Piskeys are full of mischief. Tiny Cornish fairy folk, they don’t have wings. About as big as a human handspan, they wear red caps and green jackets or green jackets and red caps and the pretty piskey maids wear flower garlands in their hair and patched dresses. Piskeys love to party, dancing in a ring to the tunes of piskey pipes and fiddlers. Mostly they are shy, and hate to be seen by humans. Piskey sight is gained by looking through a four leaved clover, or rubbing magic ointment in your eye, but beware of repercussions.
Piskeys can be kind, helping with the housework, helping with the harvest, lightening the load of hard work. Piskeys can play tricks, they lead people astray - if you are suddenly lost in a place you know well you have probably been mazed by the piskeys. The antidote is to TURN YOUR POCKETS INSIDE OUT or your hat or socks or t shirt, piskeys hate anything inside out, and that will break the spell and you will know where you are again.
Sometimes folk are piskey-led by little lights shining on the moors at night. These Jack o’lanterns lead unwary travellers off the path and into the bog. Some say piskeys were once giants, but they got smaller and smaller over time. Some say piskeys are lost souls that are too bad for heaven but too good for hell. On Bodmin Moor they were called pigsies, and liked to ride the moorland ponies, clinging onto their manes and tales, galloping over moors and tors in the moonlight.
We have used Enys Tregarthen’s spelling ‘piskeys’ but they are also known as ‘piskies.’ Not to be confused with pixies, who live in Devon and beyond.
