Leprechaun (word of the week)

So, we're back :) And can you guess where we went on holiday?

This week's word is leprechaun, an Irish word deriving from lupracan or luchorpan. Lu meaning little or small and corpan meaning body or person (from the Latin corpus).

In Irish folklore a leprechaun is indeed a small person, being a sprite or a goblin with the appearance of a tiny old man wearing a large red hat. The first mention of a Leprechaun in Irish literature dates back to an 8th century book and since then the Leprechaun has never looked back, appearing in books, advertising and even a film starring Sean Connery! (Darby O'Gill and the Little People)

The main myth attached to the Leprechaun is that he is the shoe-maker for the tuatha de danaan and keeps the gold they pay him for repairing their shoes in a crock or pot that he hides at the end of a rainbow. Most stories involving Leprechauns revolve around someone catching a Leprechaun and trying to force him to tell where the crock of gold is hidden. But Leprechauns are sneaky and clever and the stories generally end up with an escaped Leprechaun and an empty-handed captor.

And to finish off I'd like to give a quick plug to a fascinating museum that I'd recommend to anyone insterested in folklore and who happens to be passing through Dublin. The new National Leprechaun Museum is indeed about Leprechauns but it is more than that, it is about irish folklore and the art of storytelling and well worth a visit. The link for the museum can be found in the sources listed below and even if you're not lucky enough to visit Ireland, the website is well worth a visit as it has some really interesting pages on Leprechauns as well as other Irish myths and stories.

Sources:
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, 2010
 Chambers Concise Dictionary, 1989
The Dictionary of Mythology by J.A. Coleman, 2008 (ISBN: 9781841934242)
National Leprechaun Museum  [Accessed 30.03.2011]

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