Sir,

Most of the stories of ‘piskies’ or little people recently published seem to emanate from the South or West Country, but here is a first-hand account of one of them seen quite lately in more matter-of-fact Hertfordshire.

I was driving a car through a quiet country lane and my thoughts at the time were solely on the car’s performance. Rounding a bend in the road, where the hedge and trees had been cut down to the ground, I was suddenly surprised to see a little round-faced fellow wearing a pointed cap, the peak of which fell over one side, nightcap fashion. He was sitting on a tree stump and looking straight across the road in front of him.

Standing, I judged he would be nearly a foot and a half high, but he was gone in an instant and though I slowed down at once I did not get the chance to have a closer look at him.

The sight made a vivid impression on me – and is not likely to be easily forgotten.

Redbourn Herts                                                                    I.W. Beers

Beer, I.W. ‘Fairies Are Not Dead!’, John O’London Weekly (4 April 1936), 34: for other John O’London fairy letters follow the link.