A week later, Seamus was trying to think of something to do that didn’t involve spending money, since he had by now found out that he’d been tricked, and he couldn’t go back and find the leprechaun because there hadn’t been any rain or rainbows all week. Seamus decided to go to the local museum. He was greeted by the curator, a short, wizened old man with a pipe and a name tag that said “Leth”. Seamus asked about it, and the old man replied, “I know it’s an unusual name. It’s short for Lethter. See, me mam wanted to name me Lester, but she had a lisp. So, Leth Brogan at your service” he bowed. “May I show you our newest exhibit? It’s very historically important, and our little museum’s extremely lucky to have it.” The curator showed Seamus into the one well-lit room in the building. There Seamus saw a display case made of bullet-proof glass two feet thick, holding a single tiny gold coin that looked very familiar. When he asked the curator, the old man replied, “Oh, that’s the rarest coin in the world. There don’t seem to be any others like it anywhere. It’s a Finn Mac Coul farthing, and dates back to before the time o’ King Arthur.”
“Such a little coin…” muttered Seamus. “Is it valuable?” he asked, beginning to get a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Well, sure it’s not for sale at any price,” replied the curator, wiping the display case with a rag, “but if someone was to find another, any collector would pay whatever was asked. Why, if you filled a cauldron the size of a bathtub with gold, it would be just enough to buy that little coin there.”
Seamus exploded, “He tricked me again, he tricked me again, next time there’s a rainbow I’ll kill him!” and stormed out of the museum. Mr. Leth Brogan followed Seamus to the front door and called after him, “Sir, wouldn’t you like to stay and see our collection of shoe buckles? It’s quite impressive…”, but Seamus kept running down the street.
The curator sat down, used the rag to shine the buckles on his shoes, mused aloud, “What an amazin’ly stupid man”, and was gone.
© John M. Munzer
Showing posts with label Leprechaun Story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leprechaun Story. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Chasing Rainbows, Part 3
Seamus, still gripping the coin tightly in case the leprechaun tried any tricks, found Sean’s car, and with a squeal of tires he was on the road back home. After a few miles, he noticed a building he hadn’t seen before, and slowed down to investigate. The sign said “Lou Corpan’s Little Shop O’ Wonder”, and it definitely had not been there yesterday. Curiosity overcame Seamus’ rage, and he parked the car and went inside.
The shop hadn’t been there yesterday, but it looked like one of those antique shops that’s been around even longer than its merchandise, with hardwood floors scuffed and worn with age, and nooks and crannies everywhere that had no apparent function. But the items on the display stands somehow gave the impression of being far older than the things you usually find in antique shops. For example, the shirt on the mannequin in front was a style that must have been a thousand years old. Yet the shirt gleamed white – seemed even to shimmer, as if generating its own light. The label on the stand read “St. Patrick’s Lorica – the genuine item!” There were swords, not the decorative swords you usually find in these places, but unadorned, heavy-looking things that were basically really BIG butcher’s knives. One in particular looked as if you could shave with it, if you didn’t mind the risk of shaving your head right off. And there was a heavy, black iron cauldron that caught Seamus’ attention – it looked like it might be the sort to hold a leprechaun’s hoarded gold. But as he approached, he suddenly felt very cold, and the thing seemed to hum with menace, so he backed away again, knocking over an iron coat rack as he did so. He spun around and tried, too late, to catch it, as it fell onto the specially sharp-looking sword – and as the two-inch-thick iron post touched the sword, there was a noise that sounded something like “sssrrik”, and the coat rack fell into two pieces, sliced through as neatly and easily as with a laser.
