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Keep your eye on
THE LEPRECHAUN

By: Barbara J. Nosek

Calling all units. Calling all units. Be on the lookout for a male suspect, two feet tall, pointy ears, turned up toes, usually dressed all in green or red, also wearing a leather apron and sometimes a cocked hat, and carrying a purse.
Often seen working on a single shoe. Given to sudden outbursts of acrobatics.
Wanted for concealing loot. Usually goes by "Leprechaun," but also has such aliases as lubrican, cluricaune, and far darrig. Believed to be in hiding on the Emerald Isle and/or in certain Las Vegas pubs.

We may not know where he is now, but we certainly know where he and his peers originated. Those peers go well beyond what we call Leprechauns, because they belong to a much larger and ancient order with representatives around the world.

The entire realm of little spirits, which legend tells us were downsized as mortals took over the earth, encompasses a colorful and diverse population.
Such designations as elves, sprites, gnomes, goblins, and nymphs are used to generally describe the bunch, while site-specific members of the group go by much more exotic nomenclature.

In Russia it's the lesbiye, in Germany the kornbocke, in Greece the dryads, in
England the oakmen, in Wales the gwyllion, in Scandinavia the trolls, in Lapland the uldras, and in Scotland the Seelie. In those respective homelands, they were usually assigned by kind to homes, barns, gardens, fields, woodlands, streams, mountains, and caves.

But none of them could necessarily be trusted to stay within those borders, often grabbing the nearest butterfly for a trip to neighboring venues for good or ill in accordance with its trade. Just as each subgroup had a habitat, it also had a function such as assisting the working person, finishing chores on the home front, accompanying the traveler, even heralding the death of a mortal.

The entire "species" is often referred to as fairies, which are then subdivided into two major groups. First there are the "trooping" fairies, which is to say they stick together, and these little ones are usually dressed in green. The others are called "solitary," and it's actually this division that claims the leprechaun who we usually see depicted in a green outfit, though some mythology holds that solitary fairies were most often dressed in red jackets.

Describing this entire kingdom, the book "A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend and Folklore" says, "Everything is capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size and shape pleases them. Their chief occupations are feasting, fighting, and making love, and playing the most beautiful music. They have only one industrious person amongst them - the leprechaun - the shoemaker."

He is always seen working on one shoe - presumably the other to the pair is stored under a nearby leaf along with some completed pairs, given that his usual billing is "shoemaker to the other fairies." He is said to carry a purse with but a single shilling in it, having continually buried all the gold he derived from his shoe biz. And how do we find this leprechaun?

Do you not catch the tiny clamour
Busy click of an elfin hammer
Voice of the leprechaun singing shrill,
As he merrily plies his trade.
W. M. Allingham
"The Leprechaun; or Fairy Shoemaker"

Ok, so the rhyming sort of went south at the end there, but the important thing is why you want to find a leprechaun. It has to do with that concealed loot.

It's said that if one catches a leprechaun and threatens to smack him upside the head, he will reveal the site of his buried treasure. But beware - if he tricks you into taking your eyes off of him for even a nanosecond he will vanish, taking with him all of the secrets of his treasure, and all hopes of finding where it's buried.

This cannot be verified because none of them will return phone calls.
Indeed, their reputation is that of withered old geezers, aloof and unfriendly, and not too surprisingly living alone. Even so, they have been known to indulge in the occasional practical joke or to invade a wine cellar and over-sample the wares. One source quoted in the "Treasury" book says that when a leprechaun is up to anything unusually mischievous, it leaps onto a wall and spins around balanced on the point of his hat with his heels in the air. These actions may or may not be related to those cellar visits.

Throughout the book, evidence supports both sides of the question: Are they fallen angels or recovering devils? Or maybe something in between? It also becomes clear that while countries everywhere have their resident good boy/bad boy sprites ("giving gifts to the kindly and plaguing the surly"), Ireland is particularly rich in such lore.

