All of that is true up to a point. However, there is much more to the pixy than you may think

What is a pixy?

Maybe I should begin by saying what a pixy is not. Despite the insistence of Hollywood to the contrary, pixies are not tiny gossamer-winged faeries that flit around the woodlands and flower beds in the style of Tinkerbell. That particular type of fae is not a pixy, but a Pillywiggin or Flower faery. As well as appearing in Disney's "Peter Pan", they have most recently been seen in the movie "Fairytale", which purports to explain the story of the "Cottingley Fairies". However, Pillywiggins are not the reason for this essay, being mentioned here merely in order to explain that despite current trends, they are not the same as pixies.

The word "Pixie" is often used incorrectly as a generic term for all British and American faery folk, with books, movies and even computer games compounding the error - just enter the words "Pixy" or "Pixie" in an internet search engine and see what you get. Actually, the name should be spelt "Pixy", with the plural being "Pixies", although it has now become commonplace to spell it either way. In Cornwall, the word Pisky is used, which is a corruption of "Pixy". In the rest of the West Country of England, as in most of the English-speaking world, the word Pixy is used, although they are sometimes called Grigs or Dusters in East Anglia. Pixies are sometimes also known as Pisgies, Pechts, Pechs, and Pickers.

The usual description of a Pixy is similar to that seen on Cornish charms, where a little humanoid figure is depicted sitting on a toadstool, with his hands wrapped around his knees. He is usually dressed in green, although some pixies wear rags or in some instances, nothing at all. The pixy is usually envisaged as being small, although some are known to possess certain shapeshifting abilities resulting in a height range of between eighteen inches to the size of a fully-grown human adult. They are also believed to take the form of hedgehogs, in which shape they are known as Urchins.

The original pixies were the little aboriginal folk who inhabited the barrows and cromlechs, and whose cunning - their only effective weapon against the strength of the Aryan invader - earned them a reputation for magical powers. Over the years these peoples also became linked with the pagan belief in nature sprites, and the two beliefs merged, giving us the pixy we know today. Remains of ancient dwellings, half sunken in the ground give us an idea as to why the pixies were believed to live in the underworld, when you consider that when fully built, they resembled a small hill. When seeing a pixy entering and leaving from the smoke hole in the roof, it is understandable how a passing traveller could mistake them as beings from the underworld. In fact the word "Pixy" is believed to derive from "Pict" - early inhabitants of Scotland who lived in similar dwellings.

Legends say that during the Roman conquest of Britain, the Fatae, Italian faeries, accompanied the Romans and at first lived in relative peace with the pixies. However as the Romans expanded their control of the country, the pixies became concerned and war broke out. Eventually the pixies drove the Fatae out of the West Country (Cornwall, Devon and Somerset) and everything west of the river Parret became Pixyland. I believe that part of this legend is a retelling of the Roman invasion itself, with the Romans unable to progress through Scotland due to the attacks of the Picts. Eventually the invaders were forced to build artificial borders in the forms of the Hadrian and Antonine walls and the area they were unable to conquer received the name "Pictland". Of course, given that the West Country of England is as far away from the Highlands of Scotland as you can get, it is also possible that a similar defensive posture was made by the denizens of that area.

The character of Peter Pan, companion of the aforementioned Tinkerbell, is a pixy, as is Puck of Pook's Hill, and in fact Kipling's Puck is described as "a small, brown, broad-shouldered, pointy-eared person with a snub nose, slanting blue eyes, and a grin that ran right across his freckled face". This certainly sounds like a pixy to me. He also speaks of himself as "the oldest Old Thing in England", and explains his uniqueness in that he is not affected by "Salt, or Horse-shoes over a door, or Mountain-ash berries, or Running Water, or Cold Iron, or the sound of Church Bells". All of which are supposed to dissuade pixies from their mischievous antics, although I know of many who enjoy the sound of bells and swimming in the river.

No discussion on the pixy would be complete without mention of their mischievous activities. They regularly make nocturnal visits to fields where horses are kept and race the animals around until dawn. These Pixy Ridden horses are discovered the next day, to be tired and drawn as if they have been racing around all night. Which of course they have. And at night the pixies revel in causing people to become Pixy-led, in which, taken unaware by mist which makes even familiar objects distorted and unrecognisable, people lose all sense of direction and wander around in circles.

Of course the pixies can be helpful as well as mischievous, and many a farmer has woken in the morning to discover work he planned for the next day has been done by the pixies in gratitude for food and milk left for them earlier in the evening. However, if a pixy is rewarded by a gift of clothes, he is likely to happily skip away wearing his new suit, and never be seen again. In fact the inclusion of "Dobby the House Elf" in the Harry Potter series of novels, is based on this very legend.

There are many stories of the pixies, some of which have been collected in anthologies such as Enys Tregarthen's "Piskey Folk" and Henry Jenner's "Piskies : a Folk-lore Study". Many have been transcribed and uploaded onto the internet, and I include some here.

In these pages, you will meet the true pixies, not the sanitised and sickly-sweet little elves of Hollywood. You will discover their origins, see the places where they are reputed to live and read the folk stories passed down through the years.