The Pixie, also variously known as Pisgie, piskie, pigsey, of Cornwall, is based in the district of Dartmoor.... There's hardly a place on Dartmoor that is not haunted by the green mischievous creatures. They have lent their name to many landmarks, Pixie's Holt, Pixie's Cave, Pixie's Parlour, Puggie Stone (the word Puggie has the same derivation as Puck). They dance in the shadows of the standing stones, or gambol on the tumbling stream edges. Their bells can be heard deep in the heart of the many tors on the moor.
Pixies often take the form of hedgehogs, known in dislect as urchins.
The mischievous Pixies delight in stealing horses and the wild Dartmoor ponies at night to ride them wildly across the moor, twisting and knotting their manes to spur them on. Even in the house one is not safe from them, for they like to throw pots and pans after kitchen girls.
To be misled by faeries, whether by light or night, or a subtle changing of landmarks and features by day, is described as being PIXIE-LED.
In Ireland this 'mis-leading' is attributed to a faerie fuft of grass or stray sod which when trodden on triggers a spell. Under its influence, a usual experience when trying to cross a field is to discover that a stiled exit which may have been clearly visible on entering, has suddenly disappeared; and no amount of systematic searching of the surrounding hedges will reveal its whereabouts. In other cases a walker might abruptly find himself heading in a totally different direction to the way he wishes to go and no amount of re-alignment of his course seems to put this right. The spell may be counteracted by the traditional method of turning one's coat inside out and wearing it this way.
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A tale about a nasty pixie -
One very cold windy night, a woman was sat in her cottage, in front of her fire trying to keep warm. Her husband had gone out and her child was sleeping in the next room, when there was a knock at the door. She opened the door to see a small ordinary, kindly looking man wearing ordinary clothes and holding the reins of a horse. He asked her to go with him to help his wife. He had heard that the woman was a midwife and his wife was about to have their child, he needed her help urgently. The woman was worried about leaving her child alone but the stranger persuaded her that the child will be safe until her husband returns home and most reluctantly she goes with the man on his horse.
They go along a path that the woman does not recognise, even though she had lived in the area all of her life. After a time they arrive at a little cottage, set in the woods, the woman had not seen it before. The man helped the woman down from the horse and hurried her into the cottage. Inside his wife was screaming for the midwife to help her as the child was well on its way. Soon the birth was over and the mother and baby were both doing well. The man left to go and fetch the horse to take the woman back to her home and whilst he was out of the room, his wife asked the midwife to rub the baby's eyes with some special ointment that she took from her bedside cabinet. The midwife rubbed the ointment onto the baby's eye's and passed it back to the women. The midwife wondered about the ointment and so before she washed her hands, she rubbed her left eye with it. She was amazed that now she could see that the women who had just given birth had suddenly become a very small and beautiful creature with golden hair and that the baby now lay in a silver basket with satin sheets. When the husband came back into the room to fetch the midwife and take her home, she could see that he was no longer an ordinary man in ordinary cloths but a fine Nobleman dressed in all his finery. She made sure that she said nothing to give away that she could now see them as the pixies that they really were. The man then took the midwife back to her own cottage and thanked her many times for making sure that his wife and baby were well and that the baby had been delivered safely, he then gave her a gold coin.
The next day, the midwife was in the town when she saw the man from the night before. She wanted to thank him for the gold coin, so she followed him, stopped him and asked how his wife and baby were. The small man looked at her and asked; "So you can see me, from which eye can you see our pixie kingdom?" She then pointed to her left eye and as quick as a flash the little man reached up and grabbed her left eye from its socket and threw it over the buildings. The woman dropped to the floor screaming and the man rushed away unseen by the other passers by who had not had the special ointment on their eyes. So perhaps all pixies aren't such nice, sweet creatures after all.
http://www.worldoffroud.com/www/faeries/faeries/faery1.cfm
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