The Lazy Leprechaun
�1999 C.J.Brown
Everyone has heard of the Leprechaun's crocks of gold, but what most humans do not realize is that, unlike other fairies who rely on fairy glamour to make false gold, the Leprechauns have acquired their wealth though honest labor.
Leprechauns are the somemakers of elven-kind. They make boots of red leather for the elves, shoes of dried leaves for the Spriggens, and slippers of gossamer and moonbeams for the fairies. They carefully save the real gold they receive as payment in black clay crocks, which they hide at the ends of the rainbow so that human-kind cannot find and steal it.
Seumas McTegue was a
Leprechaun. But, unlike his father, his uncles or his brothers, Seumas
hated making shoes. When his brother asked him to help stitch sealskin
boots for the Selkies, Seumas tangled the magic thread so badly that it
took a week for his brother to untie the knots. When his uncle asked him
to cobble a pair of heavy work boots for the Knocker down the lane, Seumas
left so many nails sticking throught the soles that the poor Knocker
couldn't walk for a month.
Seumas' father, Tegue, tried to tempt him to work by showing him the fairy gold Tegue had been paid for crafting a fine pair of shoes for a Nuchlavis.
Seumas only shrugged. "Gold is beautiful, Father, but so is sunlight and I don't have to lift a finger to earn that."
Tegue would shake his head in dismay. "The day will come, Seumas, when you will wish you had a crock of your own gold," he would say. "It isn't natural for a Leprechaun to be lazy."
Seumas would only laugh and wander away to study the secrets of moonbeams or earthworms. He spent more time studying ways to avoid work than he spent working.
And that is how it came about that Seumas was sleeping in the shade of an old oak tree when Tom McDougall, the blacksmith caught him.
"Ho! Ho!, M'wee man!", shouted Tom merrily. "I've caught you fair and square and I'll take my three wishes now."
Seumas looked sheepish as he dangled by his coat collar from Tom's fingers, but nodded agreement that Tom was, indeed, entitled to three wishes.
"For my fist wish I'll take your crock of gold coins."
Seumas doubled over with laughter. "I've-got-no-crock of-gold!" he sputtered between giggles.
"Every Leprechaun has a crock of gold," insisted Tom.
"Not this one, Boy-o!", said Seumas between giggles. "You've wasted your first wish."
Now, Tom was no fool. He knew that a captured Leprechaun might try to trick his way to freedom, but fairy honor prevented him from telling a bold-faced lie. Tom shook Seumas roughly till he stopped giggling and started to look even greener than usual.
"It would have been better for you if you had a crock of gold," said Tom, giving Seumas another shake just for good measure. "Since you've got no gold to give me, my second wish is that you'll do all my work from this day till I let you go."
Seumas swallowed hard. "And what would you be wanting for your third wish?" he asked, hoping that Tom would ask for something that might suggest a way to escape.
"I'll make my third wish when I've had time to think about it." said Tom, tucking Seumas into his coat pocket.
From that day forward Seumas found himself doing all Tom's work. Tom kept one end of a green ribbon tied around Seumas' waist and the other end of the ribbon around his finger. Whenever they were alone, Tom would pull Seumas from his coat pocket. Whenever there was anyone else about Tom would pop Seumas into the pocket.
Seumas found himself making iron shoes for horses instead of gossamer slippers for fairies. The work was hard and dirty and when Seumas wasn't hammering iron into horseshoes he was squashed down into Tom's coat pocket with Tom's hand firmly on top of him.
Tom never untied the ribbon or removed his coat even when he went to bed, so poor Seumas had no chance to escape.
Tom had always been a good blacksmith, but with Seumas' help, his business prospered. People said that horses wearing shoes from Tom's smithy could run like the wind and never go lame. Tom soon began to accumulate a crock of his own gold.
One day a pretty young lady named Brigid Kelly stopped by the smithy. Tom took one look at her and knew he wanted her to be his wife.
Tom pulled Seumas from his pocket and made his third wish:"I wish to marry Brigid Kelly," he said.
Within the month Brigid found herself falling in love with Tom. He was kind, clever and his business was prosperous. It did not take much of Seumas' magic to bring about the marriage.
On their wedding night Tom prepared to climb into bed. As always, he was wearing his coat with Seumas in the pocket and the green ribbon tied around his finger.
Brigid looked at him curiously. "Where you planning to wear your coat to bed, husband?" she asked.
Tom smiled sheepishly and slid the ribbon from his finger. The moment Tom hung his coat on the peg behind the door, Seumas leaped out the window to freedom. Tom smiled as he watched the Leprechaun leaping over the shamrocks and clover to freedom.
Tom and Brigid lived happily ever after. They were as generous with their money as they were with their love. They had many children and lived to an old age.
As for Seumas, when he got to his father's home, he took up the trade of fairy shoemaker with a will. He soon had his own fine crock of fairy gold and no one ever again accused him of being lazy.
To another
Leprechaun story