Page "Pixie" Paragraph 4

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 Britiain, 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.

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-here Spriggans are distinguished from pixies by their malevolent nature.

Closely associated with tin mining in Cornwall are the subterranean ancestral knockers.