The following tale from Wonder Tales from Fairy Isles deals with a boy who wanders off with the piskies and to their enchanted lake in a forest:

There was once a little boy of Cornwall. One lovely spring evening his Mother looked from the kitchen door and saw him playing. When she looked again he was gone.

She called the neighbors, and altogether they searched for two days and two nights, but could not find the little boy.

Now, he was having a wonderful time. He had wandered off after flowers. While he was busy picking blossoms, he heard a bird singing so sweetly that it seemed as if he must follow its voice. the bird sang and sang, and then went on before, and the little boy followed after.

He suddenly found himself on the edge of an enchanted lake. Great bright stars hung over his head. Sparkling stars began to rise up round him. He saw that they were not stars at all, but little Piskies, troops and troops of the wee men. They fell into a long procession, and the tallest and handsomest of the Piskies led the little boy into a Pisky Cave.

Such a sparkling wonderful cave, more beautiful than any Cornish mine lined with Cornish diamonds! This Pisky Cave had crystal pillars upholding arches that glittered with colors like the rainbow.

And how kind all the Piskies were to the little boy! They fed him with fairy food of purest honey spread on delicate tiny cakes. When he grew sleepy some of them ran to make him a bed of sweet–smelling ferns. He lay down, and they crowded round and sang him to sleep with soft lullabies.

On the third day, his Mother and the neighbors found him near his own cottage, on a bed of ferns, sleeping peacefully.

And they say that when the little boy grew up to be a man, he was happy and fortunate. He must have been a wonderfully good child, they say, to have been so honored by the Piskies.

I like how the piskies are said to treat the boy. Piskies are usually portrayed as devil; not impish, but devilish. The boy grows up to be fortunate and happy, which was attributed to being such a wonderfully good boy that the piskies had honored him.

I wonder if there is a deeper meaning to the piskies; that is, did the 19thC Cornish believe piskies treated you based on your mortal character? Did they tempt to see if you took the bait? Would their trickery be no more than in drawing you out to reveal your true character? Would they end up treating you as your character deserved?

If so, if you were good, wonderously good, then your character would also be revealed, and the piskies would honor your spirit. Otherwise, they would give you the Cornish version of a raspberry jeer, and you would suffer the consequences.