Origin and history of pixie

also pixy, "a fairy," in the rural parts of England associated with the "fairy rings" of old pastures, where they are supposed to dance by moonlight, c. 1630, a word of obscure origin, perhaps from or related to Swedish dialect pyske "small fairy," but the word's original home ("from Cornwall to Wiltshire and Dorset" - OED) suggests it might be Celtic, from Cornwall. The earliest printed references are in pixy-path "bewilderment," literally "path on which one is led astray by pixies," and pixie-led "lost, bewildered." Pixie-puff (1847) was a species of fungus; pixie-purse is an ovicapsule of a shark, skate, or ray found washed up on the shore.