Close your eyes and imagine a small, tipsy man in green, hoarding gold at the end of
a rainbow.
You know this guy, he’s a leprechaun.
The modern leprechaun -- the diminutive green
figure with a jovial smile, red beard, jaunty hat and a pot of gold, unfairly associated
with St. Patrick's Day -- is practically ubiquitous as a symbol of luck and mischief in Western
pop culture.
He’s the official mascot of sports teams, the subject of a ridiculous slasher horror
series, and the face of a deliciously sugary cereal.
And trust me, you know you've gone mainstream when you've achieved the status of spokesmonster!
But the traditional Leprechaun is a fairy
rooted in Irish lore known for his skills as an industrious craftsman—and a bit more
threatening than you might realize.
He is tied to the ancient mythology of Ireland and the real history of Irish immigrants to
the United States.
And yes, he's also a mischievous little creature with a penchant for gold.
[Monstrum intro.]
While many modern Gaelic speakers prefer to use the spelling leipreachán, “leprechaun”
is the more common version outside of Ireland.
Leipreachán is an anglicized version of one of the many Celtic versions of the name.
Which one in particular?
Well, there are a couple of contenders since this guy has a LOT of names.
That’s because different regions in Ireland all call this fairy creature something distinctive.
Despite the variety of names across the country,
traditional Leprechaun traits remain consistent.
He is a “solitary” fairy, rarely appearing with others of his kind or associating with
other fairy species socially.
He is always old, wizened, oddly attired and very small—ranging from a few inches to
a couple of feet tall.
He’s always male.
And another thing that remains the same across the board?
The Leprechaun’s profession.
This fairy creature is a shoemaker.
Hence the tiny leather apron seen in most traditional representations.
So where do we see variety in the leprechaun?
Well, for one thing, his odd attire.
In some regions he wears “old-style clothes,” with one or more items of red clothing, buckles
on his shoes, and a magical hat that allows him to disappear at will and travel long distances.
Other accounts have him rocking an Elizabethan ruff and lace frills at his wrists.
On the west coast, he wears an overcoat to protect against the cold weather.
In Leinster they wear a green suit and hat with a wide belt buckle and boots—which
is likely where the modern version of the leprechaun gets its look from.
Many experts agree that two other solitary
fairies of Celtic lore, the Clurican, and the Far Darrig, are actually just variants
of the leprechaun.
The Clurican is known for stealing liquor from cellars and becoming very drunk, and
thus you could say it is just a leprechaun on a boozy binge.
The Far Darrig, or Red Man, is a practical jokester, a Leprechaun in red with a bit of
a mean streak.
So, about that cobbling…the leprechaun are renowned for their work crafting beautiful
shoes.
They even make dancing slippers for the other fairies.
In fact, while conducting his research of folklore in Ireland, William Butler Yeats
was told that the creature’s name comes from leith brog meaning “One-shoemaker.”
Expert cobbling is a lucrative trade, and
so leprechauns are very wealthy.
This leads to their other great and familiar passion: being fiercely protective of their
gold!
Leprechauns are said to have caches of gold hidden across Ireland, and they always carry
a full purse full of gold coins.
Using charms and craftiness, they horde their treasures in mountains, woods, caves, and
rocks.
Another thing the Leprechaun is reportedly fond of?
Throwing furniture around when frustrated—they are apparently small but mighty, which…
feels personally familiar.
They are known to steal food, and when feeling a bit lazy, sometimes they’ll hop on the
back of a sheep to get around.
They do grant wishes, which is why they are
associated with luck, but they always demand something in return.
Take the story “Master and Man” from Thomas
Crofton Croker’s 1825 Fairy legends and traditions of the south of Ireland.
Billy, a man who loved his drink and a good
fight, is returning home on the night of a full moon when he wishes he had “a drop
of good liquor…to keep a man’s soul from freezing in him.”
Suddenly, “a little man in a three-cornered hat, bound all about with gold lace, and with
great silver buckles in his shoes” holds out a glass as large as he is and says “Never
wish it twice, Billy.”
Billy happily accepts the drink and downs it, but then the Leprechaun demands payment.
Billy insults the Leprechaun, who angrily declares “you shall be my servant for seven
years and a day, and that is the way I will be paid.”
He warns Billy that if he fails to meet him the next night, his situation will be even
worse.
Billy heeds this warning, and ends up serving the Leprechaun for years with little question.
His duties include a lot of magical breaking
and entering, helping the Leprechaun drink wine from the cellars of rich men—so maybe
the Leprechaun wanted a drinking buddy?
While leprechauns can imprison humans for
their advantage, a human can also reciprocate, capturing a leprechaun to steal his gold by
exchanging his release for the treasure.
However, this exchange sounds easier than it is.
Confronted with a choice between his freedom and his precious riches, the wily leprechaun
may offer his captor three wishes instead of the loot, or some other temptation.
If the human captor falls for it, they find themselves up against a confounding riddle
or ruse as the means to the wishes, and more often than not will be tricked into freeing
the leprechaun, losing out on both treasure and wishes.
Sort of like in the story “The Little Shoe.”
The story tells of a man who once caught a Leprechaun.
One day after cutting peat, he returns to his stable.
When he gets to the stable door he hears hammering and someone whistling “the prettiest tune
he ever heard in his whole life before.”
