North Cornwall Fairies and Legends Part 10

'I am better fed than little St. Neot after his poor little meal of fish,' he continued, still eyeing the boy, 'and I am feeling so comfortable that I am inclined for a chat.'

'Are you?' cried Jim, who thought this great black crow was a wonderful crow, which he certainly was. 'I don't know what to yarn about.'

'I do, then,' answered the bird quickly. 'I suppose you have heard the old whiddle [20] how the little St. Neot put the poor crows into this pound.'

'Yes, I have heard about it from the Granfer men and Grannie women here at Churchtown,' said Jim, turning his face towards a little village close to the church which he could just see from where he was sitting. 'But they never made much of a story of it.'

'Didn't they? Then perhaps you would like to hear the crows' version of the old tale,' said the crow. 'It will tell you that their morals were not so black as the farmers in this parish made out to the Holy Man.'

'I don't mind, if you are quick about it,' said Jim. 'I am going to a farm with my father to help him do some thatching when he has finished his dinner.'

'I cannot be driven after such a heavy meal of pasty,' croaked the crow; 'and if I may not take my time, I won't tell it at all.'

'As you like,' cried Jim with fine indifference; but the bird was anxious to tell the whiddle, and he began:

'We crows always considered it within our right to take what we could,'

said the crow, 'and pilfering, as the farmers hereabouts were pleased to call it, was the only way the crows had of picking up a living, and they watched their opportunity to take what they needed to satisfy their hunger when the farmers were not about. But back in those far-away days when St. Neot dwelt here to try and make people good, times were dreadfully bad, especially for crows. The people were all tillers of the land in those days, and lived by the sweat of their brow, as crows did by pilfering. There was no other way open to them, and the farmers had their eyes on the land and on us poor hungry birds from dawn to dark, except on the Rest Day; and the only chance the crows had of filling their stomachs was on Sunday, when the people went to church.

'The starving crows looked forward to Sunday as only poor starving birds with empty crops could, and the moment one of the elder crows gave the signal, which he did in the crow way, they all flew off to the corn-sown fields, and had a regular feast. My word! and didn't they feed! They picked out with their sharp beaks every grain of corn they could find.

'When the farmers found out the hungry crows had eaten up all the corn they had sown, there was the Black Man to pay, and the poor crows were anathematized from one end of the parish to the other.

'The farmers resowed their fields, but they took good care to watch and see that the crows did not rob them of their toil; and they were always about the corn-sown land, Sundays as well as week-days, and the crows had to go supperless to bed, and little St. Neot had to preach to bare walls.

'The Saint was greatly distressed at his people's neglect of their religious duties, and he told them how wicked it was to stay away from church. The people said they were sorry, but declared it was the fault of the pilfering crows.

'"The pilfering crows!" cried the Holy Man. "What have the crows to do with your stopping away from the House of G.o.d?"

'"Everything," answered the farmers; and they told little St. Neot that whenever they sowed bread-corn in their fields the wicked crows came and ate it all up, and that if he could not prevent them from doing this wickedness, they must keep away from church and watch their fields. "We and our children must have bread to eat," they added, which was true enough--true for crows as well as men.

'The Holy Man was very much grieved to hear the cause of their not coming to church, and he said he would devise some means to prevent the crows from robbing the fields whilst they were attending to their worship.

'St. Neot was as good as his word, and it was noised about in the parish that he was building a great square enclosure of moorstone and mould about half a mile from the church; and when it was finished, he told his wondering people it was a pound for crows, which he meant to impound on Sundays from dawn till dusk, so that the farmers might come to church and worship without having their minds disturbed by fear of those black little robbers eating their corn.

'There was a fearful to-do among the poor hungry crows when they learned what St. Neot had done; and although they knew they were within their right to steal when they were hungry--and they were always hungry, poor things!--they were sorry they ate up the corn the farmers had sown, and every crow looked forward to the coming Rest Day with fear and trembling.

'Well, Sunday came, as Sundays will,' continued the crow, 'and before the sun had risen little St. Neot made known his will to the crows that they were to come to be impounded, and such power had the Saint over beast and bird that the crows had no choice save to obey, and long before St. Neot's bell rang out to call his people to worship in the little church which he had built for them by the aid of his two-deer team and one-hare team, all the crows in the parish came as they were bidden to be impounded in the Crow Pound.

'And, my gracious! what a lot of them came! There were crows of all sorts and conditions, all ages and sizes! There were great-great-great Granfer and Grannie Crows! there were great-great Granfer and Grannie Crows! great Granfer and Grannie Crows by the score! Grannie Crows by the hundred! Mammie and Daddy Crows by the thousand! and as for the children, and great-great-grand-children, they could hardly be counted! Even poor little Baby Crows, just able to fly, were there!

'The Crow Pound was chock-full of crows, and all the place was as black as St. Neot's gown. And as for the noise they made, it was enough to turn the Holy Man's brain; but it didn't.

