We've got a few kinds of fairy folk in Cornwall. None of them has wings, mind, but they all make a bit of magic. Piskeys are full of mischief, catch em on the moors and by the Towans,they will lead you astray if you're not careful, but if you're lucky they will help you. Tiny folk they are, they like to dance in a ring that's when they're not playing tricks on you and me. Turn your pockets inside out and you will be protected against piskey magic. Knockers live in the mines, lead the miners to copper and tin loads with the sound of their knocking, and miners must leave them a crust of their pasty in return. Spriggans live by the rocks and stones, the quoits and cromlechs, with the giants down west. They guard giants' treasure, and they're spiteful, ugly sprites, if anything goes wrong you can be sure the spriggans are to blame. They pinch stuff too, so if anything goes missing you can be sure the spriggans are to blame.

In a lone house near a lone mine lived a lone woman, but she wasn't lonely, for every night she had company. The spriggans of Trencrom Hill met at the old woman's house to divide their plunder: stuff they had stolen that day. Watches and bracelets, coins and cash, gold and jewels - this was before the time of phones and bank cards.  The old woman slept, or pretended to sleep, when the spriggans came to visit and they always left her a coin on her bedside table. The spriggans came so often that the old woman had a big pot of coins, she could afford a few luxuries, some nice soap and a lace handkerchief or two. Maybe some of the spriggans' greed rubbed off on the old woman, for she decided soap and hankies were not enough, she wanted to make herself rich once and for all, and she planned and plotted to steal from the spriggans!

One night the spriggans emptied out their bags of stolen gold and jewels into a huge pile that gleamed and glistened on the floor. They rubbed their hands in glee, and as they laughed the small spriggans grew bigger and bigger, uglier and uglier. The old woman was not scared. She lay in bed with one beady eye open, peeping at the treasure. The spriggans began to quarrel among themselves. They couldn't decide who got what.

'This is my chance' she thought. She was wearing her shift – bit like you might wear a long t shirt in bed – and she huddled up under the blankets, turned her shift the wrong way out and put it back on again. (You may remember that if you turn your clothes inside out it stops fairy magic). She pulled back the covers, grabbed a gold cup and shouted

'You can't have it, it's mine.'

The spriggans scarpered away in fright, leaving their treasure behind. One spriggan grabbed at the old woman's shift as he ran, but soon let go.

The old woman was now rich, and she went to live in Hayle. She loved the hustle and bustle of the town, she loved to watch the big boats on the river shifting the copper, hear the noise and feel the heat of the foundry, watch the wrestlers throw each other about. 

But at night she suffered from terrible pains, pains that came only when she wore her favourite shift in bed. The shift touched by a spriggan. 

Retold by Sue Field

Source Popular Romances from the West of England  Robert Hunt