What is a leprechaun?
In 19th-century Irish stories, the leprechaun is a small old man who lives alone, mends shoes and guards a treasure. If you catch him, you can force him to reveal the hiding place. But as soon as you take your eyes off him, he is gone. He wins in almost every story.
The oldest trace
The earliest evidence is found in the Old Irish tale Echtra Fergusa maic Léti, in which water creatures called lúchorpáin try to drag the sleeping King Fergus into the sea. D. A. Binchy edited the text in 1952 and dated it to the 8th century. In 2011, Neil McLeod showed that the saga is built as a teaching story about the law of distraint.
Where the name comes from
For a long time the name was derived from lú and corp, “small body.” In 2012, Jacopo Bisagni argued against this: the oldest form in the manuscripts is lupracán, and the word goes back to the Roman Luperci, whom Irish scholars knew through Augustine as a people of wolf-men. Bisagni also questions Binchy’s early dating. The debate is not settled.
How he turned green
Thomas Crofton Croker made the figure widely known in 1825 with his Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland. The manuscript was lost and had to be rewritten with the help of friends. The Brothers Grimm translated the book as early as 1826 as Irische Elfenmärchen. In 19th-century sources the leprechaun usually wears red. The green costume took hold in the 20th century through advertising, tourism and Disney’s 1959 film Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
What scholars say
In 1984, Diarmuid Ó Giolláin analyzed more than three hundred manuscripts from the Irish folklore archive. He places the leprechaun closer to dwarfs and household spirits than to the fairy folk.
Episodes on this topic
- The Leprechaun Stories Nobody Tells Anymore (Ireland 1/2) (storytelling episode)
- Where the Leprechaun Really Comes From (Ireland 2/2)
Further reading
- D. A. Binchy: “The Saga of Fergus mac Léti,” Ériu 16 (1952), pp. 33–48.
- Neil McLeod: “Fergus mac Léti and the Law,” Ériu 61 (2011), pp. 1–28.
- Jacopo Bisagni: “Leprechaun: a new etymology,” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 64 (2012), pp. 47–84.
- Diarmuid Ó Giolláin: “The Leipreachán and Fairies, Dwarfs and the Household Familiar,” Béaloideas 52 (1984), pp. 75–150.
- Thomas Crofton Croker: Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, London 1825.
- Tony Tracy: “When Disney Met Delargy,” Béaloideas 78 (2010), pp. 44–60.