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Leprechauns

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
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See a more general thread on Little People:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12889

The current link is:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/fairies-pixies-elves-sprites-other-little-folk.12889/


Secrets of the Leprechaun

There is no mention to be found of female leprechauns in traditional Irish legend, so as to how they came to be .. your guess is as good as mine.

These apparently aged, diminutive men are hard-working cobblers, turning out exquisite shoes for other sprites. If you happen across an industrious little fellow hammering out a shoe, look closely - for he may be a leprechaun. Step quietly, for leprechauns will avoid humans, knowing us to be foolish and greedy.

A leprechaun dresses in old-fashioned clothes of green, with a red cap, multi-pocketed leather apron, and buckled shoes. He is quite fond of a smoke from his foul smelling clay pipe which is always close by, and he is frequently in an intoxicated state from home-brew poteen. However, a leprechaun never becomes so drunk that the hand which holds the hammer becomes unsteady and his shoemaker's work affected. If you hear the sound of a hammer from behind a hedgerow you know you have found him.

In addition to cobbling, his other trade is banking, and he is guardian to the ancient treasures. Much treasure was left by the Danes when they marauded through Ireland, and the leprechaun buries it in crocks or pots. Rainbows reveal where pots of gold are hidden, so he will sometimes spend all day moving crocks from one spot to another to elude the tell-tale end of the rainbow. If you catch a leprechaun, don't let him out of your grasp before he reveals his gold. He'll try to distract you with all manner of tricks and, in the blink of an eye, will dash out of sight. For such a sturdy little chap, he can move with the speed of a rabbit.

He carries two leather pouches. In one there is a silver shilling, a magical coin that returns to the purse each time it's spent. In the other there is a gold coin for bribing his way out of difficult situations. (Don't accept this coin - it turns into a rock). But he can be generous if you do him a good turn. Your kind deed wil be repaid with a wish.

Leprechauns come in two distinct groups - leprechaun and cluricaun. A cluricaun dresses very stylishly with a jaunty cap, large silver buckles on his shoes, beautiful gold laces and pale blue stockings. You will never see him wear an apron or carry a hammer. He has a jolly grin, a slightly pink-tipped nose and is almost always drunk and cheerful. Pass him by, for he never has any money, or any idea where treasure is buried.

A cluricaun will steal or borrow almost anything, making merry and creating mayhem in your house during the hours of darkness. He will happily busy himself raiding your kitchen, pantry, larder and cellar and after dinner he will harness your sheep, goats, dogs and even your domestic fowls to ride away.Through the countryside he will race them, over the fields and into the bog. Leprechauns denounce cluricaun behavior, but it has been said that cluricauns may just be leprechauns on drunken sprees.

You can make a trap with common household items. Take a net, a cardboard box, green paint, green tissue paper, some pennies and an old shoe. Firstly, paint the cardboard box green and place the old shoe inside. Cover the opening with thin, green tissue paper. Carefully lay the pennies on the tissue paper. (If you don't want to use real money, you can easily substitute chocolate gold- wrapped coins or make your own by cutting circles out of cardboard and painting them gold).

Place the trap near some trees or hedgerows. Make sure it's disguised well and blending into the surroundings. When the Leprechaun sees the coins he will try to collect them. He will step onto the tissue paper, it will break and he will fall into the box. You can then quickly throw the net over him.

You can also try to lure him with some poteen instead of an old shoe. When he falls into the box he will drink the brew, get drunk and then you can grab him.

No one has caught one yet but don't let that discourage you. Start looking today. Good luck!!

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art23206.asp

Cobblers eh?

Has she even seen these films??:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107387/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110329/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113636/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116861/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209095/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339294/

I haven't seen "Leprechaun 4: In Space" but it sounds like that would qualify ;)

[edit: One aside - I see Warwick Davis, the Leprechaun, who also played Willow and Wicket is in the H2G2 movie.]
 
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Sat out in the sun after a christening this afternoon, one of the guests asked out of the blue. 'How do you catch a lepricorn to get his pot of gold?'

Their where loads of diffuerent answers put forward.

Put salt on his heels.

catch him by the heels, so he can't run away.

by his beard.

scruff of the neck.

Put him in a sack (with something but couldn't remember what, but it takes their magic away).

all agreed that you shouldn't let go untill you get the gold, and that he'll lie to escape.

One person said the gold is cursed and brings bad luck.

To help put an end to a beer fueled discussion, is there a diffinative way to catch a lepricorn?
 
How should you go about catching a leprechaun?

First, know your quarry. Leprechauns are famous in Irish folklore as solitary shoemakers. They are often pictured in America as wizened bearded dwarfs in green suits, smoking pipes. Actually, there is no evidence leprechauns are all males, or look any different than you or I -- just a lot smaller.

