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Updated: May 28, 2025
At first Ginnifer was frightened, but the little folk were so kind that she took courage and told them her trouble. They began to dance and jump about with delight, and clapped their little hands. "Is that all?" they shouted. "Would he wed you if you were a great lady? Tell us what dowry his father would expect his bride to bring?"
This was sad news for Ginnifer, for in those days a young noble might not wed with a poor girl, and must marry a bride who could bring a rich dowry with her of jewels and ornaments and silver money.
All the moor was alive with tiny pixies, whose green garments were like moving fronds of fern. They crowded eagerly round her. "It's Ginnifer!" they said. "Ginnifer who lives in the stone hut on the moor! Ginnifer who tended the plover with the broken wing, and watered the harebells that were withering in the burning sun, and who treads so lightly that the birds don't trouble to fly away from her.
The pixies dressed Ginnifer in the softest of the gossamer silk robes, they clasped the golden bracelets round her arms and twisted diamonds into her hair. "Now she is a fairy princess," they said. "There is none lovelier in all Elfland. We must build her a palace worthy of her!"
She lay on the short moorland grass among the sweet bog-myrtle and asphodel, until the sun was setting in a red ball over the hillside. Then, all of a sudden, she heard a rustling and a whispering like countless leaves blown by an autumn wind. "Who is this?" said a voice. "Who dares to lie in our pixie ring?" "It's a mortal! A mortal!" cried another. Ginnifer raised her head.
In the days when good King Arthur ruled all the west country from Exeter to Land's End, a maiden named Ginnifer lived with her father in a little, round, stone hut on the top of Dartmoor. They were poor, but she was a good girl, and she could spin, and weave baskets, and do many things about the house.
"Silks and jewels!" sobbed poor Ginnifer, "and rich embroidered dresses, and trinkets of gold, and caskets of silver money! And I have nothing at all!" The pixies laughed lustily, throwing up their wee green caps into the air and catching them again for sheer joy. "Ginnifer dear! We'll find you your dowry! Quick! Let us set to work! We must finish our task before daybreak."
The tears which Ginnifer had shed in her sorrow lay shining among the grass, and gathered up by magic fingers they turned into pearls and diamonds fit for a queen. The gorse flowers became golden ornaments, and the little smooth pebbles in the brook changed into pieces of silver money.
So she quietly told her sweetheart to go back to his father, and learn to forget her; and he went away very sadly, vowing he would get permission to return and marry her, or else he would never wed anyone. When he was gone, Ginnifer went out over the moor among the heather, where she might fight her grief alone, with only the birds and the flowers to see her weep.
We know her kindness and her gentle heart, for the 'good folk' watch over the children of the earth, and, unseen, we have followed her through all her simple life. Pretty Ginnifer, tell us your trouble. The pixies cannot bear to see you weep." They stroked her hair with their tiny fingers, they bathed her eyes with dewdrops and wiped them with the petals of a wild rose.
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