West Country Fairies

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south-western fairies

The West Country (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset) is one of the English areas where fairy belief survived the longest, though even in ‘Celtic’ Cornwall there is evidence that belief and even knowledge of piskeys, the most famous regional fairy, was crumbling after about 1850.

Blackdown Fairy Market

Breage Piskey Fair (Cornwall)

Landgreek (Cornwall)

Looe Pixzy

Men-an-Tol (Cornwall)

Piskey House, Bosahan (Cornwall)

Sea View Green

Newlyn Tolcarne

South-western Fairy Beliefs

Defecating Fairies

South-Western Fairy Tales

Fairy Water

Paul Church Town (song, Cornwall)

Pisky Kidnapper

Pisky Ointment

Pixy’s New Clothes

The Three Cows

The Zennor Mermaid

South-Western Fairy Sightings

Branksome Park Fairy Sighting (Dorset)

Breage Changeling

Cornish Knockers

Fairy at Lupton House (Devon)

Fairies of Kea (Cornwall)

Fairies and Milk (Cornwall)

Furze Fires and Changelings

Pixies on the Border (Cornwall/Devon)

Pixy-Led on West Down

Pixy Ridden (Lostwithiel)

Pixy Sighting at Widecombe-in-the-Moor, late 1950s

Thomas Wood Hears a Pixy?

Unearthly Noises at the Piskey House

Good books on West Country fairies include:

Andrews, Stuart and Jason Higgs Paranormal Cornwall (Stroud: History Press, 2010), chapter six contains fairylore

Bottrell, William Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall (Penzance: Bear and Son 1870-1880), I-III (the last volume entitled Stories and Folklore of West Cornwall)

Broadhurst, Paul & Hamish Miller The Sun and the Serpent: A Journey of Discovery through the British Landscape, its Mythology, Ancient Sites and Mysteries (Pendragon Press 1989)

Brown, Theo Devon Ghosts (Norwich: Jarrold Publishing 1982), 128-133 for a short but very valuable chapter on pixies

Dathen, Jon Somerset Faeries and Pixies: Exploring Their Hidden World (Milverton: Cappall Bann Publishing, 2010)

Deane, Tony and Tony Shaw The Folklore of Cornwall (London: B.T.Batsford 1975)

Hunt, Robert Popular Romances of the West of England (London: Chatto & Windus 1881) [first edition 1865] for free pdf from the Archive

Palmer, Kingsley The Folklore of Somerset (London: Batsford 1976)

St Leger-Gordon, Ruth Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor (Peninsula Press 1994)

Weatherhill, Craig and Paul Devereux Myths and Legends of Cornwall (Wilmslow: Sigma Leisure, 1994)

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