Also 6 colle-, coll-, 8–9 -pixy, -piskie. [see PIXIE; the first element has been supposed to be the same as in COLE-PROPHET; but the antiquity of the popular notion that it is colt appears to be supported by Drayton Nymphidia:
‘This Puck is but a dreaming dolt, Still walking like a ragged colt, Of purpose to deceive us.’]
A mischievous sprite or fairy, formerly believed in, in the south and south-west of England.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 111 b. I shall be ready at thine elbow to plaie the parte of Hobgoblin or Collepixie.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 259 b. Ye cannot choose but mervayle also, what collpixie [quis malus genius] had so bewitched hym.
1787. Grose, Prov. Gloss., Colt-pixy, a spirit or fairy, in the shape of a horse, which (wickers) neighs and misleads horses into bogs, &c. Hamp.
1847–78. Halliwell, Colt-pixy, a fairy. West. The fossil echini are called colt-pixies’ heads. To beat down apples is to colepixy in Dorset.
1870. Lady Verney, Lettice Lisle, 124–5. ‘Thou’st as ragged as a colt pixie, I declare, child.’… The pixies … were … in the habit of luring, men into bogs in the form of a ragged colt, and then vanishing.
