The Pixies of Tavistock Abbey
The old abbots of Tavistock seem to have waged war on the pixies in their neighbourhoods. Perhaps they knew them to be representatives of the old religion. But it was not always a one-sided battle. The abbey produced a noted liqueur, just as other abbeys still do today. This was unusual, in that it was flavoured with heather, and it was a great secret known only to two men at any one time. When one man died, the survivor revealed the secret to a new man. Even the abbots did not know the secret, although they had a plentiful supply, in order to assure themselves that standards were being maintained. Tavistock Abbey thrived mightily, and its abbots were fat and cheerful men.
Abbot John, however, went to war with the pixies. He vowed to drink no more heather wine until he had driven out the pixies from all the parishes and lands under his jurisdiction. The pixies laughed, and took up the challenge. When the abbot was handed a jug of water, they turned it into heather wine. When he passed the distillery, they made him pixy-led so that he entered the building, wherein they played tricks upon him so that he got into trouble. Even after a great draught of heather wine, taken in all innocence under the impression it was water, when he started to nod in his chair they tickled his nose and ears, so that he burst out cursing in English and Latin. the monks, who heard these outbursts concluded that he had lost his wits, and was possessed by a devil. (We might have mistaken him for an alcoholic).
This continued until one day a pilgrim from the Holy Land came to the abbey. He had learned much in Syria and from the hermits in the desert, and to him the abbot told all. "It is indeed the evil one, and he must be exorcised", said the pilgrim promptly.
So there was a High Mass in the chapel, and all the brethren marched around the boundaries of the abbey lands, chanting and sprinkling with holy water, and cursing the pixies with bell, book and candle - and from that day the abbot was troubled no more. News spread that the pixies had been entirely cleared from the abbey lands. A pixy-cross was set up. Even today, although the abbey is in ruins and all its lands sold, no pixy dares to come near it by day or night. If a man should become pixy-led, the spell is immediately broken once he comes onto the former abbey lands, or into its churchyard.