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Hi there! I'm this week's Fantasy newsletter editor. Thanks for opening this issue. Imagine for a moment, spotting a little man in green out of the corner of your eye...
This week's Fantasy Editor
Leger~
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Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 4.99
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What are leprechauns?
Leprechauns are a mysterious small folk. Even their name has many derivations. They can be liepreachán, leithbrágan, lioprachán, luchorpán, and luchrupán in Irish works and alternately spelled lubrican, leprehaun, or leepreehaun in English. The fili, Irish poets in the Renaissance, maintained an oral tradition of telling these tales. As long as they kept the main elements the story intact, there was plenty of improvisation and personal expression in their tales.
The earliest known reference to a leprechaun appears in the medieval tale known as the Adventure of Furgus son of Léti. The King of Ulster falls asleep on the beach and finds himself being dragged into the sea by three lúchorpán. He captures the three, who grant him three wishes in return for their release.
It is said a leprechaun's gold is at the end of a rainbow. A rainbow, being an optical illusion, will move farther away as one walks toward it. According to William Butler Yeats, the great wealth of these fairies comes from "treasure-crocks, buried of old in war-time", which they have uncovered and appropriated.
...quite a beau in his dress, notwithstanding, for he wears a red square-cut coat,
richly laced with cold, and inexpressible of the same,
cocked hat, shoes and buckles. ~ Samuel Lover
Yeats also says "solitary fairies, like the leprechaun, wear red jackets, whereas the "trooping fairies" wear green. The leprechaun's jacket has seven rows of buttons with seven buttons to each row. On the western coast, he writes, the red jacket is covered by a frieze one, and in Ulster the creature wears a cocked hat, and when he is up to anything unusually mischievous, he leaps on to a wall and spins, balancing himself on the point of the hat with his heels in the air."
According to D.R. McAnally, "He is about three feet high, and is dressed in a little red jacket or roundabout, with red breeches buckled at the knee, gray or black stockings, and a hat, cocked in the style of a century ago, over a little, old, withered face. Round his neck is an Elizabethan ruff, and frills of lace are at his wrists. On the wild west coast, where the Atlantic winds bring almost constant rains, he dispenses with the ruff and frills and wears a frieze overcoat over his pretty red suit."
In McAnally's account, the northern leprechaun or Logheryman wore a military "red coat and white breeches", with a "broad-brimmed, high, pointed hat" on which he would sometimes stand upside down. The Lurigadawne of Tipperary wore "an antique slashed jacket of red, with peaks all around and a jockey cap, also sporting a sword, wich he uses as a magic wand." The Luricawne of Kerry was "a fat, pursy little fellow whose jolly round face rivals in redness the cut-a-way jacket he wears, that always has seven rows of seven buttons in each row". The Cluricawne of Monaghan wore "a swallow-tailed evening coat of red with green vest, white breeches, black stockings, shiny shoes, and a long cone without a brim, sometimes used as a weapon".
...A wrinkled, wizen'd, and bearded Elf,
Spectacles stuck on his pointed nose,
Silver buckles to his hose,
Leather apron - shoe in his lap...
~The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker ~William Allingham
With his solitary nature, he is said to live in remote places and makes shoes and brogues. The sound of his hammering betrays his presence. If you are lucky enough to catch him, perhaps you can persuade him to reveal the location of his crock of gold. But don't look away, if you take your eyes off a leprechaun, he will vanish in an instant.
They're magically delicious!
While the popularized Lucky Charms leprechaun may be adorable and just as wily as leprechauns of the past, they don't much resemble an Irish leprechaun of the past. So, if you're inspired to write a leprechaun story for a St. Patrick's Day contest prompt, think about adding a bit of true folklore to the story.
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#1652969 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Yup, it was him all right. The sporty green car was a dead giveaway. I realized that I was only about a dozen blocks away from Chubby's, which meant that my little friend would be within visual range at any time. No sooner had I formed this thought than sure enough, I saw him racing down the boulevard towards me. He blew past me and I switched on the lights and siren, pulled a U-turn and gave chase.
