Pixie

A pixie—also known regionally in Cornwall and Devon as a pisky, pixy, pixi, pizkie, piskie, or pigsie—is a creature from British folklore. These mythical beings are thought to cluster especially on the high moorlands of Cornwall and Devon, which points to a possible Celtic origin for both the belief and the name. The word "pixie" (in various spellings) also turns up in Dorset, Somerset, and, less often, in Sussex, Wiltshire, and Hampshire.

In traditional local stories, pixies are mostly good-natured and playful, though they can be mischievous. They are small, childlike, and fond of outdoor dancing and wrestling that goes on all night. Their mythology likely predates Christianity in Britain.

The word's origin is uncertain. One theory links it to the Swedish dialect word *pyske*, meaning "small fairy," but this is disputed because there’s no clear evidence of Nordic dialect influence in southwest Britain. A more Celtic origin is often favored, given the Cornish roots of the term "piskie," though no direct ancestor is known. The collective name *Pobel Vean* (Little People) is sometimes used. It may derive from Proto-Brythonic *bɨx* (meaning "little"), which became *bych* in Middle Welsh and *bihan* in Breton; the shift from *b* to *p* could result from a sandhi effect after an old article or pronoun.

Similar beings appear in Irish (Aos Sí), Manx (Mooinjer veggey), Welsh (Tylwyth Teg, or "Fair Family"), and Breton (korrigan) folklore, though their names are unrelated. Within Cornwall, local variations exist: in west Penwith, spriggans are seen as more malevolent than pixies, while knockers are tied specifically to tin mining.

Possible ancient forebears include Romano-British Hooded Spirits, or *genii cucullati*—dwarfish sprites in hooded cloaks, sometimes carrying concealed phallic daggers. During the Christian era, pixies were occasionally thought to be the souls of unbaptized children, who transformed into pixies after their clothing was placed in clay funeral pots they had used as toys. A Victorian idea held that pixies were a folk memory of the Pictish people, but this has been largely disproven and is now seen as Norse propaganda; it still appears in some modern writing, but no proven connection exists, and the etymology is ambiguous.