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Chudleigh Rocks

Cave / Rock Shelter

Folklore

At Chudleigh Rocks I was told, a few weeks ago, by the old man who acts as guide to the caves, of a recent instance of a man's being pixy-led. In going home, full of strong drink, across the hill above the cavern called the "Pixies' Hole," on a moonlit night, he heard sweet music, and was led into the whirling dance by the "good folk," who kept on spinning him without mercy, till he fell down "in a swoon."

On "coming to himself," he got up and found his way home, where he "took to his bed, and never left it again, but died a little while after," the victim (I suppose) of delirium tremens, or some such disorder, the incipient symptoms of which his haunted fancy turned into the sweet music in the night wind and the fairy revel on the heath. In the tale I have above given he persisted (said the old man), when the medical attendant who was called in inquired of him the symptoms of his illness. This occurrence happened, I understood, very recently, and was told to me in perfect good faith.
Yeah, yeah, explain it away, say he was really drunk. Not everyone who sees the pixies is drunk, you know. From Notes and Queries 61, December28, 1850 (online here at Project Gutenberg).
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
5th April 2006ce

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