INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
Top of the mornin to ya - it’s an Irish special this week for the beloved St Patrick’s Day that is celebrated throughout the UK, Ireland and US. And what better than to cover the most famous creature from Ireland instead of doing a Valentines special this year.
DESCRIPTION:
So of course for this special, whilst we do have many more Irish creatures - we’re looking at one that’s universally recognised for St Paddy’s day and that’s the Leprechaun!
Leprechauns are described as short, redheaded bearded fairies, usually dressed in green three piece suits with a skewed hat who have a nasty temper and a habit for trickery and roguish antics. They are usually considered to be around 2-3 foot tall and with the appearance of an old man or sometimes deformation, but are considered fae folk - but are actively shunned from the usual fae community. They are completely solitary creatures - so you will also never find them around other fae or leprechauns anyway. 130
However, some of what we know of leprechauns is fabricated - for example they don’t actually often wear green, they’re usually found in red - which as a fellow redhead surprises me, because most redheads don’t look great in red. The best way I can describe how they look is from Irish Wonders, a book from 1888 by David McAnally;
He is about three feet high, and is dressed in a little red jacket or roundabout, with red breeches buckled at the knee, grey 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 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 Leprechaun on the road and never know it's himself that's in it at all.
We’ve actually only got that they are wearing green to link back to their native Ireland and very often with St Patrick’s Day, including dressing up as them - but the red suit is more traditional, but not as much celebrated anymore. I’ll get more into St Paddy and Leprechaun relations later on.
Leprechauns are exclusively male, there has literally never been a reported female Leprechaun - and this is all linked to their fae heritage. Leprechauns are apparently the children of fairies who reject their children based on their deformities, and therefore live a very solitary life. It’s not known at all how they reproduce, but we assume they’re just a collective bunch of rejected kids. Of course, we can totally see this in myths around fairies too, like Changelings for example. There are theories that it could be because Banshees, another Irish monster, are exclusively female - and these are the male equivalents, but this hasn’t been proven anywhere that I can find.
They do have a usage within their communities though, and that’s shoe making - a not so lucrative line of work, but a wholesome one. However, they would only do this for the fae - not for humans. The biggest thing they are known for though is money, and mostly harbouring gold like tiny tiny dragons. The myth is that they’re more obsessed with the idea of being wealthy, rather than avid spenders - and they hide this apparent pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to avoid anyone getting their hands on it. Every Leprechaun has a pot of gold, so there’s a chance for every rainbow to have one there too. However, when you do find their pot of gold, you are more likely to find that this gold will disappear after about a day of having it - meaning your greedy adventure would amount to nought.
You’ve most likely heard myths of people catching Leprechauns in order to find their stash of money, however, if you do catch one - they’ll often bargain with you and give you three wishes for their release. These spells will often backfire as the Leprechaun is also super stingy when it comes to giving out magic - leading to terrible mishaps when humans get involved. If you did manage to help a Leprechaun though, or free one from a trap - it would bless you with good luck and fortune - which is where the saying the luck of the Irish comes from!
Is there anything about Leprechauns being violent? No - they’re pretty grumpy, but not apparently violent - even if the Hollywood movies convince you otherwise. However, much like other fairies - it is sometimes said that their magic can go a bit too far and they can end up kidnapping children or causing an accidental death. Saying that though, they just have a habit of playing tricks and being a bit of a rogue with a penchant for justice for greedy people - I think the Leprechaun movie series has a lot to answer for if it’s making people believe they are actively malicious and murderous.
ORIGIN:
Onto etymology, now this one has a few roots, but it always comes from the Gaelic language, the original language of Scotland and Ireland, but also one of the Celtic languages - so it was actually spoken throughout the British Isles, France and Belgium back in the day too.
The most common is that Leprechaun comes from the Irish Gaelic ‘leipreachan’ which means pygmy or sprite’, but it might come from the Irish ‘luchrupan’ coming from the root words of lu meaning small, and corp meaning body - which of course is from the Latin for body, corpus. There are thoughts of it also coming from ‘leithbragan’, meaning half brogue or shoe maker - a type of shoe, linking them to their cobbler profession.
Their history though is more interesting than this, mainly because it’s all over the place. Leprechauns go back to at least the 8th century or around 700 AD, and these started with tales of water spirits called Luchorpan - which you might recognise from the etymology. These spirits arose with the normal household fairy and lived in cellars of the Celts living there, usually drinking all alcohol that they had.
This folktale that started it all is still around and called the Saga of Fergus Mac Leti - it’s said that Fergus, the King of Ulster, falls asleep by the beach after travelling a great distance. He wakes up to find three Luchorpan attempting to drag him into their undersea lair. When they got him into the water, the cold woke him up and he managed to capture them, but released them after he was promised three wishes. One of the wishes is to be able to breathe underwater, but didn’t know that the power did not work in a certain loch called Loch Rudraige.
