colt-pixie
Also 6 colle-, coll-, 8–9 -pixy, -piskie.
[see pixie; the first element has been supposed to be the same as in cole-prophet; but the antiquity of the popular notion that it is colt appears to be supported by Drayton Nymphidia:
‘This Puck is but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt, Of purpose to deceive us.’]
A mischievous sprite or fairy, formerly believed in, in the south and south-west of England.
| 1542 Udall Erasm. Apoph. 111 b, I shall be ready at thine elbow to plaie the parte of Hobgoblin or Collepixie. 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 259 b, Ye cannot choose but mervayle also, what collpixie [quis malus genius] had so bewitched hym. 1787 Grose Prov. Gloss., Colt-pixy, a spirit or fairy, in the shape of a horse, which (wickers) neighs and misleads horses into bogs, etc. Hamp. 1847–78 Halliwell Colt-pixy, a fairy. West. The fossil echini are called colt-pixies' heads. To beat down apples is to colepixy in Dorset. 1870 Lettice Lisle 125 ‘Thou'st as ragged as a colt pixie, I declare, child’..The pixies..were in the habit of luring men into bogs in the form of a ragged colt, and then vanishing. |