Leprechauns, Fairies and other little people

[bill1953]

Has anyone ever seen any little people? Seriously, I do not see why they can't exist. If you can have a silverback gorilla weighing up to 600lbs and marmoset weighing ounces , why can't our own species have diversity in size? I am told that in ancient times there was a horse the size of a rabbit and in South America they have a breed of horse the size of a dog today. So why can't there be little people? In the early 1950's my mother went to view a dead leprechaun in Dublin where we lived. I have found an account on the Leprechaun Museum web site which must be the same same incident as it's not often that dead leprechauns are found.

"Leprechauns are also said to make full use of the park and its woodlands. In 1952 a local couple ( Kathleen and Mary Maguire) claimed that they had found a little dead fairy man underneath a mushroom in the Phoenix Park. They bottled the deceased homunculus and charged threepence-a-look at a nearby funfair, collecting £35 in seven weeks (a significant amount in those days). One day, however, 'four country lads' liberated the bottle and occupant never seen to be seen again."

The only difference was my mother said she was charged sixpence not threepence. She was a nurse and was convinced that what she saw was human like tissue. Although the official version was that a group of young men, possibly students from Trinity College took the bottle away, it was also widely believed that leprechauns had entered the house at night and retrieved their dead comrade. In Cork years ago, I observed a fleeting image of something run into the undergrowth near furze bush which did not seems to be an animal.

[gregorach]

You may be interested in Homo floresiensis.

[bill1953]

Thanks Dunc, that's a very interesting link although I am not at all sure I would like to wake up beside 'Flo' too often

[oldjerry]

Have Guiness come out with a new recipe involving narcotics....??

[bill1953]

There was a man called Cotter who lived in my father's village and he was a 'go between' and was able to take messages between the leprechaun and human kingdoms. He did this by sitting on the roof of his cottage drinking from a bottle of whiskey at night and he would meet with the leprechauns on the roof out of the way of cats or foxes. But he started to tell people secrets about them. One morning he was found upside down in a water butt quite dead. It was clear to everyone he had been pushed off by the leprechauns.

[the.fee.fairy]

I've never seen them, but I believe in them (hence the username!).
Or maybe it was too much Enid Blyton growing up...

[boboff]

I think Bill might be extracting the preverbial so to speak. :-)

[bill1953]

I've never seen them, but I believe in them (hence the username!).
Or maybe it was too much Enid Blyton growing up...

Me too. There was also another incident in my father's village. A farmer called Rumley had a 'fairy fort' on his land. This was an iron or bronze age circular fort made of clay and was overgrown by furze bushes. The farmer wanted to bulldoze it so he would not have to plough around it but none of the local men would do this as it was well known the leprechauns lived in it and no one would even go near it. He brought a man in from Cork city who agreed to bulldoze it. This man went blind within a day and died several days later. When the corn grew in the field there was a circle of corn marking where the fort was and it refusedf to ripen.

[bill1953]

I think Bill might be extracting the preverbial so to speak. :-)

Certainly not, it's a serious subject where I come from and you with your Piskies and all.

[MKG]

My Mum's only 4 ft 10 inches tall, and she tells humdinging stories when she's in the mood. Would she count?

Mike

[bill1953]

Yes

[bill1953]

Just a liitle over a few hundred years ago the local people decided to build a graveyard near the church for burying the dead people in. They built a stone wall around it. The next morning all the wall had been moved up to the top of a hill. So they moved it down again but the same thing happened and the wall was back up on top of the hill. When it happened a third time, the people realised it was the leprechauns moving it and decided to live it there. But the leprechauns had a cunning plan because the funerals had to pass over their land and they would stop them and demand gold so that the coffin could pass by. The old graveyard is rarely used nowadays but there are still people in the village who have witnessed this happening but no one will talk about it. The leprechauns placed a banshee up there to guard the graveyard and even in the days of body snatchers the graves were never disturbed

[Ellendra]

Look up the term "otherkin" and you'll find people who believe themselves to be decended from various mythological creatures. Most of them are full of it, but some do have actual physical abnormalities that make you wonder. Pointed ears, extra bones, that sort of thing.

I have a friend who swears there's a family of gnomes in their house. If they drop something shiny, they sometimes see a tiny hand reaching out to snatch it away.

I'm told that it wasn't too long ago in some places that it was fashionable to claim elven ancestry.

[Dr.Syn]

I've never seen them, but I believe in them (hence the username!).
Or maybe it was too much Enid Blyton growing up...

Me too. There was also another incident in my father's village. A farmer called Rumley had a 'fairy fort' on his land. This was an iron or bronze age circular fort made of clay and was overgrown by furze bushes. The farmer wanted to bulldoze it so he would not have to plough around it but none of the local men would do this as it was well known the leprechauns lived in it and no one would even go near it. He brought a man in from Cork city who agreed to bulldoze it. This man went blind within a day and died several days later. When the corn grew in the field there was a circle of corn marking where the fort was and it refusedf to ripen.

There is a Fairy Fort next to my house which was a new build. We had to get an archaeological inspection and report before work could commence. Only cost €1,400 !

[bill1953]

I've never seen them, but I believe in them (hence the username!).
Or maybe it was too much Enid Blyton growing up...

Me too. There was also another incident in my father's village. A farmer called Rumley had a 'fairy fort' on his land. This was an iron or bronze age circular fort made of clay and was overgrown by furze bushes. The farmer wanted to bulldoze it so he would not have to plough around it but none of the local men would do this as it was well known the leprechauns lived in it and no one would even go near it. He brought a man in from Cork city who agreed to bulldoze it. This man went blind within a day and died several days later. When the corn grew in the field there was a circle of corn marking where the fort was and it refusedf to ripen.

There is a Fairy Fort next to my house which was a new build. We had to get an archaeological inspection and report before work could commence. Only cost €1,400 !

There was a farmer inTralee who destroyed one and used it to fill a pond. He was fined 25000 euro which I suppose is better than going blind and dying.