 A modern depiction of a leprechaun of the type popularised in the 20th century | |
| Creature information | |
|---|---|
| Grouping | Legendary creature Pixie Sprite Fairy Aos Sí |
| Origin | |
| Country | Ireland |
| Details | Found in amoor, forest, cave, garden |
Aleprechaun (Irish:lucharachán/leipreachán/luchorpán) is a diminutivesupernatural being inIrish folklore, classed by some as a type of solitaryfairy. They are usually depicted as little beardedmen, wearing a coat and hat, who partake in mischief. In later times, they have been depicted asshoe-makers who have a hidden pot of gold at the end of therainbow.
Leprechaun-like creatures rarely appear inIrish mythology and only became prominent in later folklore.
The Anglo-Irish (Hiberno-English) wordleprechaun is descended from Old Irishluchorpán or lupracán,[1] via various (Middle Irish) forms such asluchrapán, lupraccán,[2][3] (or var.luchrupán).[a]
The current spellingleipreachán is used throughout Ireland, but there are numerous regional variants.[6]
John O'Donovan's supplement to O'Reilly'sIrish-English Dictionary defineslugharcán, lugracán, lupracán as "a sprite, a pigmy; a fairy of a diminutive size, who always carries a purse containing a shilling".[7][8][b]
The Irish termleithbrágan in O'Reilly's Dictionary[10] has also been recognized as an alternative spelling.[8]
Other variant spellings in English have includedlubrican,leprehaun, andlepreehawn. Some modern Irish books use the spellinglioprachán.[11] The first recorded instance of the word in the English language was inDekker's comedyThe Honest Whore, Part 2 (1604): "As for your Irish lubrican, that spirit / Whom by preposterous charms thy lust hath rais'd / In a wrong circle."[11]
The word may have beencoined as a compound of the rootslú orlaghu (fromGreek:ἐ-λαχύ "small") andcorp (fromLatin:corpus "body"), or so it had been suggested byWhitley Stokes.[12][c] Research published in 2019 suggests the word derives from theLuperci and associated Roman festival ofLupercalia.[14][15][16]
Folk etymology derives the word fromleith (half) andbróg (brogue), because of the frequent portrayal of the leprechaun as working on a single shoe, as evident in the alternative spellingleithbrágan.[10][8][d]
The earliest known reference to the leprechaun appears in the medieval tale known as theEchtra Fergus mac Léti ('Adventure of Fergus son of Léti'). The saga exists in two widely divergent versions. The first of these is written in Dublin, Trinity College MS 1337 pp. 363b–365a, better known as H. 3. 18 (CIH iii: 882.4–883.28) and has been dated to the eighth century (Binchy 1952). The second version is a copy of the 8th century text written on a single leaf inserted into London, British Library MS Harley 432 f.5 (CIH ii: 354.28–355.41). The saga was rewritten in the 13th century as a burlesque version. The text contains an episode in whichFergus mac Léti, King ofUlster, falls asleep on the beach and wakes to find himself being dragged into the sea by threelúchorpáin. He captures his abductors, who grant him three wishes in exchange for release.[17][18]
The leprechaun is said to be a solitary creature, whose principal occupation is making and cobbling shoes, and who enjoys practical jokes.[19] In McAnally's 1888 account, the Leprechaun was not a professionalcobbler, but was frequently seen mending his own shoes, as "he runs about so much he wears them out" with great frequency. This is, he claims, the perfect opportunity for a human being to capture the Leprechaun, refusing to release him until the Leprechaun gives his captor supernatural wealth.[20]
The leprechaun has been classed as a "solitary fairy" by the writer and amateur folkloristWilliam Butler Yeats.[e][22] Yeats was part of therevivalist literary movement greatly influential in "calling attention to the leprechaun" in the late 19th century.[23] This classification by Yeats is derived from D. R. McAnally (Irish Wonders, 1888) derived in turn fromJohn O'Hanlon (1870).[24]
It is stressed that the leprechaun, though some may call it fairy, is clearly to be distinguished from theAos Sí (or the 'good people') of the fairy mounds (sidhe) and raths.[26][27][28][f] Leprachaun being solitary is one distinguishing characteristic,[30][31] but additionally, the leprachaun is thought to only engage in pranks on the level of mischief, and requiring special caution, but in contrast, theAos Sí may carry out deeds more menacing to humans, e.g., the spiriting away of children.[26]
This identification of leprechaun as a fairy has been consigned to popular notion by modern folklorist Diarmuid Ó Giolláin. Ó Giolláin observes that thedwarf ofTeutonic and other traditions, as well as thehouseholdfamiliar, are more amenable to comparison.[6]
According toWilliam Butler Yeats, the great wealth of the leprechauns comes from the "treasure-crocks, buried of old in war-time", which they have uncovered and appropriated.[32] According to David Russell McAnally, the leprechaun is the son of an "evil spirit" and a "degenerate fairy" and is "not wholly good nor wholly evil".[33]
The leprechaun originally had a different appearance depending on where in Ireland he was found.[34] Before the 20th century, it was generally held that the leprechaun wore red, not green.Samuel Lover, writing in 1831, describes the leprechaun as,
... quite a beau in his dress, notwithstanding, for he wears a red square-cut coat, richly laced with gold, and inexpressible of the same,cocked hat, shoes and buckles.[35]
According toYeats, the solitary fairies, like the leprechaun, wear red jackets, whereas the "trooping fairies" wear green. Yeats' leprechaun wore a jacket with seven rows of buttons with seven buttons to each row. Yeats describes that on the western coast, the red jacket is covered by afrieze one, whereas inUlster the creature wears a cocked hat, and when he is up to anything unusually mischievous, he leaps onto a wall and spins, balancing himself on the point of the hat with his heels in the air.[36]
According to McAnally the universal leprechaun is described as follows:
He is about three feet high, and is dressed in a little red jacket or roundabout, with redbreeches buckled at the knee, gray or blackstockings, and a hat, cocked in the style of a century ago, over a little, old, withered face. Round his neck is an Elizabethan ruff, andfrills of lace are at his wrists. On the wild west coast, where the Atlantic winds bring almost constant rains, he dispenses with ruff and frills and wears a frieze overcoat over his pretty red suit, so that, unless on the lookout for the cocked hat,ye might pass a Leprechawn on the road and never know it's himself that's in it at all.
