Chudleigh Rocks

Precautions have to be taken against changelings, and at Chudleigh mothers used to tie their babies to them in bed at night for fear of the pixies..

A keeper and his wife used to live at Chudleigh, near the rocks, whose holes the pixies "bide" in. This couple had two children, and one morning when the wife had dressed the eldest she let her run away while she dressed the baby. Presently her husband came and asked her "where the little maid was to?" For she was gone and was not to be found. They searched high and low for days; the neighbours came to help, and at last bloodhounds were to be sent for. But one morning some young men thought they would go and help themselves to some nuts from a clump of nut-trees not far from the keeper's house, and at the farther side they came suddenly on the child, undressed, but well and happy, and not at all starved, playing with her toes, or toads; I do not know which. The pixies were supposed to have stolen the child, and are still firmly believed to have been responsible for her disappearance.