Margaret Ann Courtney relates another story from Mr couch's book History of Polperro about a fisherman, John Taprail who tries to get a share of gold from the piskies.

John is a fisherman of Polperro. A voice in the night warns hime that his boat is in danger, so he goes down to check. He finds it was a trick or a joke. On the way home, he sees some piskies dividing gold by putting coins in hats laid before them. John creeps up and manages to add his hat. When the gold was running out, John tries to get way but the piskies chase him and John loses the tails of his coat but retains the gold.

Another of his legends is about a fisherman of his district, John Taprail, long since dead, who was, on a frosty night, aroused from his sleep by a voice which called to him that his boat was in danger. He went down to the beach to find that some person had played a practical joke on him. As he was returning he saw a group of piskies sitting in a semicircle under a much larger boat belonging to one of the neighbors. They were dividing a heap of money between them by throwing a piece of gold alternately into each of the hats which lay before them. John was covetous, and forgot that piskies hate to be spied upon; so he crept up and pushed his cap slyly in with the others. When the pile was getting low he tried to get off with his booty without their detecting the fraud. He had got some distance before the cheat was discovered; then they pursued him in such hot haste that he only escaped with his treasure by leaving his coat tails in their hands.

This is one story where a mortal confroms the forces of the otherworld and comes away with something valuable, such as gold, while losing only something of less value.