The foreword sets the tone with a census made up of "trooping or dancing fairies, the Sidhe, through the witches and sorcerers, shoemaking leprechauns, devils, ghosts, giants, robbers, kings and queens, to the fairy doctors and changelings." The latter refers to an odd child supposedly left in place of a human one spirited away by the fairies. In more human terms, it declares, "...everyone is a visionary if you scratch him deeply enough. But the Celt is a visionary without scratching."

The notion is seconded in Time-Life Books' "Fairies and Elves," wherein we read that "Ireland, in fact, provides the most complete accounts of the trooping fairies and their kind. Irish tales and songs trace the history of these fairies back thousands of years to a time before the boundaries between their world and the mortal one became dangerous to cross, before mortals grew to fear entrapment in the lands of the fairies, and before the love that could exist between mortal and fairy turned to hopeless yearning." Wow, and without a disclaimer in sight.

The account goes on to reveal that people of ancient Ireland frequently saw islands of fairy castles rise from the sea at sunset, and regarded certain grassy mounds on land as sort of fairy condos. Eventually, all of the fairies, both on land and sea, both the heroic and the earthly, gave way to mortals, in the process growing much much shorter and merging into a single kingdom.

The mists of history close in then, obscuring the life and times of the leprechaun between then and its reemergence as the number one St. Patrick's Day party dude. We do know that the holiday, while not quite as old as the fairy legends, can nonetheless hold its own with an equally distinctive pathway through the centuries.

For its origins, we need to flip the calendar back to about 370-380AD, and pull out a map not of Ireland but rather of Wales. It was then and there that a gentleman by the name of Maewyn was born, destined to lead an adventurous life that would end on March 17, 461AD. In the meanwhile, he generated a resume that showed kidnapping at 16, being sold into slavery in Ireland, subsequent escape to France, priesthood there that gave him the name Patricus, and a return to
Ireland to convert the Pagans to Christianity, and in the process used the shamrock to represent the father, son, and Holy Spirit.

Much of that spiritual significance has been lost in the journey from then to now, with the date that marks his passing more likely to be commemorated in a much more secular manner. Or so it seems, as the current version presents itself as an extravaganza of retail promotions, thematic buffets, and the rolling out of countless barrels.

In such American-style Irish strongholds as Chicago, they even tint the river green, while there and in other burgs across the nation the day is an excellent excuse for an I-mean-green parade. Right here in Las Vegas such pubs as
Duffy's, Finnegan's, Mahoney's, Moose McGillycuddy's, Mulligans, Murphy's,
Paddy's, maybe even O'Aces, have a head start on claiming the night, but in fact they all become Irish for 24 hours as do the mortals that patronize them.

All in all, the revelry appears to favor sinners over saints.

But maybe if we pull in some of that leprechaun lore, we might see that all is perhaps not lost after all, that the festivities are not as non-spiritual as may seem at first glance. For a bit of context, move through the year to some of the other holidays. The Christmas season is for everyone, Christian or not. Thanksgiving is for family. Valentines is for lovers. The Fourth of July is for the community. Labor Day is for workers. Halloween is for children.

But St. Patrick's Day? This one is reserved for friends. Everywhere you look, merry old souls are out there laughing, singing, dancing, storytelling, just having a good time with old friends, new friends, and friends of friends.
Camaraderie and conviviality define the celebration.

So maybe that buried treasure of legend is a wee bit easier to find on St. Paddy's Day, and is actually the precious bonds, the everlasting bounty, the boundless fortunes of real friendship. As the old ditty says, "make new friends and keep the old - one is silver and the other is gold."

And - you don't even have to beat up a leprechaun to enjoy all these riches!
Nonetheless, if the combined forces of time warping, a certain play of light, and the output of the nation's brewers do in fact lead to a chance encounter with one of them, look him in the eye, long and sure, just for good measure.

Cheers.