Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/193

Rh play pranks with the chairs, but, as might be expected from the nature of the country, misleads people on the moors, turning himself into all sorts of shapes, as Shakspeare, Spenser, and Jonson, have sung. There is scarcely a village or hamlet in the Forest district which has not its "Pixey Field," and "Pixey Mead," or its "Picksmoor," and "Cold Pixey," and "Puck Piece." At Prior's Acre we find Puck's Hill, and not far from it lies the great wood of Puckpits; whilst a large barrow on Beaulieu Common is known as the Pixey's Cave.

Then, too, on the south-west borders of the Forest remains the legend, its inner meaning now perhaps forgotten, that the Priory Church of Christchurch was originally to have been built on the lonely St. Catherine's Hill, instead of in the valley where the people lived and needed religion. The stones, however, which were taken up the hill in the day were brought down in the night by unseen hands. The beams, too, which were found too short on the heights, were more than long enough in the town. The legend further runs, beautiful in its right interpretation, that when the building was going on, there was always one more workman—namely, Christ—than came on the pay-night.

So, too, the poetry of the district has its own characteristics, which it shares with that of the neighbouring western counties. The homeliness of the songs in the West of England strangely 175