You are priveleged, in my opinion, if you believe in the LUCK OF THE IRISH.
Of course, you don't have to be Irish to believe or understand such a concept.
Your only limitation is your imagination
married with instances you have witnessed yourself, or maybe you have heard the stories from older people.
I am only twenty six years of age and since I was a child, I was always fascinated by the stories of old.
I suppose that they is not too many people my age that pay any attention to folklore, but I always had an appreciation of those that went before me. Why? Well, only for those before me, I would not be here.
A leprechaun is as real to me as a ban si. Sorry about that but there is no way to spell ban si as it should be spelled because of html limitations with regard to the Irish language. So please allow me to explain: A ban si ( pronounced ban and she ) was always said to be an oldish woman, not really from this world, but from another world connected to this one, through historical links.
A ban si would appear the night before a family death. Her apparition wasn't always obvious and what I mean is that the person designated to pass to the next world would be the person that she would appear to.
However, her "wailing" or type of lamenting song could be heard by the neighbours.
I suppose that an analogy could be drawn to "the grim reaper", but as the luck of the Irish would have it, this woman was their friend and didn't signify a horrible death, as the grim reaper image would. The ban si was an integral part of Irish rural life and when she was heard wailing, then everyone knew that a friend would be passing over to the other side. The other side meant in Ireland, heaven. The predominant religion at the time was ROMAN CATHOLIC. As you know, everyone that worked hard and had good family values, automatically went to heaven.
A leprechaun, as the luck of the Irish would have it, was a friend to the Irish. A leprechaun was always a man. Sorry ladies, I'm not sure why that was. Perhaps the women had enough to do.
However, a leprechaun was small or low in stature, but always high in wisdom and foresight. Where the ban si was a precursor for an impending death, a leprechaun could be relied upon to alleviate the hardship, and believe me, the Irish went through their fair share of it.
A leprechaun epitomised the Irish culture at the time. A galley humour, if you will. A positive outlook and attitude when the chips were really down.
For example, during the famine years, grass was eaten. Thats fine for a herbivorous cow, but needless to say, humans are not designed to live solely on grass. No vegetarian diet recommends grass to put it another way. Potatoes, were destroyed by blight, a fungal disease that destroyed potatoes. As you know, anyone could exist on potatoes as they are an excellent carbohydrate source. So, just to complete my point, Irish people were reduced to eating grass and often the rotting remains of potatoe plants.
Now isin't that as hard as hardship goes?
So, a galley humour was necessary to get through the day.
And this is where the leprauchan came into play.
When times are hard, you need friends, and leprauchans did their job.
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