The grass on the Green was soft as cream, it flickered in the summer wind. This was no ordinary field, it was shrouded in a hazy quietness, a place the sheep avoided,  only the mysterious hares kept the grass down. If you were to look closely, you’d see rings trampled in the grass by scores of tiny feet.

Trezidden Green was where the piskeys loved to dance. They wore tiny blue jackets and red hats, and brown britches, and the piskey maids danced in floral dresses with garlands of sea pinks and campions in their hair. The piskeys tapped bare feet, their long toes sinking into grasses.

One evening, riding along Trezidden Lane, was Mr Trezillian. He’d enjoyed a great day meeting friends and buying provisions in Penzance. When he got to the gate to the Green, he spent some time trying to open the latch, leaning over his horse’s mane. But his horse wouldn’t go any further, it stopped in the gateway and snorted. Mr Trezillian peered into the hazy dusky Green, he couldn’t see much but he was sure he could hear little pipes playing a dance.

Curious, he slid down from his horse and walked onto the Green, no sooner had he done so, when a swarm of fairy folk clambered over him, swinging from his elbows, and clinging to his knees. He tried to brush off the little pests but couldn’t. Mr Trezillian felt the beat of the piskey drums, he began to sway to the piskey pipes and before he knew it, he had kicked off his shoes and was tapping along to the dance.

‘Join us and dance, Mr Trezillian,’ sang the piskeys.

Little people hung from his arms in chains and tiny hands clasped his fingers, he was part of the fairy ring and he was dancing like he had never danced before. Mr Trezillian loosened his shoulders and swayed his hips, he laughed as the dance went round and round in rings.

Then, the piskey pipes played faster and faster and the piskey dance got wilder and wilder and Mr Trezillian began to feel dizzy and light headed, then he felt very sick. He was a tall man and usually rather aloof and not at all used to dancing. He began to wish he had not left the safety of his horse, he began to wish he had not joined the piskey dance. Hundreds of little eyes glinted at him in the twilight, hundreds of little voices laughed in ripples of tinkling bells as Mr Trezillian danced round and round with no way of stopping.

‘Dance and dance, Mr Trezillian,’ giggled the piskeys.

Now, Mr Trezillian thought he remembered something about piskeys, something his mother had told him long ago when he was a boy.

‘If you get mazed by the piskeys,’ he remembered her saying, ‘just turn something inside out; pockets, hat, jacket, anything, simple really but you will have to try hard to remember when locked in the piskey mischief, my boy.’

Mr Trezillian remembered his mother’s words just as he threw up all over the piskey green. He whipped off his riding gloves and turned them both inside out just to be sure, and he threw them into the ring of little dancers. All at once, every single piskey disappeared, piskey pipes were silent and not a soul stirred. He wasn’t sure where he was as this didn’t seem to be the same green and his horse was nowhere to be seen. Mr Trezillian lay in the grass to sleep, he had been piskey-led, this night had not gone as planned.

As Mr Trezillian woke up,  still feeling dizzy, he heard a snort above him, and felt warm breath. It was his horse nudging him on the shoulder encouraging him to get up. When he opened his hand to take the reign, he found a tiny silver knee buckle, a piskey token, which he kept for the rest of his life.

retold by Anna Chorlton

from Robert Hunt Popular Romances from the West of England.