Note 5 — The Piskey-Purse

‘When Hager put me here,’ explained the voice, ‘he was so afraid the dear Little People, and those who loved me, would discover where he had put me, and find out a way to release me, that he made it impossible by an evil spell that anybody—even himself—should be able to set me free for ninety-nine years three hundred and sixty-five days, unless a very poor little girl could be found who had no love of gold in her soul, nor any greed for riches, and who, out of the deep pity of a kind little heart, would be willing to carry me for love’s sake, in the dead of night, through a great bog haunted by hobgoblins, over a lonely moor to where a Tolmên5 stands, and pass me three times through the Tolmên’s hole before the sun rises, and then lay me on its top, so that the first ray of the rising sun might smite upon the bag. This will break the spell and set me free.’