Upon a similar occasion in the summer of 1960, a lady got up and remarked that she was sorry to find that I obviously did not believe in pixies, because a friend of hers had definitely seen them. In an endeavour to overcome my suspected disbelief she readily supplied details. The friend had encountered four of them one day emerging from a bracken stack in one of the little rough field enclosures near Widecombe-in-the-Moor. All four were little men, two being somewhat taller that the others and less pleasant looking than the smaller couple. All wore the traditional costume of red doublet, red pointed cap and long green hose. Pixy-fashions it seems remain conservative, unchanged since the days of Snow-White and the seven dwarfs. As this meeting took place in broad daylight, there was no possibility of a mistake.

Afterwards in commenting privately, but perhaps rather sceptically, to another person present, I found to my surprise that the incident was not considered unusual. My second informant mentioned a mutual Dartmoor acquaintance, who, she assured me often sees pixies. So I left it at that (St. Leger-Gordon 23-24).