A leprechaun (Irish: leipreachn) is a type of fairy in Irish folklore.

They are usually depicted as little

bearded men, wearing a coat and hat, who partake in mischief. They are solitary creatures who
spend their time making and mending shoes and have a hidden pot of gold at the end of
the rainbow. If captured by a human, they often grant three wishes in exchange for their freedom.
Like other Irish fairies, leprechauns may be derived from the Tuatha D Danann.[1] Leprechaun-like
creatures rarely appear in Irish mythology and only became prominent in later folklore.
Modern depictions of leprechauns are largely based on derogatory 19th-century caricatures and
stereotypes of the Irish.[2]
Contents
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1Etymology
2Folklore
3Appearance
4Related creatures
5In politics
6Popular culture
7See also
8Notes
9Bibliography

Etymology
The name leprechaun is derived from the Irish word leipreachn, defined by Patrick Dinneen as "a
pigmy, a sprite, or leprechaun". The further derivation is less certain; according to most sources, the
word is thought to be a corruption of Middle Irish luchrupn,[3]from the Old Irish luchorpn, a
compound of the roots l (small) and corp (body).[4][5] The root corp, which was borrowed from
the Latin corpus, attests to the early influence of Ecclesiastical Latin on the Irish language.[6] The
alternative spelling leithbrgan stems from a folk etymology deriving the word from leith (half)
and brg (brogue), because of the frequent portrayal of the leprechaun as working on a single
shoe.[7]
Alternative spellings in English have included lubrican, leprehaun, and lepreehawn. Some modern
Irish books use the spelling lioprachn.[4] The first recorded instance of the word in the English
language was in Dekker's comedy The 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."[4]

Folklore

A leprechaun counts his gold in this engraving c. 1900

The earliest known reference to the leprechaun appears in the medieval tale known as
the Echtra Fergus mac Lti (Adventure of Fergus son of Lti).[8] The text contains an episode in
which Fergus mac Lti, King of Ulster, falls asleep on the beach and wakes to find himself being
dragged into the sea by three lchorpin. He captures his abductors, who grant him three wishes in
exchange for release.[9][10]
The leprechaun is said to be a solitary creature, whose principal occupation is making and mending
shoes, and who enjoys practical jokes. According to William Butler Yeats, the great wealth of these
fairies comes from the "treasure-crocks, buried of old in war-time", which they have uncovered and
appropriated.[11] 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".[12]

Appearance
The leprechaun originally had a different appearance depending on where in Ireland he was
found.[13] Prior to 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.[14]
According to Yeats, the solitary fairies, like the leprechaun, wear red jackets, whereas the "trooping
fairies" wear green. The leprechaun's jacket has seven rows of buttons with seven buttons to each
row. On the western coast, he writes, the red jacket is covered by a frieze one, and in Ulster the
creature wears a cocked hat, and when he is up to anything unusually mischievous, he leaps on to a
wall and spins, balancing himself on the point of the hat with his heels in the air."[15]

Tourists with a novelty oversized Leprechaun in Dublin

According to McAnally,
"He is about three feet high, and is dressed in a little red jacket or roundabout, with red breeches
buckled at the knee, gray 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 Leprechawn on the road and never know it's himself that's in it at all."
This dress could vary by region, however. In McAnally's account there were differences between
leprechauns or Logherymans from different regions:[16]

The Northern Leprechaun or Logheryman wore a "military red coat and white breeches, with a
broad-brimmed, high, pointed hat, on which he would sometimes stand upside down".
The Lurigadawne of Tipperary wore an "antique slashed jacket of red, with peaks all round and a
jockey cap, also sporting a sword, which he uses as a magic wand".
The Luricawne of Kerry was a "fat, pursy little fellow whose jolly round face rivals in redness the
cut-a-way jacket he wears, that always has seven rows of seven buttons in each row".
The Cluricawne of Monaghan wore "a swallow-tailed evening coat of red with green vest, white
breeches, black stockings," shiny shoes, and a "long cone hat without a brim," sometimes used
as a weapon.