Long ago, leprechauns were part of a fairy group known as Luacharma’n, meaning the “little people.” Over the years this name somehow became confused with the Irish word leath-bhrogan, “maker-of-a-shoe,” and the leprechaun has come to be known as a tiny shoemaker, cobbler for the other fairies.

What is of particular interest about leprechauns, cobblers or not, is their connection to gold. There is an ancient tradition, passed down through centuries of Irish lore, that leprechauns are the self-appointed guardians of ancient gold treasure left by the Danes who devastated England and Ireland eleven centuries ago.
If caught by a mortal, so the legend goes, a leprechaun may offer to tell you where his hoard of gold is hidden in return for his freedom. The leprechaun must tell the truth, for in this it is bound by courtesy and fairy law. But only so long as you look it in the eye, as courtesy demands. You must never take your eye off of it for even an instant, for that frees the leprechaun from any obligation of courtesy, and it will vanish.

A leprechaun fairly caught must be honest, but nothing rules out its being tricky. In a famous tale, a leprechaun captured in a garden said truthfully that his gold was buried under a certain bush. The man who had captured him tied a red handkerchief to the bush, and set the leprechaun free after it promised not to remove the gold or the handkerchief. The man then went off to get his shovel. When he came back, he found the leprechaun had tied identical red handkerchiefs to hundreds of bushes! You can never trust a leprechaun not to trick you.

http://www.txtwriter.com/Onscience/Arti ... chaun.html

The trick, it seems, is too not trust them (when finally caught) as the little greedy buggers will try and trick you out of it.

Also, apparently, the best time to catch them is daybreak...not sure why though!!

Sorry i couldn't be more help!! I'll keep looking!
 
Take their lucky charms and they'll come to you. Works every time.
 
Well I've never found the end of a rainbow yet. I drove quite close to one last year but it proved elusive.

Has anyone stood at a rainbow's end? Is it possible?

Give us a shout. I've got a spade! :)
 
I've been told that rainbows don't actually have ends, as they are circular (although we usually only see one part of it). Also, as you get closer to one, it will tend to move away, due to the nature of the optical illusion.
 
This is correct. This is due to the way water droplets refract the light hitting them, making the light split and the rainbow appear. Try waving a hose around with a fine spray on a sunny day, and you'll spot a rainbow forming - it's nearly possible to get a complete circle doing this too.

I don't know about leprechauns, but a school friends grandmother was Irish, and she had stories of spotting banshee's combing their hair in the fields when she was a little girl. But I don't think you get rich off banshee's do you?
 
No, you get told someone is going to die. You don't really want to meet them too much.
 
James Whitehead said:
Has anyone stood at a rainbow's end? Is it possible?

Give us a shout. I've got a spade! :)

My Father said that once whilst working outdoors, he was working as a groundsman at the time, he stood near the end of a rainbow, but not many people believe him.
 
My Father said that once whilst working outdoors, he was working as a groundsman at the time, he stood near the end of a rainbow, but not many people believe him.


did he see any leprechauns? and is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow the same one that the leprechauns is gaurdian of?
 
James Whitehead said:
Well I've never found the end of a rainbow yet. I drove quite close to one last year but it proved elusive.

Has anyone stood at a rainbow's end? Is it possible?

Give us a shout. I've got a spade! :)

http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm

This was posted a long while back on some thread or other, good site.

Leprechauns probably lack material existence and so may prove tricky to catch.
 
Leprechauns probably lack material existence and so may prove tricky to catch.

This is probably the case, as they are spirits (like fairies or nymphs) in a sense, so it would be a case of simply outwitting them!!

Unless of course, you just happen to get lucky and stumble across their crock o' gold!
 
ah...but surely Derek Fake-Aura could do it? after all...he is sooooooo very gifted :twisted:
 
Semyaz said:
Leprechauns probably lack material existence and so may prove tricky to catch.

This is probably the case, as they are spirits (like fairies or nymphs) in a sense, so it would be a case of simply outwitting them!!

Unless of course, you just happen to get lucky and stumble across their crock o' gold!

Hence you can't just catch them.

This is why you would need to put salt on there heels etc.

Looks like this is no good as a get rich quick scheme then... :?:
 
mah_magic said:
Looks like this is no good as a get rich quick scheme then... :?:

Exactly....looks like its back to blackmailing old 'fake-aura' then!! :twisted: :lol: ;)
 
How timely:

Leprechaun Sighting

Steve Alexander
News 5 at 10pm
Mar 13, 2006


A dead end street in Mobile has become very busy the last couple of days because of people flocking to look at a tree.

