Piskies are Cornish pixies and cause minor to major household accidents. Our first day in a fisherman's cottage (over 100 years old) I had 3 accidents inside of an half hour. A burn to my forearm from frying pan that I was rinsing. I still can't work out how my arm got that close to it. A knife I was using to chop apples jumped out of my hand and landed point down in my thigh. Actually only nicked me as it glanced off. It was the weird way it twisted in the air that struck me. It was like watching some comedy slow motion thing. And finally the worst injury a fall trip on the last but one bottom step that resulted in a very bad bash to the knee on the radiator. Felt like something grabbed the toe of my shoe. Resulted in a large painful multicoloured goose egg on my knee.

While we were out that day we stopped at a little museum somewhere and that is how I learned about piskies and immediately attributed my accidents to one or more in the cottage.

I put out bowl of water on the hearth and to be on the safe side a biscuit every night. No more accidents.