 Before the Gaels and the Celts moved into Ireland, they supposedly lived a race of little people. Earlier references to these little people claimed that they originally lived in the water as water spirits. But once they started to inhabit the land of Ireland, they became the people of the goddess mother Danu. Once the humans came to the island, the little people gave up their land. They went from being the people of the mother goddess Danu to becoming the people of the mound. This particular group of little people would become one of the most iconic folklore in the whole world, folklore that is said to have its origins in Ireland. But before we go any further, you know what to do, please hit that subscribe button and give us a like. If you would like to help support the channel, there is a link to our Patreon down below. Welcome to esotericatlanta, my name is Bryce, and today we're going to be talking about the legends of the leprechaun. I have no Irish in me, although I have been to Ireland and it was a beautiful and super fun trip. But I do ask that you will have some patience with me as I get through the beginning part of the leprechaun's history. You see, I'm not super well versed in Celtic or Gaelic dialect. And please understand, if I do mispronounce a name, it's not, it's not a disrespect. It's just simply not really knowing the dialect that well. All right, let's get started. So the leprechaun is defined as a supernatural being in Irish folklore. It is considered part of the fairy family, which I didn't know that when I started to research, I thought that was very, very interesting. Now, a lot of people claim that there are no female leprechauns, that there are only male leprechauns. Of course, that's super strange because how do you reproduce if you don't have any females? Well, a lot of people believe that the leprechauns possibly don't die or live extremely long lives. And in fact, some people believe that the leprechauns are the disfigured or possibly deformed children of the fairy kingdom. Again, I don't know if that's my opinion, but that is a belief as to why there are no females. In our video over the changelings, we did speak about how perhaps there were some difficulties for fairies to reproduce. And I will put a link to that video down below. So maybe that's where people get this idea that the leprechauns are the unwanted children of the fairy kingdom. And then that's why the fairies got involved with humans in order to help their reproductive cycle. However, people like John O'Donovan believe that the leprechaun are actually a form of the pygmies. We did talk about pygmies a little bit in our first video covering the folklore of little people, which again, I will place down below. Now, most people when they think of the leprechaun, they think about the rainbow with the pot of gold, they know that the leprechaun is very mischievous, a little bit naughty. And in later folklore, more in our modern times, we see the leprechaun as being a shoe cobbler. What's also fascinating to note with the leprechaun is that the leprechaun wearing a green outfit is modern. That's a modern interpretation of this being. You see, before the 20th century, the leprechaun notoriously wore red. Although some people might tell you that depending on where you are in Ireland, that will depend upon the color that the leprechaun wears. Now, Ireland is not that big of a country. In fact, when I lived in England, I used to fly over Ireland to come back to the United States. And sometimes you could see Ireland from the airplane window and it's really not that big. In fact, the population of Ireland alone is the exact same population of the city of Atlanta. So we're talking about a relatively small country with these leprechauns wearing different outfits depending upon the territory where they live. Now, the first known reference we have to the leprechaun comes from a medieval Irish legend called Adventures of Ferguson's son of Letty. You see, Ferguson Mac Letty was the king of Ulster. And these were different territories that were ruled before the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1177. Now, the story goes that Ferguson Mac Letty fell asleep on the beach. While he was sleeping, he woke up to find three leprechauns trying to drag his body into the ocean. If you remember from our intro, it is possibly believed that the leprechauns first lived in the ocean before they became land bound to Ireland before average sized humans moved to Ireland. Because Ferguson Mac Letty woke up, he was able to catch his three little abductors. In fact, leprechaun is a medieval Irish word meaning small body. So again, this kind of goes back to the idea that they might be of pygmy origin, that they literally were small bodied people. But as the rule goes, because Ferguson Mac Letty had captured these leprechauns, they were supposed to now grant him three wishes. Now they say that if you were to catch a leprechaun, you might not want to take those wishes because sometimes what you get is not actually what you wished for, because like I said, the leprechauns can be slightly mischievous. And then over time, the leprechaun became super famous in the Irish tradition. In fact, most people when you say leprechaun, they'll probably think of Ireland first. People would see them, people would talk about these legends. It became much more than just folklore, so much so more than folklore that in 2009, the European Union, which Ireland or the Republic of Ireland is a part of, classified the leprechaun as a protected species. In 1989, PJ O'Hare was a pub owner in Carlingford County, Laos in Ireland. One morning, O'Hare heard screaming coming from the nearby Foy Mountain. So he went to go check it out. When he got closer to the mountain, he found a wishing well. And what he saw on the wishing well changed his life and the life of the EU's protected species forever. Because you see, on the wishing well, he found a little tiny green suit with bones that had been smothered to ashes. When O'Hare picked up the green suit, he found four gold coins in the pocket. Now, O'Hare was so proud of his findings that he ended up putting the little clothes and the coins on display in his pub. Now, one of his friends did not believe that his findings were authentic. And I can see it probably for years on him, his friend kind of teased him about the leprechaun that he had found yada, yada, yada. Well, the teasing got so relentless that his friend decided that he was going to start going on these leprechaun hunts. And so now, even to this day, in the month of March on Sundays at 2 p.m. in this town, there are official leprechaun hunts. Well, unfortunately, O'Hare eventually passed away. And when he died, he sold the family, sold his pub. And so his buddy, his friend that didn't quite believe him, went to go collect his display case of the leprechaun's clothes and his coins. The only problem was the coins were nowhere to be found. Well, a few days later, his