Leprechauns and Other Creatures

Yeah, man, you know, and I kind of hate the mailman now because he really doesn't like my dogs. And I don't know why, but now I hate him. Yeah, I kind of don't like my mail man never makes any attempt to like make peace with Robert, like if he no, he doesn't like Robert. Robert doesn't like him. He's probably a serial killer. And Robert's protecting me. So I always wonder how dogs know to hate the mailman. I don't know. It's just in their DNA. It's just hate, just to pure hate. Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edwin, I'm Michelle. All right, Michelle, Energy up, Energy up, and then we'll bring it down. Today we're going to Leprekhania, which is what that's not a word, but okay, no man. So I make references to this article that I couldn't find anywhere. I think Maddy helped with the research. I know we have the research somewhere, so if anybody needs it, we could I could provide it. It's there, It's in a file. In twenty twenty, there was this article, right, and it talked about this peculiar sighting about leprechauns. There's two teenage girls and their younger brother. They were out walking in a place called Cratlow or crat LOWI c r a Te crat Low Woods in County Clare in Ireland. I love the themed I themed element we're doing because it's all be in Ireland. This is good, this is good. They were out with their dog in an area near Limerick when they had a strange encounter. Mary O'Neill said, quote Mary O'Neill said, Oh no, I can't even that was I don't know what that was like. Was that British? Yeah, I went to British, It went to British. They'd get so offended. I eat to tell you to toy that's from the Simpsons. That's from the Simpsons. That's the going I eat. When they do a leprechaun, do they have like a an accent, like an Irish accent or from somewhere? What the yeah, I would assume because they're from Ireland. Right, does the Lucky Charms guy also have an accent? He does? Yeah? R magically delicious. I used to like Lucky Charms, but I remember my parents would not let me eat it like it was just it's all sugar. It's like a dessert. That's that's right, kids, cereals a dessert technically when you're an adult. Enjoy So anyway, Mary O'Neill said, quote, we were out walking Gypsy, our golden retriever, when we came across this tiny little man. This tiny little man. He was no more than three feet tall, with a big long beard, and he was sitting on a small stone step while mending up a pair of shoes. This sounds like the most Irish tail I've ever heard. Was he dressed in green tube or their sheep? There? God? Thanks to a patch of four leaf clover, Yeah, in a rainbow in the back. And he has you know, and it's a red beard and he has red hair. Don't forget that. Anyway. She described him as being dressed in a top Wow, dressed in a top hat and knee length breeches along with shy is it brokes on his feet. As soon as he saw them, he ran away, saying, you'll not God, you should say this part, okay. So I'm gonna message it to you, okay, can you say it okay? And it's gonna be right there. Oh you're lacking, so you won't and then he disappeared. Oh okay, Like at first I thought like what is this like this this seriously like this is this is news? Like wow. From the Irish College of Folkloristics, Professor David Murphy brought some expertise regarding this leprecnciding and said that more and more lepre concidings have been reported, even though they have been considered extinct for a long time. Wow. I love this. This is great. This is there's been Okay, I have so many questions, but anyway, continue. This is the part where I took a hard pause and just took a deeper look into these creatures and where they come from. So first the first part, right, what they actually are physically. They are said to be two to three feet tall, and they live in tiny caves underground or inside hollow tree trunks. A famous part of Irish lore. Lepre cons are known to be a type of a fairy, or as you call them, elemental right and elemental yeah, elementals, yeah, a fay elementals. People are very into the fay. Yeah, And these stories started being told as early as the eighth century, maybe before that, like Their name comes from the word lukor pond, which means small body. Hm. Cool, cool, fun fact there when they were illustrated, they look like shoemakers, cobblers, and and that's what their profession is supposed to be, is it really? Well? Why really that's what they do for a living? Because they seem to just why are they guarding gold all the time? I mean, it's cool that you ask that, because I was wondering another question, like don't fairies fly? They don't need shoes? Right, technically, well, I thought they were cobbling for humans. I thought they were, but I don't know. I don't know what they're doing. Okay, we're gonna end up with more questions and answers. Yeah, continue, sorry because we have no idea. I have no idea anyway, since that that's their profession within the fairy world, and because they are hard workers, they are usually depicted alongside a part of gold, so I'm guessing they're rich. So over the years before in Ireland and enter around the world develop the common depiction of lepracauns, which are basically old men dressed in green hats and green suits, sometimes seen smoking a pipe. Earlier drawings of these people also show them wearing red, but we have settled with green, you know, probably because of just how popular the color is within Ireland, Like I think the Irish love green. I was reading that I'm not supposed to wear green to a wedding because it'll track the attention of the fae. That's like a cultural thing. So I was like, well, fuck, what am I gonna wear? I still don't know. Actually, I think I'm just gonna wear a suit. I'm just gonna wear like a gray suit. So that's Smart's that's my move anyway. Contin Traditionally, Lepracauns are often told to possess gold and hot and they would hide them at the end