ONE-EYED PRYING JOAN’S TALE
From Cornwall
Sitdown, Bobby, my boy. Eat some bread and cheese. Don’t be afraid to drink the cider. It’s all my own making. Sit down, and I’ll tell you how I lost the sight of my right eye.
The last Christmas Eve I went to Penzance to buy a pair of shoes for myself, and some thread and buttons, and things to mend Master’s clothes. I dearly like company, and as I started out I thought of old Betty down at the cove, she that they say is a Witch, you know.
Thinks I to myself: “If she’s a Witch, she’ll not hurt me, as I never crossed her in my life. Witch or no Witch, I’ll stop and have a bite of something hot at her little house,” thought I.
When I came to the house, the door was tight shut, and I heard a strange mumbling inside, but I could not make out what it was. So I took a peep through the latch-hole. And what did I see but old Betty standing by the chimney-piece with a little box in her hand, and she was muttering something that sounded like a charm. She put her finger into the box and pulled it out again, and smeared some ointment over her eyes. Then she put the box into a hole near the chimney.
I lifted the latch and walked in. “How-de-do, Betty,” said I.
“Welcome,” said she, grinning and pleased. “Sit down by the fire. Now we’ll have a good drop of something hot to ourselves, seeing that it’s Christmas Eve,” said she.
“I’ll take a thimbleful, just to drink your health and a Merry Christmas to you, with all my heart,” said I; for I well knew that Betty made the best sweet drink, with sugar and spice and a roasted apple bobbing around in it.
I put down my basket, and took off my coat, and sat by the fire; while Betty stepped into a closet to fetch the cups.
Now, I had often wondered what made her eyes so clear and piercing. “’Tis the Fairy ointment, or Witch salve in the box,” thought I. “If it will do that to her eyes, it won’t hurt me.” So while she was gone, I took the box from the hole, where she had covered it with ferns, and put a bit of the ointment on my right eye. The stuff had no sooner touched me than it burned like fire, or as if needles and pins were being thrust into my eyeball. Just then Betty came from the closet, and I dragged the brim of my hat down over my right eye, so she should not see what had happened.
After we had drunk each other’s health three or four times, the pain went off, and I venturedto open my anointed eye. And oh! what did I see! The place was full of Spriggans! Troops of the Little People were cutting all sorts of capers in the folds of the nets and sails hung on the walls, in the bunches of herbs that swung from the rafters, and in the pots and pans on the dresser. Some of them were playing seesaw on the beams of the ceiling, tossing their heels and waving their feathered caps, as they teetered up and down on bits of straw or green twigs. Numbers of them were swinging in the cobwebs that festooned the rafters or riding mice in and out through holes in the thatch.
I noted that all the little men were dressed in green tricked out with red, and had feathered caps and high riding-boots with silver spurs. Their ladies, if you please, were all decked in grand fashion—their gowns were of green velvet with long trains and looped up with silver chains and bells. They wore high-crowned steeple-hats, with wreaths of the most beautiful flowers around them; while sprigs of blossoms and garlands decorated all parts of their dress, and were in their hands as well. They were the sauciest Little People I ever did see. They pranced around on their high-heeled boots sparkling with diamond buckles.
When I peeped into the wood-corner under Betty’s bunk, I spied some of the ugly Sprigganssitting there looking very gloomy because they have to watch the treasures that are hidden in the ground, and do other disagreeable things that the merry Spriggans never have to do.
While looking into the dark corner I heard strains of sweet, unearthly music outside the house. Glancing around the room, I saw that all was changed. The walls were hung with tapestry, the chimney stools on which we sat were carved chairs. Betty and I sat under a canopy of embroidered satin, and our feet rested on a silken carpet. And wherever the little Spriggans trod, they left circles like diamonds on the floor.
The sweet music was now close at hand under the little window, and a moment after a troop of the Little People appeared on the window-sill, playing on pipes, flutes, and other instruments made of green reeds from the brook and of shells from the shore.
The Fairy band stepped down most gracefully from the window-sill, and was closely followed by a long train of little men and women magnificently dressed, and carrying bunches of flowers in their hands. All walked in an orderly procession, two by two, and bowed or curtsied, to Betty, and cast the flowers in her lap. I saw their many bunches of Four-leaved Clover and sprigs of magic herbs. With these she makes her salves and lotions.
Then all the Spriggans who had been dancing and capering about the ceiling and floor joined the others and came crowding around Betty. She did not look surprised, and I did not say anything to let her know that I saw. The Spriggans then began to pour dew over her dress out of flower-buds and from the bottles of the Foxglove. Immediately her jacket was changed into the finest and richest cloth of a soft cream colour, and her dress became velvet the colour of all the flowers, and it was draped over a petticoat of silk quilted with silver cord.
The Little People brought tiny nosegays of sky-blue Pimpernel, Forget-me-nots, and dainty flower-bells, blue, pink, and white, and hundreds of other Fairy blossoms like stars and butterflies. These delicate little sprigs they stitched all over Betty’s silver-corded petticoat together with branching moss and the lace-like tips of the wild grass. All around the bottom of her skirt they made a wreath of tiny bramble leaves with roses and berries, red and black.
Many of the Little People perched themselves on the top of the high-backed chair in which Betty sat, and even stood on her shoulders, so that they might arrange her every curl and every hair. Some took the lids off pretty little urns they carried in their hands, and poured perfume on her head, which spread the sweetest odoursthrough the room. I very much admired the lovely little urns, with their grooved lids, but when I picked one up, it was only a seed-pod of the wild Poppy. They placed no other ornament in her hair except a small twig of holly full of bright red berries. Yet Betty, decked out by her Fairy friends, was more beautiful than the loveliest Queen of May.
My senses were overcome by the smell of the Fairy odours, and the scent of the flowers, and the sweet perfume of honey, with which the walls of the house seemed bursting. And my head fell forward and I slept.
How long I dozed I do not know, but when I woke I saw that all the little Spriggans were glaring at me angrily. They thrust out their tongues and made the most horrid grimaces. I was so frightened that I jumped up, and ran out of the house, and shut the door.
But for the life of me, I could not leave the place without taking another peep. I put my left eye to the latch-hole—and would you believe it?—the house was just as it was when I entered it; the floor was bare, and there sat Betty in her old clothes before the fire. Then I winked, and looked with the right eye, and there was the beautiful room, and Betty seated in her fine flower-gown, beneath the silken canopy, while all the little Spriggans were dancing and capering around her.
I tore myself away, glad to get out of the cove, and hurried to Penzance to do my shopping, although it was so late. And as I was standing in front of a booth, what should I see but a little Spriggan helping himself to hanks of yarn, stockings, and all sorts of fine things.
“Ah! Ha! my little man!” cried I. “Are you not ashamed to be carrying on this way, stealing all those goods?”
“Is that thee, old Joan?” said he. “Which eye canst thou see me with?”
After winking both my eyes, I said: “’Tis plain enough that I can see you with my right eye.”
Then in a twinkling he pointed his finger at my right eye, and mumbled a spell, and I just caught the words:—
“Joan the PryShall nor peep nor spy,But shall loseHer charmèd eye!”
“Joan the PryShall nor peep nor spy,But shall loseHer charmèd eye!”
“Joan the Pry
Shall nor peep nor spy,
But shall lose
Her charmèd eye!”
Then he blew in my face, and was gone. And when I looked around, my right eye was blind. And from that day to this I have never seen a blink with my anointed eye.