The tulip pixies

DOWN in the West, somewhere by the borders of the Tavy, there once lived a kind old woman. Her cottage was near a pixie field, where green rings stood in the grass. Now some folk say those fairy rings are caused by the elves catching colts. They catch them and ride them round and round by night, such folk do say. But this old woman had other ideas about her fairy rings.

Around her tidy cottage was a pretty garden, full of sweet-smelling flowers. Lavender and hollyhocks grew there, lilies and rosemary and the sweetbriar tree, blue-buttons and gillyflowers, forget-me-nots and rue. But best of all was a big bed of tulips which she tended with special care. Everyone stopped to peep over her gate when the time of tulips came.

How the pixies loved this spot. They liked the kind old woman, and they liked her garden too.

One starry night, as she lay asleep, with the lilac-flowers showing white under her window, she was awakened by a strange sound. At first she thought an owl in the elm-tree had wakened her, but gradually she realised that it was a sweeter sound than the crack of the churn owl.

'It du sound for all the world like a lullaby, ' she thought, and lay listening for a while.

Then she got out of bed and peered from the win­dow. There below her in the moonlight all the tulips in their shining colours were waving their heads in tune with the sweet music. It seemed as though they them­selves were singing too.

Now when this happened the next night, ami the next, the old woman began to understand what had happened. The pixie folk had brought their babies to the tulip bed, and laid each one within a separate flower.

'They be lullin' their babies to sleep. I du declare, " said the old woman, delighted. “Ssh! dear soul, I see them now. The pixie babies are fast asleep, and there go the pixie folk themselves to dance in the meadow grass.'

She was right. It was not the catching of colts that made those rings on the green grass, but the dancing of the little folk to their own pipers' tune. But as the first dawn light broke pale in the east back came the pixies to claim their babies from the tulip cradles, where they lay asleep. And, all invisible now, they vanished clean away.

'Bless my soul! If the li'l dears b'aint a-kissin' their babies 'fore they pick'n up, ' said the old woman. 'What lovin' folks they be! '

She noticed that the tulips did not fade so quickly as the other flowers in the garden. Indeed, it seemed as though they would never wither. And one day, as she bent to have a look at them, the old woman noticed that the pixies had made them even lovelier by breath­ing over them. Now they smelled as fragrant as lilies or roses do.

'No-one shall pick a single tulip, not even myself.' she said. 'They shall be kept altogether for the piskies' own delight.'

And so it was as year succeeded year.

But no-one lives forever, and at last the old woman died, It was a sad day for the garden, and the tulips hung their heads. Well they might, for presently the garden passed into other hands. The new tenant cared nothing for pixie lore. He only cared for the garden at all because of its trees of fruit. Gooseberries and rasp­berries and greengage-plums made very tasty pies!

'Yu shouldn't be gatherin' they gooseberries out of season, ' a neighbour warned him; " tis proper unlucky. The piskies can't abide bein' robbed of their own.'

'Piskies? Pah! ' said the man.

'Surely ye b'aint a-digging up they tulips? ' said another. " Twas the old woman's special delight thaccy bed o' flowers. What be yu puttin' in? '

'I be settin' a bed of parsley, if you must know, ' said the man.

'Parsley? Dear soul alive! Doan'ee know 'tis mortal unlucky to set a parsley bed. Last man as ever I heard of was bedridden ever after.'

'Stuff and nonsense! ' snapped the new tenant disbelievingly.

So the enchanted flowers were rooted up, and parsley set instead. But so offended were the pixies that they caused it to wither away. Not only would nothing grow in the gay tulip bed, but the whole garden was soon a waste.

Yet though the lullabies were heard no more from the tulip bed, singing still came from the little folk who dwelt in the neighbourhood. But this time the singing came from the old woman's grave. Sad and sorrowful was the song the pixies sang, and every night before the moon was full they sang it.

No-one looked after the old woman's grave, yet never a weed was seen. As she had tended their tulip bed, so now they tended her grave. And though no-one was ever seen to plant a flower, somehow her favour­ites sprang up in the night-rosemary and gillyflowers, lavender and forget-me-nots, sweet scabious and rue.

I cannot tell how the truth may be.

I say the tale as 'twas said to me.