of the rainbow. Oh, there's where the rainbow comes in. And if you want the pot of gold for yourself, you have to find them at the end of it. That's a trick, though, because there is no end of the room. If you catch one, you become luckier and you get three wishes. Granted I didn't know that. Oh I didn't know that either. That's exciting, but you gotta like capture a three foot tall man that'll make you a criminal. Think about something that's two or three feet tall, you have to keep a captive where you're gonna put them in a sack. All these stories we might be familiar with, right like obviously, like we know this stuff, like, oh, leprequns, it looks like this, they're green. I think they're a little bit eerie, a little bit creepy. And that's because I think of the sightings and also that movie with the leprechaun that just to me just turned it creepy. But now like there's been more reports of sightings of the leprechaun population. Oh weird, And there are theories that are popping up about this that you know, they say, can they actually be real beings still hiding in the forests and in caves? I mean, it's possible, right, But I think one of the most interesting theories was the one that they mentioned in one of these articles that said that they were being trapped where leprecauns were actually being captured and displayed around the world, and some of them managed to escape and they go into hiding because of this. Yeah, So based on that idea is we ended up researching all this stuff and we found some other encounters and more websites and just a ton of things about these sightings, one of them England, Liverpool. Nineteen sixty four, Jubilee Park people began reporting that leprechauns have been lurking around an area known as Bowling Greens. People described them being just a few inches up to a few feet tall, with beards, bushy eyebrows, in green coats. Okay, a few inches I'm more intrigued by as opposed to like feet. One of these witness accounts said that around four thirty pm in early July nineteen sixty four, he was on his way to play football when he saw tiny creatures men dressed in red and black simply looking at him. Yeh, stood in the grass. Why is that the worst? Yeah? That is just like, oh, they're just staring at him. Yeah ew ew yeah creepy. And the boy, being only ten years old at the time, ran all the way home, Mom, Mom, there's tiny men staring at me. Mom. His mother told him that leprechauns had been spotted. Instead of saying I don't believe you, she was like, leprechauns have been bought it on Jubilee Drive and Edge Lane the day before, so she knew. She just creeped out the kid even more. Why were they watching him? I mean, are they what's wrong? Are they perverts too? I don't understand. Then crowds of people showed up to the location to try and see the creatures for themselves, so the news spread. Oh man, so yeah, hilarious, Like it's like what. In another account, a person speaks of her friend named Susan, who claimed that she had seen a leprechaun in the hallway of her room the previous night. She had been sleeping when she heard rustling noises outside in the hall. She got out of bed to peek around the corner, and that's when she saw a small man of approximately two feet in height in dirty clothes with red hair no a ginger. Oh god, oh man. She made an emphasis to say that it did not look like the leprechaun on the Lucky Charms box. Okay. Many years later, the person who wrote about her friend Susan believes that the creature had not been a leprechaun, but rather a type of a creature known as Tommy knockers. Oh what's a Tommy knocker doing? Out of a cave? Tommy knockers live in mines? Yeah, I mean the story took place in Pennsylvania, which they have a lot of mines, oh god, that coal mining and stuff. And these creatures are described as being dirty and looking like little men with reddish hair. There have been many more stories of strange encounters on the website mysterious universe dot org, which is where we found a lot of this info. Anyway, sounds legitimate to me. Sounds legit. Sounds legit, I know. But also, you know, like I'm making I'm laughing, I'm about to go to Ireland where people take this shit seriously, you know, like Fay stuff, Lefrikaan stuff. That shit's real culturally, so you know that belief generally makes stuff real. You know, when I was when I was being asked a few questions about podcasting and all that stuff, and I brought up the first story I ever wrote for Scary Story podcast, and it's about little people. It's about Leprakans. It's about when is what they call them in South America. Oh interesting. Yeah, that story is called the Creatures of the Hills, and it's based on a true story. Because I think I've said it, I've mentioned it a lot, you know, I think I might have told you about it. But basically we were hiking. We're not even hiking, we're just walking exploring around this town called Chinchatto and that's where this is in the Andes Mountains in Peru, like you know, small towns and if you ever like, it's part of the touristy area and between the touristy areas anyway, so we were wanted to see this lake, which we had no reason to want to see the lake, just I guess we just want to take pictures or something. There were three of us there, and as we're walking like it's the sun starts setting. We're like, oh, we should probably get back because we're not going to be able to get up, you know, a bus back to the town, to the main town, which was a good distance away. And as I was, we're going up the hill, there's this guy and he's kind of looking at us, and we're looking at him, and he waves at us and we're like okay, So we walk up to him and he turns like his name was Eddie, and he told us that they that he was a potato farmer and basically introduce us to his family. It was really chill. He invited us to eat after, like as in he said, come back like on this day and we'll cook something or whatever. Anyway, as