supposed) came in and sat down be- 

 side her, having an old black bonnet on his head, with 

 short black hair, a half-worn l)lai.ket about him, trail, 

 ing 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 coiuse 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 there may possibly be some connexion 

 with the ragged clothes of the Pixies. (Conip. 

 '' Tatrman,"Deidsche Mi/thol., \). 470.; and Can- 

 eiani's note " De Simulachris de Paunis factis," 

 Leges Bai-har., iii. p, 108.; Indie. Siiperst.) The 

 conmion story of Brownie and his clothes is, I sup- 

 pose, connected. 