A moment after the crash, a short, bearded man came out of a back room looking around for the source of the noise. He pulled a pipe out of his mouth as he approached Seamus to greet him. The shopkeeper was dressed in old, shabby brown clothes, except for his shoes, which were new and had shiny buckles on them. In a deep, rolling baritone which was surprising from a man four feet tall, he waved off Seamus’ apologies and said,
“Welcome to my shop. I’m Lou Corpan, owner and operator. Don’t worry about the coat rack, it’s worthless, just junk to foist on the ignorant customers. But you, sir, you look like an intelligent lad, one who’d only be lookin’ for somethin’ worthwhile. Would you be interested in purchasing any of our rare and exotic items? I have here…” -and now the shopkeeper demonstrated each item as he named it, moving with dizzying speed- “a shirt that makes the wearer invulnerable” (so saying, he shot at the mannequin in front with a crossbow as big as Seamus, but the bolt shattered against the shimmering garment) “a harp that changes the seasons” (with a strum the sky outside suddenly turned gray with snow, and with another strum it was spring again), “a cauldron that can raise the dead” (pointing to the humming cauldron, but, Seamus noticed, not touching it), “oh, I wouldn’t touch that golden bowl if I were you, sir, it’ll put you to sleep for a thousand years” (Seamus hastily pulled his hand away from the tempting glint, and down went another coat rack with a “sssrrik”) “I see you’ve already found the sword that can cut anything in the world in half, don’t worry, I’ll clean that up later … there’s also a cloak that makes the wearer” (he whipped the cloak around himself and vanished suddenly, but his voice went on) invisible” whip, and the shopkeeper had reappeared, “A cap that lets you (here Lou stuck his head into an aquarium full of murky water and dark, wriggly, eel-like fish, and continued speaking without pause) “breathe underwater, and in here are the last snakes in Ireland since St. Patrick chased them away” (he tugged playfully on the tail of one of the eels, which snapped at him) “and good riddance too, and we have a rose that never withers, been here for ages, never even watered it, and all kinds of amazin’ things. What do you think, sir? As a special, since we’ve just opened and you’re our first customer, you can have anything you like, for just one coin, no matter how small.” So saying, Lou Corpan, owner and operator, seemed to notice that his head was still underwater, and pulled it out of the aquarium. When he removed the cap, his hair wasn’t even wet. “Oh, and I also sell shoes with lovely shiny buckles – make ‘em meself, right here, all sizes.”
“I want” said Seamus, decidedly, “an inexhaustible supply of money.”
“I have the very thing right here” replied Lou, snatching something from a display case. “A silver coin that returns to its owner after it’s spent. You go to the store, buy what you need, pay with the coin, and when you leave it’s back in your pocket and you can spend it somewhere else. I’ll trade you this coin for whatever money you have with you, just ‘cause you look like a hard-workin’ man who deserves a break.”
Seamus, of course, should have known better than to trust anyone who said he looked like a hard-working man, but he was still reeling from his disappointment with the rainbow, and agreed to the trade. As Seamus left the shop and drove away, Lou pulled a silver coin from his pocket and grinned, saying to himself, “O’ course, I am still the coin’s owner, the silly man never asked for a receipt”, and disappeared, along with the shop.
(To be continued...)
© John M. Munzer
The shop hadn’t been there yesterday, but it looked like one of those antique shops that’s been around even longer than its merchandise, with hardwood floors scuffed and worn with age, and nooks and crannies everywhere that had no apparent function. But the items on the display stands somehow gave the impression of being far older than the things you usually find in antique shops. For example, the shirt on the mannequin in front was a style that must have been a thousand years old. Yet the shirt gleamed white – seemed even to shimmer, as if generating its own light. The label on the stand read “St. Patrick’s Lorica – the genuine item!” There were swords, not the decorative swords you usually find in these places, but unadorned, heavy-looking things that were basically really BIG butcher’s knives. One in particular looked as if you could shave with it, if you didn’t mind the risk of shaving your head right off. And there was a heavy, black iron cauldron that caught Seamus’ attention – it looked like it might be the sort to hold a leprechaun’s hoarded gold. But as he approached, he suddenly felt very cold, and the thing seemed to hum with menace, so he backed away again, knocking over an iron coat rack as he did so. He spun around and tried, too late, to catch it, as it fell onto the specially sharp-looking sword – and as the two-inch-thick iron post touched the sword, there was a noise that sounded something like “sssrrik”, and the coat rack fell into two pieces, sliced through as neatly and easily as with a laser.
