[Bred in the Bone by James Payn]@TWC D-Link bookBred in the Bone CHAPTER XI 8/16
There are tales of worse than Pixies told about that moor you have come across.
You might have met the Demon Horse that tempts the tired traveler to mount him, and then carries him nobody knows whither; but, for certain, he is never seen again." "Then the spirits about here are all bad, are they? I suppose to make up for the goodness and the beauty of the mortals, eh ?" "Nay, they are not all bad, Sir," continued the young girl, gravely; "the Spriggans, who guard the buried treasures of the giants, have often helped a poor man out of their store; or, at least, 'tis said so." "And the giants--are they all dead ?" "Yes, indeed, Sir, long ago," answered the damsel; "though that they lived here once is true enough.
There's Bonza's Chair, you must have passed before the fog came on, and could not but have noticed; and the hurling-stones he used to throw for pastime with his brother, they are to be seen still; but all that about his having such long arms that he could snatch the sailors from the decks of ships as they went by, is, in my judgment, but an old wife's tale, and I don't credit it.
There, see, Sir; the fog is thinning; that is the castle yonder.
When you see it thus in air it is a sign of storm." The mist, instead of lifting, was growing less dense above, as it melted before the rays of the sun, and the ruin which Richard had seen from the hill-range was now once more visible, without the pedestal of rock on which it was placed.
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