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Excerpt: Over the howl of the wind came another moan, a wavering haunting wail that I had heard once before. It made my blood run cold. It was the wail of the banshee. I had seen the ghostly figure once before, leaning over the bed of Callum O’Grady, Morgan’s widowed father. His death still weighed heavy on my heart. On the eve of his death I promised him that if anything happened to him I would take care of his little girl. As I stepped into the room the white figure turned her eyes from Callum and looked at me. No words can describe the hollow eyes of death that I beheld, but my heart almost ceased beating at the sight of the pale lifeless face of the banshee. It was a face I prayed I would never see again. But it was the banshee’s call I heard. She was coming for Morgan.
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#647519 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: I was crossing the green pasturelands of County Galway on my way to County Mayo. Lough Corrib was on my left and a herd of sheep on my right. The sheep youngins’ were out nuzzling their mammas and tossin’ about a sprightly leg or two and kicking out into the air. 'Twas a fine day that morning, and I was whistling “Sweet Molly Malone” when I saw out o' the corner of my eye, a wee little fellow running ‘cross the way. He jumped atop a stone divider, smiled at me and then bold as you please, thumbed his nose at me.
Excerpt: Matthew put his hand under his pillow and held onto his compass. Soon he was sound asleep. Matthew dreamed about rainbows. The rainbows were so high that they went up into the clouds. To Matthew they looked like colorful bridges. Matthew wondered if there really were pots of gold at the end of the rainbows. He stepped up to a rainbow and climbed over to the other side. Matthew looked around for the pot of gold. But all he saw was a little village that sparkled in the sunlight. He looked in amazement at what he saw. The entire village was made of gold. Surrounding it was a forest of tall shiny emerald shamrock.
Excerpt: “Hey, George! We’ve got another one.”
“Not again. What color is it?”
“Green.”
“Didn’t we just have green go out last week? Or was that violet?’
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#652960 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Starr Darkside pulled up to the curb in front of Sammy’s 24-Hour Grocery Emporium. Eight little girls, from Adventure Scout Troop #66613 hopped out of the van, ready to unload and set up shop on the brightly-lighted sidewalk in front of Sammy’s. They had landed prime curbside space at an hour guaranteed to bring them customers with a case of the munchies. Their troop leader, Starr, opened the rear doors and helped the girls pull out a large, folding table and chairs. Two girls started unloading cartons of cookie boxes.
|  | Rockabee (E)
A tale of Rockabee, a town in the drop of Alder sap by the Giant's Grave in Cong, Ireland
#1227521 by Basilides  |
Excerpt: If ever you journey through the west of Ireland you may by chance stumble into the little town of Cong. While you are there, if you happen to see an old man holding a dark wooden cane walking down the street, dressed in gray pants and a blood red vest, his back stooped with age, do not stop to say hello.
Excerpt: Miche, the bartender, looked up from polishing his glass as the bell above the door jingled, and then nodded to the newcomer. It was no surprise to him, as it might have been to others, to see one of the 'wee folk' slip onto his barstool.
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#1536226 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: On the emerald Isle of Eire / amidst deep blue seas faraway, / A band of naughty leprechauns gather / on the evenin' of St. Paddy's Day.
Excerpt: Early this summer I saw a map showing what appeared to be a dry lake northwest of Rio Rancho, New Mexico. There were no roads shown leading to the area, and the 20 miles was over some pretty rugged terrain. Due to its inaccessibility, not many people have probably walked that ground in historical times. This was just the sort of challenge to appeal to my friend Joe.
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Since I'm a guest, I don't have feedback for this section. But if you will, check out these fun sites.
The first ever National Leprechaun Museum will open its doors to the public in Dublin, Ireland this month. Based in the heart of the city, the National Leprechaun Museum will take visitors deeper into Celtic culture to discover what really lies behind the tales of leprechauns, rainbows and pots of gold.
What is your leprechaun name ?
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Fantasy: March 10, 2010 Issue [#3607]
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