Local Authors

The Dartmoor Pixies

Pixies first came into my awareness as a child growing up in the 1970s. On family trips to Dartmoor in my parents’ car, we’d sometimes stop off at the Pixieland giftshop near Dartmeet, with its eye-catching garden, full of cheerily-painted pixie statues. Pixies were briefly mentioned by writers, such as Coleridge, in his poem ‘Songs of the Pixies’ (1793). However, the pixie’s acceptance into the canon of faerie folklore, Fairy Mythology (Keightley 1850) and their popularisation, was due to a series of letters written by historical novelist Mrs Anna Eliza Bray (1790-1883), to her friend and mentor, the poet laureate, Robert Southey. These were published, in three volumes in ‘A Description of the Part of Devonshire Bordering on the Tamar and the Tavy’ (1836). Bray was wife of Rev. Edward Atkyns Bray, and resided at Tavistock Vicarage. Southey encouraged Bray to collect the history and customs of her local area. In her letter dated 24 April 1832, Bray introduces the pixies by saying ‘as no historian has here been found to record the acts of our pixies, I, unworthy as I may be to accomplish the task, will, nevertheless, adventure it’ and confesses that she has collected the pixies’ traditions at risk of being ‘laughed at’ by her wealthy and educated peers. ‘Pixie’, put simply, is a local synonym for fairy, though Bray notes that the local elders believed that they were a race apart, being ‘the souls of infants’ who had died before being baptised. Bray describes their clothing as green, that they can change their forms at will, enjoy music and dancing in a ring, are helpful, though also mischievous tricksters and sometimes malevolent. Their occupations, by command of the Pixy King, included helping farmers with threshing and farm maids with butter churning. Some pixies were tasked with leading travellers astray, known as being ‘pixie led’ - the best remedy against this, was to turn one’s pockets or apron inside out. Bray later shaped these descriptions into tales for children, in her book ‘A Peep at the Pixies’ (1854). She also standardized the spelling as ‘pixie’, in preference to ‘piskey’ or ‘pisgie’; which may come from the same root as ‘pooka’ or ‘Puck’. Local maid servant, talented poet, Mary Colling (1804-1853), who became Bray’s protégé, played a key role in gathering the Dartmoor pixie folklore from the ‘local gossips’, of whom, Bray said, they were ‘less suspicious’. Bray helped to publish Colling’s poetry collection Fables (1831). Bray wrote that the pixies ‘delight in solitary places, to love pleasant hills and pathless woods; or to disport themselves on the margins of rivers and mountain streams’. She also visited the ‘Pixies’ Cave’ at Sheepstor. Reverend Polwhele had written of the cave and its traditions in A History of Devonshire (1797), the earliest known historical account of a Dartmoor pixie dwelling.

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Bray added more topographical detail in her visit account. The entrance way was only big enough for pixies and the interior ‘a hovel’.

On a beautiful summer evening in 1854, William Crossing (1847-1928), one of the greatest writers of all things Dartmoor, also visited the ‘Pixie’s Cave’ (Folklore and Legends of Dartmoor by William Crossing, Messurier 1997). Aged six at the time, he was accompanied by ‘good Ann Wilcocks’, his childminder, and recalls he felt excited at the prospect. As they approached the cave ‘suddenly a little creature darted out from between the masses of granite, and as suddenly disappeared. I felt quite sure it was a pixy’. However, Ann dismissed the boy’s sighting as probably being a rabbit. William writes of Ann’s response; ‘This disappointed me but was not convincing.’ Crossing’s ‘Tales of the Dartmoor Pixies’ was published in 1890, with additional stories he collected from local people. Crossing introduces his pixie tales by guiding the reader along the Dart gorge to Newbridge and its ‘green sward’, where the pixies gathered to dance, stopping at their other haunts along the way. More Dartmoor pixie tales were published in the wake of Crossing, including The Crock of Gold (Sabine Baring-Gould, 1899), The Magic Mist (Rogers, E.C, 1901), Tales of the Tors (Skinner, A.G. 1939), Devon Traditions and Fairy Tales (Coxhead, J.R.W, 1959). In The Saving, B J Burton (1985), tells the tale of a tribe of little folk, the Dini, whose plight is at the hands of ecological crisis created by the ‘Big-uns’(humans). Bray, Crossing, and other nineteenth century authors, emphasized that pixies were long gone from Dartmoor, driven away by the ‘marching of intellect’. However, pixie sightings continued to be recorded by folklorists, such as Theo Brown (Tales of a Dartmoor Village, 1961) and up to present day, by Mark Norman and Jo Hickey-Hall in their chapter ‘Pixies and Rocks’ for Magical Folk (Young, S & Holbrook, C, 2018). Norman and Hickey-Hall cite a farmer’s account in 2010, who on burning down an old barn, saw a ring of small green figures standing around its smouldering embers. Over the last two years, more of us have been reconnecting with the outdoors, realising its importance to our wellbeing. Perhaps pixies never went away, maybe it is we who replaced the wild wastes of our imaginations with our smart-phone screens.

Claire Casely

Claire’s book on Dartmoor Pixies will be published next year.

Cowbells Down the Zambezi, & In Livingstone’s Footsteps

By David Lemon At the age of 68 David Lemon undertook the exciting challenge of being the first man ever to walk the whole length of the Zambezi River in Africa. On the way he met many interesting people, one of whom mistook him for Jesus and others a satanist. He was also identified as the spirit of a long dead explorer and often asked to run for the presidency of Zambia. Readers can share David’s journey down the Zambezi River, with trials and tribulations, mosquitoes, injuries and weight loss. David vividly describes his time with cabinet ministers, drug smugglers, tribal chiefs and villagers, all of whom took him into their hearts. Many also housed and fed him, as well as taking photographs as he was something of a celebrity. He also describes the wildlife he encountered, including hippopotami and his beloved elephants. Exciting, poignant and brilliantly evocative of an Africa, its wildlife and people that is rapidly disappearing, ‘Cowbells Down the Zambezi’ tells the story of an epic walk among the River People of Zambia. Due to failing health he took a break halfway through and returned 18 months later to complete his journey. ‘In Livingstone’s Footsteps’ covers the second half of his adventure along the Zambezi River. Hit hard by cerebral malaria, leg ulcers and the debilitating heat of the Mozambican countryside, he struggled on, and at times the journey became a nightmare, but eventually he achieved his goal, three months short of his seventieth birthday. He covered 3200 kilometres and it took 292 ‘walking’ days, proving that with determination the almost impossible becomes achievable. He ends with the optimistic note that his adventures may not be over. David Lemon is an excellent writer; he recorded the events of each day with a Dictaphone as well as keeping a log, so that he could write the books. I thoroughly enjoyed both books and think you will be thrilled with the two adventure stories.

Review by Dr Ann Pulsford

David Lemon’s talk on 16 June is part of the Tavistock Heritage Trust series - see What’s On for details.

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