54 
JOURNAL OP THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
The Folk-Lore of Devon may be regarded as thoroughly Teutonic; 
for the one seeming exception is probably more apparent than real. 
The Devonshire Pixy is not quite the Northern Elf ; still less the 
Southern Fairy. Cornish tradition is peculiar in its tales of Giants, 
unknown in Devon save through modern importation, though the 
Pixy is in large part common property. On the system of inter- 
pretation first adopted by Professor Nilsson, both pixy and giant 
have historic value. The myth of Brutus the Trojan tells of a 
giant population extirpated by this fabled ancestor of the British 
people and his followers — in other words, of an older and stronger 
aboriginal 1 race, between whom and the invaders there was the 
deadliest hatred. If the despised remnants of the Kelts in turn 
became the pixies of the invading Saxons, we see at once why 
they are differentiated from the ordinary elf or fairy, and why 
they should bear a Keltic name. 2 We may understand perhaps, 
also, why they were said to be the souls of unbaptized children, 
though this idea is clearly of later date, and perhaps to be referred 
to the disputes in the ancient Church consequent on the collision 
of East and West — between the Koman Church espoused by the 
Saxons and the Keltic Church which it supplanted — concentrated 
in the controversies concerning the tonsure and the keeping of 
Easter. 
In most other respects the Pixy strongly resembles the Brownie 
and the Elf, and similar stories are told of each. Thus the Brownie 
who is rewarded for his work by some new clothes exclaims : 
" Gie Brownie coat, gie Brownie sark ; 
Ye 'se get no more of Brownie's wark ; " 
while the Pixy in like manner rhymes : 
" Pixie new coat, Pixie new hood ; 
Pixie now will do no more good ; " 
or : 
" Pixy fine, and Pixy gay ; 
Pixy now will fly away." 
And the Pixy Threshers in Devon are overheard to tell each other, 
" I tweat, you tweat," precisely in the same way as the Threshing 
Elves in Sussex condole on the results of their exertions. The 
foundation may be, and probably is, Keltic ; but, as with many of 
1 I use the term loosely for convenience. 
2 It is certainly not Saxon. 