This dress varied by region. In McAnally's account there were differences between leprechauns or Logherymans from different regions:[37]
In a poem entitledThe Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker, 19th century Irish poetWilliam Allingham describes the appearance of the leprechaun as:
...A wrinkled, wizen'd, and beardedElf,
Spectacles stuck on his pointed nose,
Silver buckles to his hose,
Leather apron — shoe in his lap...[38]
The modern image of the leprechaun sitting on atoadstool, having a red beard and green hat, etc. is a more modern invention, or borrowed from other strands of European folklore.[39] The most likely explanation for the modern day Leprechaun appearance is that green is a traditional national Irish color dating back as far as 1642.[40] The hat might be derived from the style of outdated fashion still common in Ireland in the 19th century. This style of fashion was commonly worn byIrish immigrants to the United States, since someElizabethan era clothes were still common in Ireland in the 19th century long after they were out of fashion, as depicted by theStage Irish. The buckle shoes and other garments also have their origin in the Elizabethan period in Ireland.
The leprechaun is similar to theclurichaun and thefar darrig in that he is a solitary creature. Some writers even go as far as to replace these second two less well-known spirits with the leprechaun in stories or tales to reach a wider audience. The clurichaun is considered by Yeats to be merely a leprechaun on a drinking spree.[41]
In thepolitics of the Republic of Ireland, leprechauns have been used to refer to thetwee aspects of thetourism field in Ireland.[42][43] This can be seen from this example ofJohn A. Costello addressing theOireachtas in 1963—
For many years, we were afflicted with the miserable trivialities of our tourist advertising. Sometimes it descended to the lowest depths, to thecaubeen and theshillelagh, not to speak of the leprechaun.[43]
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Films, animated cartoons, and advertising have popularised a specific image of leprechauns which bears little resemblance to anything found in the cycles of Irish folklore. Some argue that the popularised image of the leprechaun is little more than a series ofstereotypes based on derogatoryanti-Irish 19th-centurycaricatures.[44][45][clarification needed]
ManyCeltic music groups have used the term leprechaun as part of their naming convention or as an album title. Some popular forms of American music, includingheavy metal,celtic metal,punk rock, andjazz, have also made use of the mythological character.
Famous leprechaun characters include:
Nobel Prize-winning economistPaul Krugman coined the term "leprechaun economics" to describe distorted or unsound economic data, which he first used in a tweet on 12 July 2016 in response to the publication by the IrishCentral Statistics Office (CSO) that Irish GDP had grown by 26.3%, and Irish GNP had grown by 18.7%, in the 2015 Irish national accounts. The growth was subsequently shown to be due to Apple restructuring itsdouble Irish tax scheme which the EU Commission had fined €13bn in 2004–2014 Irish unpaid taxes, the largest corporate tax fine in history. The term has been used many times since.[citation needed]
In the U.S., Leprechauns are often associated withSt. Patrick's Day along with the color green and shamrocks.[citation needed]
The Disney filmDarby O'Gill and the Little People (1959)—based onHerminie Templeton Kavanagh'sDarby O'Gill books—which features a leprechaun king, is a work in whichFergus mac Léti was "featured parenthetically".[46] In the film, the captured leprechaun king grants three wishes, like Fergus in the saga.
While the film project was in development, Walt Disney was in contact with, and consultingSéamus Delargy and theIrish Folklore Commission, but never asked for leprechaun material, even though a large folkloric repository on such subject was housed by the commission.[47][g]
Media related toLeprechauns at Wikimedia Commons
Works related toLeprechaun at Wikisource
