LEP-ruh-kawn
A solitary fairy shoemaker famed for guarding hidden gold.
Unlike the sociable "trooping fairies," the leprechaun is a solitary figure, traditionally a cobbler for the other sídhe folk, and the keeper of a hidden crock of gold. A human who catches one can supposedly force him to reveal its location — though he is notorious for trickery, and rarely honors the bargain. The name likely derives from Old Irish "luchorpán," a "small body."
Traditional descriptions place him as a small, solitary old man dressed as a working cobbler — a leather apron, not the bright green suit of later popular imagery, which is largely a 19th- and 20th-century embellishment. His gold is generally explained as payment accumulated over an unnaturally long life spent making and mending shoes for the rest of the sídhe folk, hidden away rather than displayed.
The earliest form of the story is in the medieval tale Echtra Fergus mac Léti, where King Fergus meets the "little bodies" while asleep on the shore, and takes a magic shoe from them. The name luchorpán appears there, and probably comes from lú, "small", and corp, "body". Most of the familiar leprechaun lore, the pot of gold and the three wishes, was set down in the 18th and 19th centuries, when writers such as Thomas Crofton Croker in Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland made him a standard figure.
Read more: Creatures of Irish mythology →
| Cycle | Entries here | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| The Mythological Cycle | 21 | The oldest of the four cycles, telling of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the successive invasions of Ireland. |
| The Fenian Cycle | 7 | Tales of Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band of warriors, the Fianna, set generations after the Ulster Cycle in a world of hunting, romance, and roaming adventure. |
| The Ulster Cycle | 12 | The heroic tales of Conchobar mac Nessa's court at Emain Macha, centered on Cú Chulainn and the great cattle raid of the Táin Bó Cúailnge. |
| The Historical Cycle | 1 | Also the Cycle of the Kings — legendary and semi-legendary tales of Ireland's High Kings, treated by medieval scribes as genuine national history. |
Leprechauns are a figure of Irish folklore rather than a documented reality, but they're one of the oldest and most consistently described fairy figures in the tradition, distinct from the sociable "trooping fairies" who appear in groups.
Traditional accounts describe a small, solitary old man, typically dressed as a cobbler with a leather apron, rather than the bright green suit and buckled hat of later popular imagery.
As a solitary craftsman among the fairy folk, the leprechaun is said to have accumulated payment for his shoemaking over a very long life, and hides it in a crock — the source of the buried-treasure motif — though he's notorious for trickery and rarely honors a bargain to reveal where it's hidden.