In a poem entitled The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker, 18th century Irish poet William
Allingham describes the appearance of the leprechaun as:
...A wrinkled, wizen'd, and bearded Elf,
Spectacles stuck on his pointed nose, Silver buckles to his hose,
Leather apron shoe in his lap...[17]
The modern image of the leprechaun sitting on a toadstool, red beard, green hat, etc., are clearly
more modern inventions or borrowed from other European folklore.[18]

Related creatures
The leprechaun is related to the clurichaun and the far darrig in that he is a solitary creature. Some
writers even go as far as to substitute these second two less well-known spirits for the leprechaun in

stories or tales to reach a wider audience. The clurichaun is considered by some to be merely a
leprechaun on a drinking spree.[19]

In politics
In the politics of the Republic of Ireland, leprechauns have been used to refer to the twee aspects of
the tourist industry in Ireland.[20][21] This can be seen from this example of John A. Costello addressing
the Oireachtas in 1963: "For many years, we were afflicted with the miserable trivialities of our tourist
advertising. Sometimes it descended to the lowest depths, to the caubeen and the shillelagh, not to
speak of the leprechaun.[21]

Popular culture
Films, television cartoons and advertising have popularised a specific image of leprechauns which
bears scant resemblance to anything found in the cycles of Irish folklore. Irish people can find the
popularised image of a leprechaun to be little more than a series of stereotypes of the Irish.[22]
The Notre Dame Leprechaun is the official mascot of the Fighting Irish sports teams at the University
of Notre Dame

See also
Wikisource has original
text related to this
article:
Leprechaun

Cauldron
Crichton Leprechaun
Irish mythology in popular culture
Lucky Charms
Leprechaun traps

Notes
1.
2.
3.

4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Jump up^ Squire, Charles (1912). Mythology of the Celtic People. London.
p. 403. ISBN 0091850436.
Jump up^ Venable, Shannon (2011). Gold: A Cultural Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 196197.
Jump up^ Gloss by Windisch's (W. O. E.) Compendium of Irish grammar tr. by J. P. M'Swiney 1883
in "leprechaun" The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989, OED Online, Oxford University Press,
(subscription needed) 16 July 2009.
^ Jump up to:a b c "leprechaun" The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989, OED Online, Oxford
University Press, (subscription needed) 16 July 2009
Jump up^ Patrick S. Dinneen, Foclir Gaedhilge agus Barla (Dublin: Irish Texts Society, 1927); see
also Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, s.v. "luchorp", "luchorpn" (accessed 12 May 2009).
Jump up^ "leprechaun" The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed.,
2004, Dictionary.com, Houghton Mifflin Company, 16 July 2009.
Jump up^ (O'Donovan in O'Reilly Irish Dict. Suppl. 1817) in "leprechaun" The Oxford English
Dictionary, 2nd ed, 1989, OED Online, Oxford University Press, (subscription needed) 16 July 2009.
Jump up^ Koch, p. 1059; 1200.

9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.

Jump up^ Koch, p. 1200.

Jump up^ D. A. Binchy (ed. & trans.), "The Saga of Fergus mac Lti", riu 16, 1952, pp. 3348
Jump up^ Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, 80.
Jump up^ McAnally, Irish Wonders, 140.
Jump up^ "Little Guy Style". Retrieved 30 August 2016.[dead link]
Jump up^ From Legends and Stories of Ireland
Jump up^ From Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry.
Jump up^ McAnally, Irish Wonders, 140142.
Jump up^ William Allingham The Leprechaun
Jump up^ A dictionary of Celtic mythology
Jump up^ Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, 321.
Jump up^ Dil ireann Volume 495 20 October, 1998 Tourist Traffic Bill, 1998: Second Stage.
^ Jump up to:a b Dil ireann Volume 206 11 December, 1963 Committee on Finance. Vote 13
An Chomhairle Ealaon.
22. Jump up^ Diane Negra, ed. (22 February 2006). The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity, and
Popular Culture. Duke University Press. p. [page needed]. ISBN 0-8223-3740-1.