He thinks it is a Cluricaune, or Leprechaun, and decides to catch him.
He opens the door silently and peers around, locating the “little fellow” under a horse,
wearing an apron and sporting a red nightcap, making a shoe.
The shoemaker is so involved in the work that he fails to notice the human, who catches
him with his bare hands.
The man demands the Leprechaun’s purse.
The Leprechaun says he will go get it for the man, who foolishly loosens his hand, allowing
the little cobbler to escape, laughing all the while.
But he left the little shoe behind and the man took it, reveling in its tiny beauty for
the rest of his life.
This story also comes from Croker’s collection;
the author and folklorist would later argue that Leprechauns, in all their variations,
are what the Irish call pygmy peoples.
Could he be saying that these legends are based on real people of shorter stature?
Well, there isn’t any archaeological evidence to suggest that’s true.
But speaking of the origins of leprechauns,
the earliest written reference appears long before Croker’s seminal work, in the 7th
or 8th-century text [Echtra Fergus mac Léti] The Adventure of Fergus Son of Leti.
In this medieval story, a king falls asleep on a beach and awakens to find himself being
dragged into the ocean by three leprechauns.
He manages to turn the tables and capture the creatures himself, and they agree to grant
him three wishes in exchange for their release.
Then there’s the story of the Fir Bolg, a legendary race of small people who invaded
Ireland after fleeing persecution in Greece.
According to myth, they were born from Nemed’s son Starn, and they became some of the first
inhabitants to rule over Ireland.
Their reign was short-lived however, as less
than 40 years later the Fir Bolg were conquered by the Tuatha Dé Danann, a mighty supernatural
race.
According to Celtic mythology, the Tuatha De Danann are skilled in magic, and were banished
from the heavens because of their great knowledge.
They built grand palaces underground, rumored to contain unimaginable treasures that very
few humans would ever get to see.
Considered immortal gods, the Tuatha are not just part of the foundation of Irish mythology,
but are actually representative of the intersection between folklore and history itself.
After all, the story goes on to tell of a battle between the Tuatha and the very people
who would become the ancestors of the modern Irish.
So are they legend, or history?
In fact, magical beings like the Fihr Bolg,
the Tuatha Dé Danann , and the leprechaun, are featured throughout Irish folklore, leading
to this conflation of myth and reality.
For example, until as late as the 17th century, the Tuatha de Danann were regarded as a true
race.
So we’ve talked about the hard-working jokester leprechaun who protects his gold and can grant
wishes, but what about the more malicious, drunken fellow sowing chaos...and stealing
babies?
Well, around the start of the 5th century CE, as Christianity became the dominant religion
in Ireland, the ancient, pagan, stories of—not to mention, actual belief in—fairies like
the leprechaun still lingered.
However, over time, these impish creatures are cast in an increasingly negative light,
the stories becoming darker and the creatures more menacing, until we begin to see tales
in which leprechauns would replace babies with changelings (fairy children) or murder
potential treasure thieves rather than just trick or deter them.
Outside of Ireland, the popularity of the leprechaun rose later, in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, most notably because of its appearance in Thomas Crofton Croker’s
widely admired collection of Irish lore.
But there were other contributing factors as well.
Beginning in the mid-19th century, as the
Irish fled their famine-stricken homeland to England and the United States, we see an
infusion of leprechaun lore and notoriety in the folk stories of those countries.
Treatment of the Irish immigrants and Irish
Americans during this influx of immigration was dismal at best and downright atrocious
at its worst.
While Celtic lore positions the leprechaun as a skilled cobbler who amassed great wealth
from their exquisite craftsmanship, as anti-Irish prejudice grew, non-Irish people began to
associate the leprechaun with less complimentary, stereotypical representations.
The leprechaun became synonymous with prejudices of the Irish as drunken, irresponsible happy
people, blithely and even joyfully indulging their greed, always on the lookout for luck
rather than hard work.
So how and why did the leprechaun become associated with St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday that initially
celebrated the death of a saint and resulted in raucous celebrations across the globe?
While there is a 1,000 year history of celebrating the holiday with food and drink, the first
St. Patrick’s Day parade actually occurred on American soil on March 17, 1772 when homesick
Irish soldiers serving British forces marched in New York City in honor of the saint.
It only exploded from there, especially with the influx of immigrants from the 19th century
on.
As for leprechauns serving as a mythic symbol of the day, that’s harder to pin down.
Although it likely has something to do with consumerism.
Today, due in part to the efforts of Enterprise Ireland, an Irish government entity that promotes
trade of Irish goods, and North American Celtic retailers, the demand for Irish adjacent consumer
items, has boomed since the late 1980s.
Then there’s the increased interest from Irish Americans in discovering their ancestral
origins--something DNA testing and sites like Ancestry.com make easier.
In some ways the leprechaun is the entry point into Irishness--a recognizable figure of
Ireland in popular culture, despite modern differences from ancient Irish folklore.
The story of the leprechaun has continued
to evolve, and today we tell children of a jaunty little green man with a buckled hat
and a red beard, just waiting on the other side of the rainbow to happily hand over his
pot of gold, if you can find it—that’s the story I was told.
Magical shoemaker, drunken trickster, violent
child-stealer.
The leprechaun has played all these roles, and more.
But next time you raise a pint of green beer just remember that ultimately leprechauns
are about hard work—they earned their riches, and they know how to protect them.