Week 11 Storytelling: How the Leprechaun Saved his Gold

How the Leprechaun Saved his Gold

leprechaun

Hi! My name is Patrick and I am a leprechaun. Humans seem to think that we owe them money or something. Every time one of those humans finds one of my kin, they expect us to lead them to gold or treasure or even to grant wishes. Well, yes we have gold, but it is ours and ours alone. We leprechauns earn our gold by making shoes for all the fairy folk. I don’t know why humans treat us the way that they do. Once we were able to live out in the open, amongst the humans, but something changed. Now leprechauns, along with all fairy folk, have to live our lives in hiding. We live in fear of being captured. I have been captured before. I will tell you a tale of how I tricked that human into letting me go without giving up my gold.

One day I was sitting in the forest, minding my own business. I was working, as I usually do, on a new pair of shoes. I had with me a pitcher of my homemade beer. I was going about my work when suddenly I heard a voice. "God bless your work, neighbor," the human said to me.

Since I had been spotted, I knew it was too late to run. "Thank you kindly," I responded.

"Might you be willing to tell me what you've have in that pitcher?" asked the man.

"Aye ‘tis good beer."

"Beer!" said the man. "Where did you get it?"

"Why, I made it.”

“You made it,” the man laughed. "Might you share a taste of your beer?" said the man.

"It would be better for you to be looking after your father's property than to be bothering decent quiet people with your foolish questions. While you're idling away your time here, the cows have gotten into the oats and are knocking the corn all about."

I thought I might have had my chance to get away then, because the young man started to turn away from me, but unfortunately he caught himself and suddenly grabbed me. The big clumsy oaf knocked over my last pitcher of beer in his haste to capture me. I couldn’t share it with him now if I wanted to, which I didn’t. I thought all was lost. He threatened my life if I didn’t give up the location of my gold. What was at first just an intimidating encounter was now absolutely terrifying.

I agreed to show him where the gold was hidden, but in my head I was hatching a plan. I told him that it was a couple of fields over. He carried me in his huge hands all the way to the field I indicated. It was a gigantic field of lovely wildflowers. There were flowers of red and pink and white and blue, but there was most of all a ton of bright yellow boliaun. I directed the man to one of the flowers towards the middle of the field. 

Field of wildflowers

“There buried deep under that flower is my chest full of gold,” I told him. I knew that the man had nothing to dig up the ground with. He realized this as well and tied a red ribbon that he pulled from his pocket to the flower.

“Swear to me that you will not remove that ribbon from that flower,” he said. I agreed not to touch it. The man released me and was then off to get his shovel.

Now, you might think that my gold was lost to this man, or that I broke my promise to him not to touch it. ‘Twas not the case. I did not touch his ribbon. Instead, with the help of my fairy friends, I took more red ribbons and tied them to every yellow flower in the entire field. I watched from the far edge of the field as the man returned with his shovel and found the field covered in red ribbons. I have never laughed so hard in my life. The man stood there, stunned. Then he just turned around and left. I suppose he decided it wasn’t worth digging up the entire field just for a small chest of gold.

So there it is. That’s my story, my narrow escape from the hands of a human who only wanted my gold. Humans need to know not to mess with the fairy folk. We will work together to protect ourselves and each other.


Arthur's note: I based my story off of The Field of Boliauns. I thought I would tell the story from the point of view of the leprechaun. I didn't change the basic story, although I did eliminate some of the conversation. I didn't feel it was needed for my story. The story is about a man who discovers a leprechaun and starts by having a conversation with him, but when the leprechaun tries to distract the man so he can get away, the man captures the leprechaun and demands to know where the gold is hidden. The leprechaun leads the man to a large field of boliaun. To the best I can tell, boliaun is a flower, ragweed or ragwort. The man ties a red handkerchief to the flower that the leprechaun tell him the gold is under and releases him to retrieve his shovel. The man returns to every flower in the field having a red handkerchief tied to it.
 
Bibliography: Story source:  Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892).