Why from Cornwall? Well, this is a stretch (a very long stretch) but maybe JKR is fond of Cornish pasties, and 'Cornish pixies' sounds vaguely similar (like I said, a very long stretch). Also, Cornwall is associated with king Arthur and Merlin, so it's a magical place.
Actually, JKR got this right. There is a lot of folklore about Pixies in England, particularly in Devon and Cornwall. In fact, in Ottery St. Mary, a town in East Devon, there is even a tradition called Pixie Day, where locals dress up as pixies (or piskies, as they're also called in Cornwall) and pretend to drag the church bell ringers from the church to the square, mimicking the way that the pixies bewitched the monks in the town legend. In Cornish folklore, the pixies are even said to have a queen, Joan the Wad.
What gets me about this description is that if they only come from Cornwall, then why bother to use Cornish in the name? Shouldn't Cornish Pixies be a specific type of the general pixie?
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