Durracombe was not quite so good a neighbourhood
for flowers as Chagmouth; still, they found a fair variety, and were able
to chronicle early blooms of such specimens as the greater stitchwort,
the ground ivy, and the golden saxifrage. It was a fresh March day, with
a wind blowing scudding white clouds across a pale blue sky. Rooks were
beginning to build, green foliage showed on the elder trees, and the elms
were flowering.
"We shall all be pixie-led if we gather the white stitchwort!" said
Mavis. "They're the pixies' flowers, so Mrs. Penruddock told me! It's a
very old Devonshire superstition."
"Is that so? I never heard it before," said Miss Mitchell. "I know ever
so many of the flowers are supposed to belong to the fairies in various
parts of the country. Foxgloves are really 'the good folks' gloves,' and
they're called fairies' petticoats in Cheshire, and fairies' hats in
Ireland. Wild flax is always fairy flax, and harebells are fairy bells."
"Our old nurse used to call funguses pixie stools," said Edith Carey,
"and the hollow ones were pixies' baths.
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