friend was repairing a stone wall near his home when he found the coins had magically showed up inside the stone wall. After that experience of magically finding these coins again, his friend started to then experience leprechauns. At that point, his friend went from being a doubter of the authenticity of these leprechauns to fighting for their protection. You see, he believed that the leprechauns still lived in Foy Mountain. Since all the average size humans had moved to Ireland, the leprechauns had to move underground. And inside that mountain was obviously their little kingdom. So he did what anybody would do and he petitions the EU to protect the leprechauns. In fact, they figured out there's about 236 leprechauns living in Ireland to this day, most of which are probably living in Foy Mountain. And if you're ever there at Foy Mountain in Ireland, you will see a sign telling you that they are a protected species. Now we do know that there have been pygmy bodies found in the United States. And that's important to remember because you see Ireland's not the only place that apparently is home to the leprechaun. In 1917, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized Mill Inns Park in Portland, Oregon as the smallest park in the world measuring two feet. And in 1948, Oregon Journal columnist Dick Fagan reported on an official leprechaun sighting around this park. You see, it appears that the center of the park was originally supposed to be a place for a power line. And so there was a hole that had been placed in the ground, but then it got left behind. And Dick Fagan would sit in his office and watch out his window at this desolate piece of property that wasn't taken care of. There were lots of weeds. And so one day Dick Fagan decided that he was going to go out and plant some flowers in this little area. Well, apparently when he went out there to plant these flowers, he ran across a leprechaun. Now some sources say the leprechaun's name was Patrick O'Toole, while others say the leprechaun was named Dennis O'Toole. Unfortunately, Mr. Fagan is no longer with us to tell us what his first name really was. But what we do know from his findings is that this leprechaun was the patriarch of the O'Toole leprechaun colony in Portland, Oregon. Throughout the rest of his life, Dick Fagan continued to write stories about this leprechaun colony and his interactions with them. Unfortunately, Dick Fagan passed away in 1969, long before he was able to see the leprechauns become an official part of Portland. That happened in 1976, and the park officially became the leprechaun's park, and the leprechauns were officially recognized as citizens of Portland. Now I know right now Portland, Oregon is going through its own little situation with the riots, and we are constantly keeping those cities in our prayers. However, when all this dies down and we're able to travel again, I personally would love to go to Oregon to see this park and to see what the locals think about having leprechauns in their city. Now the weather in Oregon and the weather in Ireland are probably pretty similar, so maybe you could understand why leprechauns would choose a place like Oregon. However, there's one more place that I want to bring up in our story today, and that's Mobile, Alabama. Now Mobile, Alabama is hot. It's right on the gulf. It's very close to New Orleans, very, very different from the weather in Portland, Oregon, or in Ireland. But on March 14, 2006, the news came out to film a group of people who were standing around a tree claiming they had seen a leprechaun in that tree. In fact, they claimed that when you put the light up on the tree, the leprechaun disappeared, but when the light was down, you could totally see there was a leprechaun in the tree. Now this happened three days before St. Patrick's Day, and I will say the clip of this news report went viral because people in the South, I mean people in the South are my favorite people because I'm from the South, but people in the South can be really, really animated. And this group of people looking up into the tree were super stoked and super excited about seeing this phenomenon. You see down here in the South, as we've mentioned many times before, we got a lot of folklore. There's a lot of strange stuff that happens here down in the South. So seeing a supernatural being is not weird. It's just kind of like, oh dang, yep, there it is. In fact, the story went so viral that the local leprechaun hunter named Demarco Morris was interviewed on the news. Now Demarco Morris told the news that his great, great grandfather was from Ireland. He also held up an instrument and said that it was a flute passed down from his great, great grandfather to lore leprechauns. Now first people were very skeptical of Demarco Morris because, well, he's a black American. And he said his great, great grandfather was from Ireland and Irish people are pretty white. However, that didn't really ruffle my feathers because I have many friends who are black or Asian that have white ancestors. That's not uncommon. But what was really interesting about Demarco Morris is that his flute that apparently was passed down from his great, great grandfather was actually a pipe. Over time it came out that the likelihood of there being a leprechaun in the tree in Mobile, Alabama on that night was pretty low. In fact, they have a suspect, a man who is a little person who apparently just wanted to play a prank. I don't know. But it still begs the question, are there leprechauns down here in the South? Now, the story from Mobile, Alabama is quite comical, and it did put a smile on my face. And I have attached a video down below in the description box of somebody going through the story in great detail. I'm also going to attach another video in the description box that has nothing to do with leprechauns. It's a story I did many, many months ago about the Irish influence on the state of Georgia. And so if you would like to learn more about the Irish influence on this state, I would suggest you watch that video as well. All right, guys. So what do you think? Do you think the leprechauns are more than folklore? Do you think they're possibly connected to the pygmy people that were found with the giants? What do you think? Or do you think it's all just fun and games and legend and urban legend and just tradition from a particular culture? Once again, thank you to Josh McKay for doing our music and to Todd Rodbrick for helping me produce this story for you all. I know October is a crazy, exciting, a little scary month, but I am so happy to be going through all of this with each of you. Our next video, we are going to depart from little people and get more into some conspiracies around what's going on at the moment. I am looking forward to shooting those videos. I hope you all are doing well. Please stay calm. Make sure you've got food in your house and supplies in your house. And hopefully I will see you soon. God bless you all. Bye.