Many strange stories we have, more especially among the miners, of fairies, or as they call them, piskeys, small people, etc.; of their discovering mines to them, playing on musick very sweetly in them, etc.--dancing in rings and circles--from whence came many bare rings and circles which we see in many places, particularly in a field of my own at Trevaunance, called the Rose Field, where I have been told of above twenty several appearances of them, even in the daytime. I remember about forty years since, viz. about 1687, one, Agnes Martin, of St Agnes, pretended that she had been carried away by these small people, and gave a long account of living among them, etc., and that he remployment was to look after the children I have often discoursed with her about it since that time, and by the best conjectures I could make she was carried away by a gang of gipsies (for she was certainly wanting several years, and no one could tell what was become of her, till she was accidently met with in a fair and brought home), and being very young, not above seven or eight years of age, carried about place to place generally by night, etc., she verily believed the tale she told, and that she lived with them underground, and was well treated by them, and (no doubt) had this story put into her head by them (i.e. the gipsies). I mention this little story as being within my own knowledge, and not unknown, neither, to many people living who had heard it from her own mouth."
