13th May: Leprechaun Day

Today is Leprechaun Day - so here are some things you may not know about leprechauns:

1. Leprechauns evolved from water spirits which appeared in tales around the eighth century, called luchorpán, meaning "small body".
2. The first appearance of the leprechaun in the English language was in Dekker's comedy The Honest Whore, (1604): "As for your Irish lubrican, that spirit / Whom by preposterous charms thy lust hath rais'd / In a wrong circle."
3. Leprechauns have a profession - they are shoemakers. The sound that would alert you to the presence of a leprechaun nearby would be the sound of their hammers tapping nails into shoes.
4. The popular image of a leprechaun dressed entirely in Green and wearing a tall hat is really a recent invention. Before the 20th century, Leprechauns were described as wearing red jackets and tri-cornered hats - and overcoats in wet and windy weather.
5. The leprechauns own the legendary pots of Gold at the end of the rainbow.
6. Anyone who manages to catch a leprechaun or steal some of his treasure, may be able to strike a bargain - Leprechauns are said to be able to grant their captor three wishes in exchange for their freedom.
7. They are notorious practical jokers, and traditionally often blamed for things that go wrong. There is a legend in which a man persuades a leprechaun to show him which tree his treasure was buried under. However, the man didn't have a shovel with him, so he let the leprechaun go, tied his red garter to the tree so he would recognise it, and went to get a shovel. When he came back, every single tree had a red garter tied to it.
8. Leprechauns do not only live in Ireland. They have similar legends in Holland, where they are called Kabouter, and on the Isle of Man, where they are known as fenodyree. In Portland, Oregon, there is a small landscaped garden, just two feet long, in the middle of a road, on the spot where a reporter named Dick Fagan claimed to have seen a leprechaun digging. Fagan captured the leprechaun and, as legend dictated, asked for three wishes. One wish was to have his own park, but as was often the case in such stories, the leprechaun tricked him, so that his park was just two feet long!
9. There are no female leprechauns - they are all solitary males. In case you're wondering how they get new ones, they are said to be the deformed children of fairies.
10. There has actually been a law filed with The EU to protect the leprechaun species! As recently as 1989, in Carlingford, Ireland, a publican called P.J. O'Hare claimed to have found the skeleton of a leprechaun in a well and put it on display in his pub. According to modern legend, there are only 236 leprechauns left in Ireland, and they live on a patch of land near Carlingford - which is officially their protected habitat.