The street is Lecren Street off of Bayshore Avenue. The crowds started gathering around sunset.

You could hear many people talking.

One said, "It's sitting ,uh, its sitting right up there, its right there. It's a face, a face, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the frowning mouth."

Another says, "A leprechaun, it looked like, last night it looked just like a little leprecaun. Its still up there."

The people who see the "leprechaun" say you can see it better at night. And that's when the crowds really start coming out. One bystander says, "Now step back so you all can see it. If you just look right there in the middle you see it, right there, you see it, do you see it? Y'all see it?"

Another person says, "Looks like he's smiling right now."

Still another says, "I wanna see it. If its here, I wanna see it. When's it supposed to pop up?"
Ricardo Thomas lives across the street from the tree.
He says, "Actually, my brother came in from Atlanta last Sunday night and we were standing out, standing around, and he said, 'you're not going to believe this, but it looks like a man is up in that tree."

The crowds got so heavy, there were traffic jams.
Another person said, "I thought he tipped his hat."
Describing the crowds, Thomas said, " Looked like Mardi Gras. All we need is some floats."

Now, some people say they've seen the leprechaun and some people say they haven't, but one thing's for sure:; Nobody's found a pot of gold yet.

According to Irish folklore, if a leprechaun is caught by a mortal, the leprechaun will promise great wealth if he's alllowed to go free.

Source
 
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Irish Site Ready for Millions of Leprechaun Watchers

by PRNewswire

Thanks to Irish website IrelandsEye.com, millions can go Leprechaun spotting on St. Patrick's Day from their couches. IrelandsEye.com has a webcam installed in an Irish field that connects to a robust server in anticipation of a rush of visitors to glimpse the mythical creature.

"Demand last year was so heavy that the original server burnt out just after daybreak in Ireland on St Patrick's Day," John Murphy, editor of IrelandsEye.com, said. "We disappointed lots of people because we were unable to cope with the traffic. Now we are ready for anything."

The Leprechaun Watch has worldwide appeal year round. However, the traffic jumps one hundredfold on March 17. The webcam, connected to the Internet via a cell phone, overlooks a fairy ring in County Tipperary, Ireland. The area is reputed to be a haunt for leprechauns, sheeries, pookas and other Irish fairies. The fairy ring, a pre-historic earthwork circle, is in the Glen of Cloongallon, in the townland of Ballyseanrath, near the town of Thurles. The trees around the perimeter are chestnut, with one magnificent oak tree. Thought to be over 600 years old, the fairy ring has a magical reputation. Saved from the axe in Tudor times by a "skeaghshee" or tree spirit, it now hosts a camera in a cavity in its trunk and a branch supports an antenna! A dolmen, a group of six large standing stones topped by a capstone, commands the middle of the ring.

Mr. Murphy commented, "What better place to see a Leprechaun than in an enchanted glen beside a fairy ring containing sacred stones and a magical tree?"

Webcam: www.irelandseye.com/leprechaun/webcam.htm

Background: www.irelandseye.com/leprechaun/leprechaun.htm

Identifying Irish fairies: www.irelandseye.com/leprechaun/fairies.htm

IrelandsEye.com is a webzine on Irish culture, travel and tradition. Interviewers available for print, radio and television. We have experience in participating in television interviews via webcam. Corresponding time differences: Noon Ireland is 7 A.M. in New York, 11 P.M. in Sydney, and 1 P.M. in Paris.

www.designinteract.com/news/12523.html
 
Eye-witness accounts:
Here are a few accounts of some actual eye witness...

"My mother once saw a leprechaun beside a bush hammering. He disappeared before she could get to him, but he also was unlike one of the gentry."-p47 Peasant Seer, County Sligo

"The leprechaun is a red-capped fellow who stays round pure springs, generally shoemaking for the rest of the fairy tribes"- p.52 Patrick Waters, Tailor, Cloontipruckilish

"One day ,in her girlhood, near a hedge from which she was gathering wild berries she saw a leprechaun in a hole under a stone:--He wasn 't much larger than a doll, and he was most perfectly formed , with a little mouth and eyes. Nothing was told about the little fellow having a money-bag, although the woman said people told her afterwards that she would have been rich if she had only had sense enough to catch him when she had so good a chance."- p;71 Dr. Hyde, Ratra

"....a leprechaun which had been appearing to school-children and to many of the country-folk. .....Most of them were certain that there could be such a creature showing itself....were all quite anxious to have a chance at the money-bag, if they could only see the little fellow with it. I told one good natured old Irishman at Ballywillan......that the leprechaun was reported as captured by the police in Mullingar. "Now that couldn't be, at all, " he said instantly, "for everybody knows the leprechaun is a spirit and can't be caught by any blessed policeman, though it is likely one might get his gold if they got him cornered so he had no chance to run away. But the minute you wink or take your eyes off the little devil, sure enough he is gone."- p. 71 ,Ballywillan and Mullingar.