we're leaving, he's like, oh, and watch out for the little people. And I was looking at him just kind of like waiting for him to laugh, and he's looking at me like what are you waiting for? And he's the one that kind of smiled and said like you don't believe in those like right, and like he said, he's like, you don't believe in them, like those things are real. We've seen them. So he kind of thought it was absurd that I didn't believe them. And he's like, yeah, they come from mountains like they steal our animals sometimes and we know it to them. We've seen them, like they're there everybody. And then he just asked his wife like yeah, we've seen them, right, like yeah, they're there. They're out there. Just don't go out at night. We're like, what, By the way, if you look anywhere around you at that in that area, you'll just see just hills, just green, dark hills and no almost no houses. Like this is one of those types of towns. I mean there's the town area and there's the hills like the hills. Anyway, long story short, like as we're walking along, I could just ah, like we were just like don't do we look? Do we look? Because we would hear noises? When is this an animal? Is a dog? Would it? We're just freaking out the whole time. But the whole leprechaun slash duende thing recently played a role in uh story, like the Spanish version of true Scary Story. And that's where I'm going to close the episode with this guy. Actually, several times I've heard stories of little people. This guy, he's uh, it's actually my my girlfriend's uncle. He had this uh experience that I found hard to believe. But he's he's a he's a trustworthy guy, like he wouldn't be making He's a very serious person, like he wouldn't make this stuff up. Like he was how surprised he was. He let me record him and he tells his story of he used to work in the coastal areas of Ecuador and above a jewelry store gold Hello, like yeah, and this this building had several floors and they had like housing like units to sleep, like you know, like an apartment type of thing, and he was staying there. One night, he's looking out and he sees this little person with the hat just smiling and jumping around like he's just like dancing around, and he just goes towards the closet and just vanishes, like he just disappears heights behind it. He's like, what is this? Like what the heck? And he brings it up to people and he's like yeah, like and they tell him like, oh yeah, like we've seen him too, like we've seen him around and a second time he saw him, Actually it might have been the same time, but he described it. He was describing another like in the same unit, same apartment, but a different you know, a different occasion. He was with somebody else, like with his girlfriend or whatever in that room. It was late that she was asleep, he was asleep, and he needed to go use the bathroom. And when he turned around, he saw the same little person with the hat, just dressed in colorful clothing, just like looking at him, like smiling and trying to dance and like tap away or whatever. And why did that give me chills? Just now? I don't know why. It's bizarre, Like, ah, I get chills thinking of that stuff too, because it's like this could be real, Michelle, Like this could be real, like Bigfoot. Yeah, just like Bigfoot in his boobs, her boobs, her boobs or his boobs. We don't know, we don't know. Anyway, there was this other story in the English version of that. That story is called I think it's called The Smell of Death. And this guy he tells me a series of stories and he also has an experience with this with a leprechaun basically like the goblin or like a little creature. And the way he described them, it's the most like I get. I got chills when he was telling me because he said it was like a joker, like a gesture, like he said, like this thing had the bells at the you know, in his hats, dressed in colorful clothes and a little and he's just dancing around, smiling and laughing his way out of the room. And ah, you know, and just now, Michelle, when I was recording, I don't know if you saw me just kind of turn this way, like, Okay, this something has happened in this house. And we've been we've all we've all seen stuff. And when things disappear, the first they say, this is a Wendy, this is a leprecaun. This is a goblin. Some thing's here because they're jokesters like that, like they'll hide your stuff and then laugh about it or whatever. And things have gone missing, uh and found in really weird places. And I'm not joking here. My girlfriend lost her Apple watch a while back and it was found in the waffle maker inside of a No, not in a waffle inside of a like the you know where you store pants that you don't use the what the heck? Wow? What a little sneaky snake. Geez my god. But anyway, so you're going to Ireland, I'm going you should just catch your leprechaun and get your wishes. Well, I'm pro wishes, you know, I am. I just don't know how to store a leprikan? Like, how do you do you put them on a leash? Do you if you know how to store a leprekan? Please write in, especially before next week, because that's what I'm going to Ireland and obviously needs some some guidance before before I go. Would you put them on a leash? Would you store him? Would you tie him up with some rope? I don't know. Lucky Charms baby, chocolate candies, chocolate coins. Anyway, all these like sightings of leprecauns. You might see something there, Michelle, you might. I mean I will be wandering. I will be wandering the countryside, so jeez oh man. So anyway, that concludes the Leprechaun presentation. We will now leave Leprekhania and back. Yeah. What Broconia ProCon y? Well, you don't know the anthem to love for Connie? No, I'm just learning it, just learning it. Now, what kind of patriot? Are you? Not? A good one? I guess. So what are we going to talk about next week? Michelle? I don't know, but I think it'll be a surprise. Bye, guys, Bye,