'The little Saint did not expect to see so many crows, it was certain, though he expected a goodly number, by the big enclosure he had made; and the old tale says that, when he saw so many birds, he exclaimed with uplifted hands, "My goodness! what a lot of crows!" and he looked round at this great a.s.semblage--all in respectable black--in open-eyed amazement.

'The people who came flocking to church when they heard that the crows were safe in the Crow Pound were almost as astonished as St. Neot to see such a big congregation of birds.

'The church was too far away from the pound for the crows to hear the little Saint preaching, but when the wind blew up from Churchtown they could hear the singing, and to show you they were not so bad as the farmers made out to the Holy Man, they croaked as loud as ever they could when Ma.s.s was sung, and were as silent as the grave during the time St. Neot was preaching.

'Every year, from sowing time till the corn was reaped and safe in the barn, the crows were impounded every Sunday from the early morning till evening whilst little St. Neot lived.'

'Is that all?' asked Jim, who listened to the crow's version of the old tale till it was finished.

'Yes,' answered the great black bird with a croak, and when he had said that he took to his wings and flew away as fast as he could fly over Goonzion Downs, the way he had come.

'That wisht-looking crow did not tell the old whiddle half bad,'

said Jim to himself, as he watched the bird fly away. 'Shouldn't I like to have seen this old pound full of crows! It must have been terribly funny when St. Neot looked in upon them and cried, "My goodness! what a lot of crows!" It must have been as good as a Christmas play. There, father is coming. That sharp-eyed old crow must have seen him climbing the hill.'

THE PISKEYS' REVENGE

Once upon a time, so the old story begins, there were an old man and his wife called Granfer and Grannie Nankivell, who lived on a moor, and a small grand-daughter who lived with them.

Genefer was the name of this little girl. She was a small brown child. Brown as a Piskey, her grandfather said; but, brown as she was, she was exceedingly pretty. Her lips were as red as the reddest of berries, and the glow on her cheeks matched her lips.

Her grandfather was a turf-cutter, and most of his days had been spent cutting turf on the Cornish moors.

When this old man was between sixty and seventy he cleared out a whole bog, which happened to be a Piskey-bed.

The Piskeys never like their sleeping-places to be disturbed, and when they found out Granfer Nankivell had done it, they were very angry, and set up Piskey-lights to lead him astray when he came home. But they did it in vain as far as he was concerned. The old turf-cutter was very learned in Piskeys' wiles, and never ventured across the moors without wearing one of his garments inside out, and this made him Piskey-proof, which means that the Piskeys had no power to harm him or to lead him out of his way.

But the sly Little People knew a thing or two as well as Granfer Nankivell, and when they found out that their Piskey-lights failed, they set their sharp little wits to work to do him harm in some other way.

After much watching they discovered that the old turf-cutter had a weakness for sweet things, and that the greatest treat his wife could give him was sugar biscuits of her own making and a big plate of junket. They also found out that Grannie Nankivell, whenever she made these delicacies, put them overnight into her spence [21] for safety.

They made up their minds that they would punish the old turf-cutter for taking away their nice soft green Piskey-bed by doing him out of his junket and biscuits, and they told some distant relations of theirs, the Fairy Moormen, to keep an eye upon the spence-window, and whenever they saw Grannie Nankivell bring a bowl of junket and a dish of biscuits into her spence, they must come with all speed and tell them.

'We'll watch too,' they said; 'but in case we are away dancing or setting up Piskey-lights, you must watch for us,' which the Tiny Moormen were quite pleased to do.

But the moor fairies watched in vain for many a week, and just as they were beginning to fear that Grannie Nankivell was never going to make any more biscuits and junket for her husband, she set to and made some, and when they were made she took them into the spence, as she always did.

The spence opened out from the kitchen, and was quite a little room in itself, with a tiny window facing the moors. In front of the window was a stone bench, and near it a square oak table.

The Tiny Moormen were peeping in at the window when the old woman put the bowl of junket on the table and the dish of sugar biscuits on the bench, and the moment her back was turned they tore off to the Piskeys with the news.

'A big round basin full of lovely cool junket,' they cried, 'and a dish heaping full of round biscuits, yellow and white with eggs and sugar, with which they are made. I heard the old woman say that she had never made better, and all for Granfer Nankivell, 'cause 'tis his birthday to-morrow.'

'Birthday or no birthday, Granfer Nankivell shan't taste one,' cried the little Piskeys. 'No fy, he shan't! He turned us out of our beds, and we'll do him out of his biscuits and junket, see if we won't!'

'That's right!' said the Fairy Moormen, who were hand and glove with the Piskeys, 'only please save some for us.'

They and the Piskeys hastened away to the turf-cutter's cottage, and when the turf-cutter and his wife had gone to bed, the Piskeys got into the spence and ate up the big bowl of junket, and pa.s.sed out the biscuits to the Tiny Moormen.

When Grannie Nankivell went to her spence the next day she found the junket-bowl empty and every biscuit gone.