The Piskey-Purse: Legends and Tales of North Cornwall

Step into a Cornwall where the cliffs breathe with ancient magic and the boundary between human and fairy worlds grows thin at dusk. Enys Tregarthen, drawing on generations of oral tradition, gifts us a collection of tales centered on the Piskeys, the mischievous spirits who have haunted North Cornwall for centuries. The title story introduces Gerna and Gelert, siblings living with their great-grandmother near Polzeath Bay, whose encounter with a enchanted Piskey-purse forces a choice: wealth or compassion? Other tales in this collection further explore the encounters between Cornish folk and the invisible denizens of the moors, the hollow hills, and the sea caves. Tregarthen writes with the warmth of a storyteller recounting fireside tales, her prose carrying the rhythms of spoken folklore while preserving details that might otherwise have been lost. This is not merely a artifact of early 20th-century folklore collection; it is a portal to a world where kindness to strangers still matters, where the small and invisible possess great power, and where children stumble into adventures that test their hearts.