Leprechauns (Earth)
Leprechauns represent the playful and resourceful qualities of the earth. By poking fun at our desire for riches, the leprechauns teach us detachment and equanimity in relationship to material wealth and status.
Invoking the Qualities of Playfulness and Mirth.
The leprechaun is a small, mischievous, and wizened man who often appears dressed in fanciful clothes such as a red vest, green trousers, and a conical hat. Aligned with the otherworldly powers of the subterranean earth, he knows its hidden treasures and is therefore very rich. When encountered cobbling in a lonely place, humans torment him to relinquish his golden guinea purse or lead them to a crock of gold. Through cleverness and trickery, he typically outwits his captors and escapes.
The leprechaun is known by many local names throughout Ireland. All manner of similar dwarves and gnomes inhabit the stories of western Europe, especially Germany and France, particularly Celtic Brittany in France. The leprechaun often lives in the ground or in rock caverns and caves. Though commonly connected with the faeries or known as the cobbler to the faeries, the leprechaun is a singular otherworldly being associated with the underground and its riches, especially gold and hidden treasure.
Most commonly, a leprechaun appears as a small and mischievous man, a wee cobbler, who possesses an inexhaustible purse of golden coins or hidden treasure. Typically encountered at the thresholds of time, just before dawn or after night has fallen, a leprechaun will often be dressed like a country gentleman of the last century, wearing a fanciful red vest with gold buttons or a gentleman's dress coat with large buttons, tight fitting trousers or knee-breeches, and curious shoes with large metal buckles or boots with curled-up and pointed toes. Occasionally, a leprechaun will befriend a poor farmer or a child by leading them to hidden treasure or leaving a guinea in an old chest each night. Some leprechauns live merrily in the wine cellars of old and noble families - as long as good wine is kept in the cellar. Nonetheless, most leprechauns are seen cobbling a single shoe in a hedgerow or out in the bog. When chased, he may disappear as though swallowed by the ground.
A common leprechaun story tells of a man, or occasionally a woman, who catches a leprechaun cobbling on a single shoe and makes a "close prisoner" of him. Until he tells where the gold is, the leprechaun has no chance of getting away. Taking the man out to an old ring fort where the faeries live, the leprechaun shows him a big ragwort, and says, "Dig under this weed tomorrow morning and you'll get a crock of gold." "Wait," he says, "and we'll mark it. Take off my red garter and tie it around the [ragwort], and you'll know where to dig in the morning." The man does exactly that and lets the wee man go. When he comes out in the morning, there is a red garter on every ragwort in the field, thousands of them, exactly the same size and pattern.
Even with a tight grasp about a leprechaun, the wee man can only be trapped by an unbroken stare. Many stories of leprechauns tell of his imitating a lover's voice from behind, alerting the captor to some alleged danger, creating a ruckus, and the like. A likely story from Ireland goes like this:
"The clocharachán [a local name for a leprechaun] makes shoes inside a little rock cavern and he has sparán na scillinge: every time you'd look. the purse there would be a shilling there. You'd seldom see the clocharachán and it is very difficult to catch him. A man heard that he was in some rock cavern or other. He came upon him one evening and gripped him firmly.
",give me your purse! " said the matt.
"Let me go," said the clocharachán, "and I'll give you the purse."
If you took our eye off him he'd get away from you.
"Get a red-hot spit," said the clocharachán, "and stick it in his backside!"
The man looked all around him and the clocharachán departed and took his purse away with him!"
IF YOU ARE DRAWN TO THIS ORACLE, you are attracting the playful and resourceful qualities of the earth. The leprechaun is boundlessly rich. Each time he opens his silken purse, he finds another golden guinea. Yet his presence often has a double meaning. On the one hand, he beckons the rich resources of the earth toward you, tempts you, and may bountifully reward you. On the other hand, he often turns your attachment toward wealth into a standing joke in which you are the principal player.
The presence of this oracle suggests that you are being tempted by material resources in the form of money, great opportunities, or a "deal." These material resources may come, but more likely, they are ephemeral. Being a natural trickster and mischief-maker, there is no telling what the leprechaun's influence will be. There is no human logic predicting his rare gifts of hidden treasure. There is only a slim hope that your present circumstances will result in making you rich or famous.
Spiritually, the tempting yet ephemeral riches of the leprechaun invite you to cultivate detachment and equanimity with regard to material treasure.
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