School: An Cillín (roll number 16603)
- Location:
- Killin, Co. Donegal
- Teacher: Séamus Mac Eachlainn
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1036, Page 290
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- XML “Leprechauns and Mermaids”
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- The people of this district call the Leprechauns little fairies or midgets. A Leprechaun is a little midget dressed in green pull-ups, with a black belt around his waist, a red cap on his head, and shoes with shining buckles and long pointed toes turned upwards. He is about two feet high and appears and dances in the moonlight.
He is supposed to make shoes beneath a mushroom. He has no money but is sometimes supposed to keep watch over certain pots of gold.
When he wants to ride he pulls a ben-weed (buachallán buidhe) which acts as his horse.
There was a pot of gold hidden under a fairy bush along the river Alt Mór in Drimlatafin. One night a man went out in search of this gold but he was met by a group of Leprechauns. They took him and kept him jumping the river from bank to bank, calling "jump it again, John" until morning. The Leprechauns disappeared at day-break and the man was found in an exhausted condition on the river bank sometime afterwards. Once upon a time there was a man(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Annie Teresa Boyle
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Drumlaghtafin, Co. Donegal
- Informant
- Anne Meehan
- Gender
- Female
- Age
- 77
- Address
- Drumlaghtafin, Co. Donegal
