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A BOOK OF FOLK-LORE

side of the hillock. He put down its value and carried it off. It proved to be of unwonted sharpness, but also that a cut or wound dealt by it never healed. On the estate of Dollrott, in Schleswig, when one lies down on a green tumulus that exists there, one can hear work going on underground. It is the same with the Great Struchberg near Heiligenhafen, when one places an ear to the ground the hammering at a smithy can be heard.

It seems to be a general opinion that the Little People must be treated with fairness, that any act of treachery done to them or neglect is bitterly resented.

Two serving-girls in Tavistock said that the pixies were very kind to them, and would drop silver for them into a bucket of clean water, which they took care to place for them in the chimney-corner every night. Once it was forgotten, and the pixies forthwith went up to the girls’ room and loudly complained of the neglect. One of them, who happened to be awake, jogged the other, and proposed going down to rectify the omission, but she said, ‘for her part she would not stir out of bed to please all the pixies in Devonshire.’ The other went down and filled the bucket, in which, by the way, she found next morning a handful of silver