Pixie Parlour

A beautiful sunny day and I was out with the walking group on a walk to Ottery St Mary taking in the River Otter and nearby hills.  It was a themed walk with stops at various points along the way where we listened to parts of poems written by  Samual Taylor Coleridge a famous poet who was born in Ottery St Mary.  He often walked around the local area and todays blip is of Pixies Parlour  a small cave in nearby woods above the river.  We were read part of his poem Songs of the Pixies here.  Interestingly every summer the town has an event known as Pixie Day which relates to a legend from 1454  when the town was occupied by pixies.  They were forced into exile by the humans and the building of the church.  They believed that the chiming of the church bells killed a pixie each time it tolled.  So in 1454 in midsummer the pixies invaded the town and captured all the bellringers and imprisoned them in a cave near the river.  Fortunately the bell ringers escaped and is celebrated every year on the Saturday nearest to midsummer.

After visiting the cave we headed into Ottery St Mary for a pub lunch.  It was then a stroll back to Newton Poppleford along the river.  An enjoyable walk and good to meet-up with with the walking group again as I hadn't been on many walks recently.   It was a walk that was advertised as 9 miles and ended up being 12.6 miles.  No wonder I was tired and yawning through our Nature Group meeting in the evening.