A Very Large NV. Leprechaun

by Phyllis Kaltenbach

Title

A Very Large NV. Leprechaun

Artist

Phyllis Kaltenbach

Medium

Photograph - Photo And Moku Hanga

Description

My charming and rather large (6 foot), Nevada Leprechaun was just going off to play ping-pong on St. Patrick's Day. I really DID have to take a Photo of him.
The name leprechaun is derived from the Irish word leipreach�n, 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 luchrup�n,[3] from the Old Irish luchorp�n, 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 leithbr�gan stems from a folk etymology deriving the word from leith (half) and br�g (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 lioprach�n.[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 L�ti (Adventure of Fergus son of L�ti).[8] The text contains an episode in which Fergus mac L�ti, King of Ulster, falls asleep on the beach and wakes to find himself being dragged into the sea by three l�chorp�in. 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]
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 inventions or borrowed from European folklore.[18]
From Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia.

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March 24th, 2014

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