The King did it anyway and found that the Lochorpan were trying to protect him from a massive sea beast that roamed there, the Muirdris. This monster was absolutely massive and terrifying, so much so that the King’s face was permanently frozen in a contortion of fear. He escaped the beast, but was not told of his disfigurement, and all mirrors in his kingdom were covered to prevent him from discovering this. He eventually got old and spiteful, and one of the servants told him the truth about his face - meaning he could never be High King of Ireland (as you can’t rule with disfigurement apparently). He then swore revenge on the great sea beast, and fought it in the most epic battle that went on for two days - once he had slaughtered the beast, the loch was red with blood. Although he used up so much energy and he was an old man, he actually died shortly after the battle himself. What a great story with the Leprechauns being a minor character, but a crucial one.
However, there are other reports of their origin way before this - back before the Celts even settled in Ireland in around 500 BC. This is that Leprechauns are descended from the Celtic gods - specifically the goddess Danu, who was considered the mother god of the land. But she was also the mother goddess of the Tuatha De Danann or the Tribe of the Gods, which were basically a race of demi-gods who ran Ireland before the Christians came over to the country. They were all supernatural beings, with magic and immortality, able to shapeshift and control the weather and were eventually driven underground by the opposing people in Ireland at the time. I’m going to do a full episode on the Tuatha, they’re super interesting so I won’t go too into them here.
Fun fact though, is that through their legend - Ireland was named after the Celtic goddess Eiru, which was changed to Eire - which is the Gaelic of the name Erin. I do often like to say that I’m named after a Celtic goddess rather than an island.
Anyway, the Tuatha lived out their lives under the Earth, and eventually their kind came to be known as the Sidhe or ‘people of the mounds’ by the time Christianity started to take a hold on Ireland with the Anglo-Norman invasion - and the pagan Celtic religion started to fade in around the 1170’s. Although the Romans did invade Ireland in the 5th century and introduced Christianity, it still didn’t remove the pagan roots until much later.
The Leprechauns were supposedly part of the Sidhe community, and would pop up from the Earth to join their brethren topside - so of course then they would be the children of the Tuatha, and therefore demi-gods themselves from Danu.
There is another theory though, which is again quite godly - but it’s that they are descendents of the Irish deity Lugh, the god of the Sun and arts, who after the introduction of Christianity was demoted to a cobbler called Lugh Chromain, apparently the first ever Leprechaun - and all of them are descended from him.
You might be wondering how the Leprechaun got attached to St Paddy’s Day though - I know I am. Well it’s not actually conclusively clear, but St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, and was a Irish Roman - who was taken to be a slave in Pagan tribes. During this time, he found God, and then attempted to convert the Pagan Irish - which is most often referred to as ‘driving out the snakes’, but there have never been any snakes in Ireland - so they’re actually referring to the mass conversion of pagans to Christianity.
How do Leprechauns come into this, well Leprechauns were changed culturally from their red outfits to their green ones we know now to celebrate their connection with Ireland. St Patrick was also known for wearing green, and there is green in the Irish flag. However, St Patrick’s Day is on the 17th March every year and is typically associated with good luck, good deeds and drinking - all of which Leprechauns are also known for. So they’ve just been popped together for convenience - there’s not much else to it.
There have been loads of sightings throughout history of Leprechauns, but the most recent and famous is that in 1989, a pub landlord in Ireland heard screams from a well and found the remains of a Leprechaun, including it’s full outfit - which is now on display in his pub. The town of Carlingford in County Louth where it’s based has an annual Leprechaun hunt every year where they look for plastic ones.
And in fact, the Leprechaun is a protected species under EU law under the European Habitats Directive. In the same Carlingford, there is a big sign stating that 236 Leprechauns are protected and can live there undisturbed, all done by a local lobbyist. Of course, Southern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland is not in the UK and therefore is still within the EU and these laws do still apply post-Brexit. Which is a wild thing to talk about in a mythology podcast - but hey ho.
The US loves the Leprechaun, they’re famously the mascot of Lucky Charms cereal, and they’re the mascot of the Notre Dame football team if you’re based in the US. There’s also a Leprechaun colony in Portland, Oregon - where someone planted a bush in a former streetlamp hole, called it the World’s Tiniest Park, and then started writing stories about the Leprechauns who lived there. It is an official park, and even has a miniature swimming pool.
There is a theory that Walt Disney invented the idea of the Leprechaun as it’s believed that he is responsible for bringing Leprechauns to the US for his movie Darby O’Gill back in the 1960’s and told the tale of St Patrick and the Leprechauns - however, Disney had Irish heritage and researched them in Ireland before the movie was written - so I think we can safely say he did not invent them, but sure he might have helped bring them to the mainstream in the US - alongside all of the Irish immigrants ya know. There is a nod to Leprechauns in Disneyland based on the Little Man of Disneyland book, where a Leprechaun called Patrick was living on Disney property before Disney, and he still has a little tree root house at the entrance of the Indiana Jones ride in California Disneyland.
