Mythic origins

One myth states that pixies were a race of people who were not good enough for Heaven or bad enough for Hell and were therefore forced to remain on Earth forever. Another legend claims that they were Druids who resisted Christianity and were subsequently sentenced by God to grow subsequently smaller until they accepted Christianity.

More recently a theory has developed that they are named after the nation of Picts that inhabited Scotland during the post-Roman period, whom some believe are descended from an indigenous group of people predating the arrival of the Celts in Britain during the Iron Age, the word 'pixie' apparently being formed from a mixture of the words 'Pict' and Sídhe. However, this is not proven, as many scholars believe the Picts to have been largely a Celtic people, as evidenced by the fact that they were called Priteni (Irish Cruithni) by the Welsh, a Celtic name for "Briton." Additionally, the name Pict is derived from Latin picti, "painted people", making the Pictish origin of pixies unlikely as the word would not have been used by the Celts to describe their neighbours.

Characteristics

A pixie is said to enjoy playing tricks on people, for example by stealing their belongings or throwing things at them. At night, they steal horses and bring them back before dawn, leaving only tangled manes as evidence of the prank. Some pixies are said to exude pixie dust, which is left in their footprints.

Fairy folk are also known to steal horses and return them with tangled manes, as in the book, An Earthly Knight written by Janet McNaughton. Though fairies and pixies have a lot in common they are not, as commonly mistaken, the same thing.

On Dartmoor, in Devon, travellers who became lost on the moor were sometimes said to have been "pixie led", in other words, deliberately led astray by the little people. It is said that, if travellers felt the onset of the pixie spell, they can turn their coats inside out to confuse them and escape, a technique normally used for all fairies.

Pixies can also be repelled by objects made from silver as contact with the metal can harm them, another trait they share in common with other fairies of the British Isles. Pixies are allergic to silver. It burns their skin and can kill them if it gets into their blood.

Those who deliberately follow pixies often vanish without a trace. For example, a farmhand at Rowbrook, situated on the steep, wooded flanks of the River Dart valley, is said to have been lured down towards the river by mysterious voices, calling his name: ‘Jan Coo.’ He was never seen again.

Even within living memory, some rural families left small gifts, such as bowls of food or saucers of milk, for the pixies in order to placate them. When shown this respect and attention, pixies would sometimes even help the family by tidying up the household during the night or in the day!