Leprechaun

Mythological Creatures Report

By Madison Nef

Isobel’s Story

Isobel skipped through the rolling green hills of Ireland. The sky was bright blue and the clouds were white and fluffy. The bright rainbow in the sky reminded her of the legend in her town- the legend of the leprechaun’s gold. The legend was that if you followed the rainbow to its end, you would find a small cave. In this cave lived a leprechaun, and if you could fool him with a riddle, you would get his pot of gold.

How wonderful it would be if that was true, Isobel thought. Her family was very poor, living in a small shack away from the town.  Her mother was a seamstress, and her father was a farmer for a rich family in town. Isobel’s older brother, Conor, was a dog breeder, but he had long since moved out of the house and did not correspond with the family anymore. Isobel herself was almost 13- the age when she had to find a job of her own.

Isobel turned to head back to her house… when she heard laughter. She whipped around to look behind herself, but no one was there. She looked up- the rainbow was fading into the distance. She took a few steps towards the rainbow. The jovial laughter sounded again, only louder. She started walking into the rainbow… and the laughter grew louder with each step. She saw a cave up ahead, and ran to it. Was this real? Were her eyes playing tricks on her from being in the sun too long? Just then, it started to rain and the rainbow faded away.

Lighting struck the ground and the thunder rattled the earth. Terrified, Isobel ran home. She told her mother and father about what had happened, and they both agreed that she had too much sun. Isobel went to bed. When she woke the next morning, the laughter still rung in her head- so she ran out the door to find the cave, had there been one. She tried to remember her path- and came upon where the rainbow had fallen.

She slowly turned on her flashlight and peered into the cave. It was dark, and seemed empty.  She walked into it a little, looking around. It was quite spacious for a cave. Suddenly, something crunched beneath her feet. She looked down and saw a small bag of chips. She frowned, what was that doing here? She walked further in, and as she did, she grew uneasy. Suddenly, something hit her over the head- and everything went black.

When Isobel woke up, she was hanging upside down from the ceiling of the cave, and a strange little man with bright red hair in a green suit was standing in front of her with his arms crossed. “You’ll never get me gold!” he yelled at her. “Your gold?! Why would I want you-“Isobel’s sentence trailed off, for she saw that behind the little man was a huge pot of gold, enough to make her whole TOWN rich! Isobel couldn’t believe it- standing in front of her was a LEPRECHAUN!

She stared at him in disbelief for a minute. Then she remembered the legend- you had to fool the leprechaun with a riddle if you wanted his gold! “Don’t I have to tell you a riddle?” she asked the leprechaun. “Yes ye do,” said the leprechaun. “You have three tries to fool me.”

“Um… what do you call a fake stone in Ireland?” she said. “Why, that’s easy! A shamrock!” exclaimed the little leprechaun. “Well then, what do you get when you cross poison ivy with a four leaf clover?” she asked again. “A rash of good luck! Everyone knows that,” said the leprechaun. He was not readily going to give up HIS treasure!

Isobel gave the riddle one last shot. “What happens if a leprechaun falls into a river?” she asked. “Well, he, well….” The leprechaun trailed off. Isobel grinned. “He…. Loses his favorite tie?” the leprechaun asked nervously. “NOPE!” Isobel roared with great glee. “He gets wet, like anybody else! Now give me my gold!” With that, she wriggle free of the rope holding her up, and ran to the pot of gold. She picked it up and ran from the cave.

She gave the gold to her family, and donated what they did not need to charity. She never went back to the little cave in the woods. Her and her family lived happily ever after.

The Leprechaun’s Tale

We leprechauns tend to keep to ourselves. We don’t mind pulling a trick or few on the humans, and giving them misleading facts, but we don’t downright interact with them… unless they come near our gold. I am Sean, and I am the leprechaun of Goldstern Valley. I live in a secluded cave in the hills, and I don’t get involved with humans unless they come to my cave looking for trouble. I will lead them to it with my laugh sometimes, because, as one of my kind, I love tricks. But I would NEVER give up my gold.

It was a normal day for me. I got up and put on my green suit and my favorite silver buckle shoes. I lit my pipe and stumbled into my cave’s kitchen for breakfast. Living situations could have been better, but I did not care as long as my gold was safe, and from what I had seen, this was the best place for it. I went to check it to see if it was still where I had left it. All was intact, so I grabbed my lucky coin and headed for the forest market.

The forest market is well disguised by small magical creatures. It’s a little town for us where we go to shop. Mostly fairies and pixies run it, and they are VERY careful not to come in contact with humans. I use my lucky coin at the market all the time. It is a coin that always returns to my pocket- no matter how many times I spend it. While at the market, I overheard weather would be bad tonight, so I started to go home. But as I did, I noticed a redheaded young girl heading towards my cave!

To throw her off, I laughed a deep, guttural laugh. She paused, looking around. I ran back to my cave and got my megaphone, and started laughing more. She was coming towards my cave! But just before she could enter it, the sky opened up and she ran home. My heart was beating terribly fast, and so I went to my bedroom and slept.

However, my sleep was needed to prepare me for the next day- the girl returned, and when I woke up, she was near my gold room! I grabbed my frying pan from the kitchen and took a jump, knocking her on the head with the pan as I came down. Once she was out cold, I dragged her into the gold room and hung her from the ceiling by her ankles using magic spells sold to me by a witch from the market.

When she awoke, all the girl wanted to do was tell me riddles. The first two I got right, but then she stumped me with the last one. I’d never fallen in water, how was I supposed to know!? I told you I have little contact with the outside world (with the exception of going to the market). But then something even worse happened.  The witch’s spell wore off, and the girl got free! And since she had stumped me with a riddle, she took my gold- and there was nothing I could do about it.

She left, and I was very broken hearted. That was my life’s savings she had just taken from me! I was in deep despair- until I remembered the code of the leprechaun. Because we are such dishonest creatures, we have spells on our gold- in 100 years, our gold is returned, every piece intact- doubled. Until then, I at least had my lucky coin to go to market with- and perhaps I could gamble for some gold at the town pub.