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Pixies (also pixy, pixi, pizkie, piskies and pigsies as they are sometimes known in Cornwall) are mythical creatures of folklore, considered to be particularly concentrated in the high moorland areas around Devon〔R. Totnea: "Pixies", ''Once a Week'', 25 May 1867, page 608, notes the prevalence of belief in Pixies in Devon.〕 and Cornwall,〔"The Folk-Lore of Devon", ''Fraser's Magazine,'' December 1875, page 773ff.〕 suggesting some Celtic origin for the belief and name. Akin to the Irish and Scottish Aos Sí, pixies are believed to inhabit ancient underground ancestor sites such as stone circles, barrows, dolmens, ringfort or menhirs.〔Imagined Landscapes:Archaeology, Perception and Folklore in the Study of Medieval Devon, Lucy Franklin , 2006〕 In traditional regional lore, pixies are generally benign, mischievous, short of stature and attractively childlike; they are fond of dancing and gather outdoors in huge numbers to dance or sometimes wrestle, through the night, demonstrating parallels with the Cornish plen-an-gwary and Breton Fest Noz (Cornish: troyl) folk celebrations originating in the medieval period. In modern times they are usually depicted with pointed ears, and often wearing a green outfit and pointed hat although traditional stories describe them wearing dirty ragged bundles of rags which they happily discard for gifts of new clothes.〔English forests and forest trees, historical, legendary, and descriptive, Ingram, Cooke, and co., 1853〕 Sometimes their eyes are described as being pointed upwards at the temple ends. These, however, are Victorian era conventions and not part of the older mythology. In modern use, the term can be synonymous with fairies or sprites. However, in folklore there is a traditional enmity, even war, between the two races.〔A Peep at the Pixies; or Legends of the West, Bay A.E., 1853〕 ==Etymology and origin== The origin of the name ''pixie'' is uncertain. Some have speculated that it comes from the Swedish dialectal ''pyske'' meaning ''wee little fairy''. Others, however, have disputed this, given there is no plausible case for Nordic dialectical survivals in southwest Britain, and claiming instead that due to the Cornish origin of the ''piskie'' that the term is more probably Celtic in origin, though no direct ancestor of the word is known, however the term ''Pobel Vian'' ('Little People') is often used to refer to them collectively.〔(Online Etymology Dictionary ).〕〔Traditional Cornish Stories and Rhymes, 1992 edition, Lodenek Press〕 Very similar analogues exist in closely related Irish (Aos Si) and Breton (korrigan) culture, although their common names are unrelated, even within areas of language survival there is a very high degree of local variation of names. A West Penwith name for pixie is ''spriggan'' – this being the area of late survival of the Cornish language – where ''spriggan''s are distinguished from pixies by their malevolent nature. Closely associated with tin mining in Cornwall are the subterranean ancestral knockers. Pixie mythology is believed to pre-date Christian presence in Britain. In the Christian era they were sometimes said to be the souls of children who had died un-baptised. These children would change their appearance to pixies once their clothing was placed in clay funeral pots used in their earthly lives as toys. By 1869 some were suggesting that the name pixie was a racial remnant of Pictic tribes who used to paint and tattoo their skin blue, an attribute often given to pixies. This suggestion is still met in contemporary writing, but there is no proven connection and the etymological connection is doubtful.〔"South Coast Sunterings in England", in: ''Harpers New Monthly Magazine'', (1869) pp. 29–41.〕 Some 19th-century researchers made more general claims about pixie origins, or have connected them with the Puck, (Cornish Bucca) a mythological creature sometimes described as a fairy; the name Puck is also of uncertain origin, Irish Púca, Welsh Pwca. The earliest published version of the Three Little Pigs story is from Dartmoor in 1853 and has three little pixies in place of the pigs.〔English Forests and Forest Trees: Historical, Legendary, and Descriptive (London: Ingram, Cooke, and Company, 1853), pp. 189-90〕 In older Westcountry dialect modern Received Pronunciation letter pairs are sometimes transposed from the older Saxon spelling ( ''waps'' for wasp, ''aks'' for ask and so on) resulting in ''piskies'' in place of modern ''piksies'' (pixies) as still commonly found in Devon and Cornwall to modern times. Until the advent of more modern fiction, pixie mythology was localised to Britain. Some have noted similarities to "northern fairies", Germanic and Scandinavian elves,〔e.g. John Thackray Bunce: ''Fairy Tales: Their Origin and Meaning'' 1878, page 133.〕 but pixies are distinguished from them by the myths and stories of Devon and Cornwall. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pixie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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