Note 18 — The Magic Pail

She told him she had lost her way, and that as she was sitting on the griglans,18 an ugly little man with long ears like a Skavarnak19 came up to her, and because she was afraid of him and would not go into his little house under the carn, he was very angry. She did not know what would have happened to her if a little old woman in a sunbonnet had not come along just then, and took her to the place where Tom found her. She told her to sit where she was till Daddie Trebisken came to fetch her, which he would be sure to do after sunset. In the mean-time she was to say her own name backwards seven times if the Long-Eared came near her again. She also told her that Ninnie-Dinnie, if she cared to believe it, was her real name spelt backwards with an ‘n’ left out; and she said she must never go out on the lonely moors without taking the Pail, made out of old Cornish tin, with her.