Peter and the Piskies: Cornish Folk and Fairy Tales is a 1958 anthology of 34 fairy tales from Cornwall that have been collected and retold by Ruth Manning-Sanders and illustrated by Raymond Briggs. It was the first in a long series of such anthologies by Manning-Sanders.
In an author's note, Manning-Sanders says of the passing down of the tales: "A widow woman lived in a cottage by the sea. ... It was the piskies who told the old widow woman the stories in this book, and she told them to me, and now I am telling them to you."
Of the tales themselves, the book's dust jacket says: "The folk-tales of Cornwall are peopled with giants and saints and wicked demons; with the thieving, spiteful spriggans, the mischievous piskies who are always laughing, and the little bearded knockers who work industriously in the mines, and who, they say, are growing smaller with every year they live so that there will come a day when they are no size at all."
This book was first published in the United Kingdom in 1958, by Oxford University Press. It was not published in the United States until eight years later, by Roy Publishers. The information for this entry is taken from the U.S. version.
Table of contents
1. Peter and the Piskies
2. Skillywidden
3. Lutey and the Mermaid
4. Betty Stogs' Baby
5. The Cock-Crow Stone
6. Lyonesse
7. The Boy and the Bull
8. Saint Margery Daw
9. From the Head Downward
10. Tregeagle
11. The Piskie Thresher
12. Saint Neot
13. The Knockers of Ballowal
14. The Witch of Fraddam
15. The Giant of the Mount
16. The Spriggans' Treasure
17. Cherry
18. Bucca Dhu and Bucca Gwidden
19. Fairies on the Gump
20. Tom and Giant Blunderbus
21. The Crowza Stones
22. The Giant Holiburn
23. Parson Wood and the Devil (1. The Demon Wrestler, 2. The Feathered Fiend) 24. Madgy Figgey and the Sow 25. The Tinner, the Dog, the Jew, and the Cake 26. The Small People's Cow 27. The Wish-hound 28. The Demon Mason 29. The Mermaid in Church 30. Mr Noy 31. Barker's Knee 32. Peepan Pee 33. Duffy and the Devil 34. The Two Sillies
See also
Pixie (folklore) Knocker (folklore)