"The leprechaun indicates the place where hidden treasures is to be found. If the person to whom he reveals such a secret makes it known to a second person, the first person dies, or else no money is found: In some cases the money is changed into ivy leaves or into furze blossoms." -P.82 Lough Gur

"Among the usually invisible races which I have seen in Ireland I distinguish five classes: 1. There are the Gnomes who are earth-spirits, and who seem to be a sorrowful race. I once saw some of them distinctly on the side of Ben Bulbin. They had rather round heads and dark thick set bodies, and in stature were about two and one half feet. 2. The Leprechauns are different, being full of mischief, though they, too, are small. I followed a leprechaun from the town of Wicklow out to the Carraig Sidhe, "Rock of the fairies, " a distance of half a mile or more, where he disappeared. He had a very merry face, and beckoned to me with his finger"-p243, Mrs. X a cultured Irishwoman living in County Dublin.

And for the folk-metalist in your life, Leprechaun the Band
 
On the night of March 17, 2004, I was working night audit at a hotel in the midwest, along with a co-auditor. It was a little after midnight and we had just started the audit, when a couple of ladies came up to the desk to check in. Our front desk counter was one of those vast marble affairs that come up to the torsos of most average sized adults, so that you could comfortably rest your elbows on it or sign a credit card slip without having to bend over the counter. These ladies were so short that their heads barely topped the counter--the shortest non-dwarf adult humans I have ever seen outside of my smurf-sized grandparents and jockeys. I would put their heights at only slightly over 4 feet.

The ladies had short haircuts that framed their faces, and both my co-worker and I are prepared to swear that their ears were pointed. Not so much that we were certain that they were wearing fake ears, but enough to stand out as being different from the norm.

The ladies had Irish names--O'Connell and something else. They said they were sisters-in-law travelling home to Blarney Stone, CO, and they paid cash for the rooms. When a person pays cash for a room, we have to get a photo-copy of their drivers license, and the city on the ID was Blarney Stone, CO.

We deposited the $$ in the safe, but we would have heard the next day if the safe was short, so the money was good. We talked only a little about the weirdness of the ears, but that was weird in itself, as my co-worker had a thing about ears as she was self-conscious about her own being too large, and always had her hair down to hide them.

A couple of weeks later we got a new front desk system that included internet at one of the stations. We were using it to look up zip codes in the USPS system for guests who had filled out registration cards but had neglected to fill in that piece of information. On a whim I typed in Blarney Stone, CO. It wasn't found. According to the USPS, Blarney Stone, CO wasn't a real place. But we had seen the drivers license with it's shiny-hard-to-fake state seal, had even made a copy of it.

Having no idea what to make of the number of pieces of strangeness attached to these guests, we just put it all aside and forgot about it.
 
I think there's a large stone or castle in Ireland called Blarney Stone.
 
Yes, it is located in the village of Blarney, County Cork. About 20 minutes by bus from here. I've kissed the stone myself. :)
 
Have I dreamed, heard or read somewhere that Irish lads pee on the stone knowing fine well that tourists come and kiss it?
 
Bannik said:
Mighty_Emperor said:
Here is the footage from Mobile - my favourite is the guy claiming Irish descent:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8
Here's the sequel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exMUOLUH1cw

I wonder what became of the leprechaun.

LOL - there are quite a few Leprechaun videos on there. My picks:

A rap version of th first news article:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZfyrIPw3wY

A leprechuan hunter:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXfnNVNVmYY

and a clip from Leprechuan in the Hood:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqiP6lW--G4
 
From the Humanoid Database:

Location. Inverary, Scotland
Date: circa 1914
Time: afternoon

While riding his tricycle along a pathway near this city, the witness, a young boy, took a hard tumble, and thinks to this day that he probably broke his arm. After he'd been sitting there alone and crying for a few minutes, a little person---no more than two and a half feet tall...appeared out of nowhere to assist him. Somehow he tended to the boy and healed his injury almost instantly.

The young boy asked the little man who he was, and the reply came that he was a gnome; the boy observed that he resembled more a "leprechaun" and the little man corrected him patiently, saying that no, he was a gnome.

About this time the boy's parents who had been looking for him, came near to the scene, and the little man scurried away into the underbrush. His parents did not believe his story.
source
 
Yeah, I have also been told a few times that the Irish piss on the stone. But it is high up in a tower and might not be that easily accessible after closing hours. so not sure if it is true. But probably no worse than what you would get eating at McDonalds. :)
 
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