Legends and Poetry. 175 



play pranks with the chairs, but, as might be expected from the 

 nature of the countiy, misleads people on the moors, turning 

 himself into all sorts of shapes, as Shakspeare, Spenser, and 

 Jonson, have sung. There is scarcely a village or hamlet in 

 the Forest district which has not its " Pixey Field," and " Pixey 

 Mead," or its " Picksmoor," and "Cold Pixey," and "Puck 

 Piece." At Prior's Acre we find Puck's Hill, and not far from 

 it lies the great wood of Puckpits ; whilst a large barrow on 

 Beaulieu Common is known as the Pixey's Cave.* 



Then, too, on the south-west borders of the Forest remains 

 the legend, its inner meaning now perhaps forgotten, that the 

 Priory Church of Christchurch was originally to have been built 

 on the lonely St. Catherine's Hill, instead of in the valley where 

 the people lived and needed religion. The stones, however, 

 which were taken up the hill in the day were brought down 

 in the night by unseen hands. The beams, too, which were 

 found too short on the heights, were more than long enough 

 in the town. The legend further runs, beautiful in its right 

 interpretation, that when the building was going on, there was 

 always one more workman — namely, Christ — than came on the 

 pay-night. 



So, too, the poetry of the district has its own characteristics, 

 which it shares with that of the neighbouring western counties. 

 The homeliness of the songs in the West of England strangely 



* All over the world lives a similar fairy, the same in form, but diiFerent 

 in name. His life has been well illustrated in Dr. Bell's Shakspeare s Puck 

 and his Folk-lore. In England he is kriown by many names — "the white 

 witch," "the horse-hag," and "Fairy Hob;" and hence, too, we here get 

 Hob's Hill and Hob's Hole. For accounts of him in different parts see espe- 

 cially Allies' Folk-lore of Worcestershire, ch. xii. p. 409, and Illustrations of 

 the Fairy Mylhologij of A Midsummer NighCs Dream, by J. 0. Halliwell. 

 Published by the Shakspeare Society. 



175 



