"Piskey-Led People" is a legend of Cornwall.

In Cornwall, a land of woodland dells and towering cliffs and moorland cairns, the Small People live.

Lively and graceful folk, barely knee-high, some of the Small People are known as piskies, and it is they who love to dance and play and feast. They ride hares and dress in fancy clothes and fine jewels. They are thousands and thousands of years old, and not always sweet. Sometimes they steal children and other people and leave changelings in their place.

These days few see the Small People, for few of us wander alone in the countryside. Still, people tell tales of those who were taken away, like the story of Charlotte and her fiance, Will.

It was a long time ago on an autumn evening when Charlotte ventured onto the moors to search for her goats. She never returned.

Days later, Will discovered his beloved's body in the tall grass near the edge of the cliffs.

Will mourned. He longed to see his sweetheart again.

Then one day, years after Charlotte's death, Will was visiting her family on their farm along the coast, near the cliffs where Will had found her body. Just before dusk he set off for home, but night was quickly descending (for it was nearly wintertime), so he decided to take a shortcut.

His horse shied as Will tried to guide her off the path, but he was determined. On they rode until night fell, and Will realized he was lost in the wild, boggy undergrowth.

"I've been piskey-led," he muttered, for everyone knows it is unwise to take a shortcut in certain places. Now he was lost in a forest.

"We'll never find our way," he whispered. Then, far ahead, he saw dozens of candles glittering in the dark. A moment later he heard lively fiddle music.

He tethered his trembling horse to a tree and began to walk toward the sound.

Before long Will had walked into a beautiful orchard that smelled of sweet apples and ripe plums. On he walked, resisting the temptation to eat the fruit, and he came to a large clearing where hundreds of Small People were gathered. Some of them danced and others feasted at miniature tables.

Will's mouth watered. He thought of returning to the orchard to eat the fruit, but then he noticed a stately house at the far end of the clearing, and on the porch a young woman standing beneath a light and playing the music that had drawn him.

Dazed, Will walked toward the house, and saw the woman more clearly. He gasped.

It was Charlotte.

When she looked up, her eyes filled with tears. "William," she whispered, though she never stopped playing music.

"What are you doing here?" Will asked. "I thought you were dead."

Charlotte raised a finger to her lips. "Shh." She nodded toward the Small People. "Don't let them notice you," she warned, playing on. And she told him the tale.

It was the piskies who had stolen her goats. They needed goat milk to feed their babies, babies they had stolen. And when she appeared, the piskies fed her a plum that cast a spell. They needed her to tend their babies, and would never let her leave.

"But we found your body," Will argued.

Again Charlotte quieted him. "That was not my body. The Small People left a changeling in my place."

William burst into tears. "Come home with me," he begged.

"I am under their spell and must stay. Stay here with me."

Will looked around and saw that the Small People were marching toward him.

But Will remembered something: A garment turned inside out will break a magic spell. So he pulled a glove from his hand and turned it inside out, then flung it at the piskies as they advanced toward him.

In an instant everything changed. The house crumbled to ruin, the garden turned to wilderness, and the Small People vanished. Will turned to take his beloved's hand, but Charlotte was gone too.

He fainted.

When he regained consciousness, he was in his home, surrounded by friends and family asking him what had happened.

For all the rest of his days Will searched for Charlotte, but he could never find her again.