Page:A book of folk-lore (1913).djvu/224

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PIXIES AND BROWNIES
221

pennies. As she was returning, she heard the pixies debating how they might punish the other, and they agreed to give her a lame leg for a term of seven years, then to be cured by a herb growing on Dartmoor, whose name of seven syllables she could not recall. Next morning, Molly, the lazy wench, arose dead lame, and so continued till the end of the period, when, one day, as she was picking up a mushroom a strange-looking boy started up and insisted on striking her leg with a plant which he held in his hand. He did so, and she was cured, and became the best dancer in the town.

The people of Jutland declare that when God cast the rebellious angels out of heaven, some fell down on the mounds or barrows and became Hill-folk; others fell into the elf-moors and became Elf-folk; and others, again, fell into dwellings and became House-kobolds. This gives a rough idea of the distinction supposed to exist among these Little People.

The enormous number of traditions that tell of the brownies, kobolds, or pixies doing service in houses and farms point to a reminiscence of when this dispersed and unsettled Little People did great help to farmers and their wives for some small recompense.

One feature attends all the stories about