Last real life fact is that there is a genetic birth disorder called Leprechaunism or Donahue syndrome, which is super rare, but it’s a resistance to insulin which makes the babies irregularly small, have pointed ears, wide spaced, bulging eyes - alongside with thick patches of skin and enlarged genitalia. There are only 50 cases reported in medical literature, and is most common in females - but the condition is called this because it gives the child ‘elf-like’ features. Unfortunately, there is no cure, and life expectancy is very very short for these children, with death expected within a year of life.
In happier parts of this creature's background - we also can’t gloss over their link to the fae of Ireland, which is really heavily leaned on within their folklore and throughout the Gaelic speaking countries. The Leprechaun is a favourite within Irish mythology, but you can see them perfectly alongside atypical fairies, fauns and other friendly fae that we know and love throughout the British Isles. They do apparently have a mythical cousin, the Clurichan - which are really similar to Leprechauns, and are considered the night-versions of these fae. They have the same look and characteristics, but after a long day's work, they’ll empty all local cellars and ride animals whilst completely off their head drunk.
In contrast to these, we can also see the scary ones like Kelpies, Barghests, Dullahans and Banshees alongside these monsters too, and I do like the whole British fairy thing - and that is certainly something we’ll cover more in the future too.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Now onto modern media, there’s quite a few in this one so I hope you’re ready for this. Obvious one here is the Leprechaun film series which is pretty famous - but I’ll take it away.
For art, there’s actually not much for traditional stuff this week which might surprise you, but have a look at A leprechaun counts his gold in this engraving from around 1900 with no artist attached for an older drawing - or independent stuff is definitely the way to go this time.
In movies, we have; The Leprechaun movie series - all eight of them, The Luck of the Irish, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Darby O’Gill and the Little People, Behind the Waterfall, Leapin Leprechauns & Muppets Most Wanted.
For TV, we have; Moonlighting, Wizards of Waverly Place, Bewitched, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, American Gods, Magical Legend of the Leprechaun, Aquabats! Super Show, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Live and Kicking, South Park, Looney Tunes, The Simpsons, Wishfart, Martin Mystery, Winx Club, Johnny Bravo, Moville Mysteries, The Littles, Fairly Odd Parents, Ducktales, Mucha Lucha, Extreme Ghostbusters, Inspector Gadget, The Smurfs, Monsters Vs Aliens, Popeye, Lucky, Teen Titans Go, Woody Woodpecker, The Leprechauns Christmas Gold, American Dragon: Jake Long & Jackie Chan Adventures.
In video games, we have ones such as; Warlords Battlecry, Leprechaun 1982, Rogue, Nightmare Busters, Age of Wonders, DC Universe Online, Heroes of Might and Magic, Extreme Ghostbusters, Lep’s World, NetHack, Shining the Holy Ark, Tales of Middle Earth, Spelunky 2, Chronicle Keepers: The Dreaming Garden, Gems of War, DeathSpank, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner, Scribblenauts Unlimited, King's Quest, Earthworm Jim 3D & Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 4.
My book recommendation this week is The Truth About Leprechauns by Dr Robert Curran for a really great look into Leprechauns themselves, or for a more general look at Celtic myth, have a look at The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends by Peter Beresford Ellis.
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? 2045
I’m honestly not sure about this one - and I know that sounds odd for me, but hear me out. This monster is so iconic that I feel to say no would be a seriously quick decision. I think the idea of fairies, especially in this part of the world where they are so ingrained into our folklore and culture, is quite compelling. You won’t catch me walking into a fairy circle of flowers in my garden, if anything it’s bad luck - but it’s something that was told to me as a child here in Britain and that’s not something you can shake off without considerable effort.
Leprechauns are a more rascal type of fairy though, but I think the media has a big part to play in making these monsters a lot more common than we might believe. I think we also have this to blame for the link to St Patricks and why we’re even covering this monster as a St Patricks day special. I think they’d be pretty secretive about their existence, and they’d try their hardest to not ever be found by another human if seen by one before, much like other fae.
I’ll be honest, I have been compared to a Leprechaun many times over the years due to the red hair and green eyes. It doesn't help that my name is Erin, and I was born the day before St Patrick's Day with minimal Irish heritage. So I’ve hated this monster for a long part of my life, but it’s always fun to get to understand them more in a deep dive kind of way.
But what do you think? Did the Leprechaun roam the fields of Ireland? Let me know on Twitter!
OUTRO:
A super interesting and popular monster this week, I’m so glad we got to cover this one. I hope you have a fantastic Paddy’s day if you celebrate it. I will personally be at Colchester Zoo looking at anteaters all day and then possibly having a cheeky Guinness to finish it all off.
So I’m off now for the next two weeks! It’s the annual March break, which I know is a weird time to take it - but it’s also the podcast anniversary on the 25th March - so I do like to take a little break, and I don’t have another one of these til September.
However, when we come back on the 30th March, we’re heading over to Eastern Europe, and most specifically Romania for the terrifying Strigoi. As always with vampiric monsters, let’s keep those turtlenecks on when we come back on the 30th March.
For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods, Buymeacoffee and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.
Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.
But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.