A moment after the crash, a short, bearded man came out of a back room looking around for the source of the noise. He pulled a pipe out of his mouth as he approached Seamus to greet him. The shopkeeper was dressed in old, shabby brown clothes, except for his shoes, which were new and had shiny buckles on them. In a deep, rolling baritone which was surprising from a man four feet tall, he waved off Seamus’ apologies and said,
“Welcome to my shop. I’m Lou Corpan, owner and operator. Don’t worry about the coat rack, it’s worthless, just junk to foist on the ignorant customers. But you, sir, you look like an intelligent lad, one who’d only be lookin’ for somethin’ worthwhile. Would you be interested in purchasing any of our rare and exotic items? I have here…” -and now the shopkeeper demonstrated each item as he named it, moving with dizzying speed- “a shirt that makes the wearer invulnerable” (so saying, he shot at the mannequin in front with a crossbow as big as Seamus, but the bolt shattered against the shimmering garment) “a harp that changes the seasons” (with a strum the sky outside suddenly turned gray with snow, and with another strum it was spring again), “a cauldron that can raise the dead” (pointing to the humming cauldron, but, Seamus noticed, not touching it), “oh, I wouldn’t touch that golden bowl if I were you, sir, it’ll put you to sleep for a thousand years” (Seamus hastily pulled his hand away from the tempting glint, and down went another coat rack with a “sssrrik”) “I see you’ve already found the sword that can cut anything in the world in half, don’t worry, I’ll clean that up later … there’s also a cloak that makes the wearer” (he whipped the cloak around himself and vanished suddenly, but his voice went on) invisible” whip, and the shopkeeper had reappeared, “A cap that lets you (here Lou stuck his head into an aquarium full of murky water and dark, wriggly, eel-like fish, and continued speaking without pause) “breathe underwater, and in here are the last snakes in Ireland since St. Patrick chased them away” (he tugged playfully on the tail of one of the eels, which snapped at him) “and good riddance too, and we have a rose that never withers, been here for ages, never even watered it, and all kinds of amazin’ things. What do you think, sir? As a special, since we’ve just opened and you’re our first customer, you can have anything you like, for just one coin, no matter how small.” So saying, Lou Corpan, owner and operator, seemed to notice that his head was still underwater, and pulled it out of the aquarium. When he removed the cap, his hair wasn’t even wet. “Oh, and I also sell shoes with lovely shiny buckles – make ‘em meself, right here, all sizes.”
“I want” said Seamus, decidedly, “an inexhaustible supply of money.”
“I have the very thing right here” replied Lou, snatching something from a display case. “A silver coin that returns to its owner after it’s spent. You go to the store, buy what you need, pay with the coin, and when you leave it’s back in your pocket and you can spend it somewhere else. I’ll trade you this coin for whatever money you have with you, just ‘cause you look like a hard-workin’ man who deserves a break.”
Seamus, of course, should have known better than to trust anyone who said he looked like a hard-working man, but he was still reeling from his disappointment with the rainbow, and agreed to the trade. As Seamus left the shop and drove away, Lou pulled a silver coin from his pocket and grinned, saying to himself, “O’ course, I am still the coin’s owner, the silly man never asked for a receipt”, and disappeared, along with the shop.
(To be continued...)
© John M. Munzer
Monday, March 8, 2010
Chasing Rainbows, Part 2
It was the first idea Seamus O’Reilly had ever had. So naturally, he thought it was brilliant. It had come to him in a flash, as he looked out the window and saw the rainbow.
"The leprechaun's pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! Of course!" cried Seamus. "It's simple! You go to the end of the rainbow, catch the leprechaun, and he has to give you his pot of gold! I've seen the pictures in books, it's a cauldron the size of a bathtub filled with gold coins, worth a million dollars each!"
Seamus had been looking out the window of his run-down little shack, watching the rain fall, watching the roof leak, watching the two-foot weeds waving in the wind, watching the cat claw the furniture. But when he saw the rainbow, he knew he’d found the way to get enough money to pay someone to fix everything.
Seamus knew that he couldn't run fast enough to catch the rainbow (and anyway, running was too much work), so he borrowed his friend Sean's car, promising that when he got the gold, he'd buy Sean a new convertible. That is, he promised himself - Sean was out for a walk, and there wasn't time to find Sean and ask to use the car. But Seamus knew all would be forgiven once he bought Sean a convertible. Seamus floored the accelerator and drove East for all he was worth.
Now, most people know that you can't reach the end of the rainbow. It's an optical illusion, a trick played on the eyes by the light. You may as well try to walk into a movie screen and help the hero save the day. However, magic doesn't obey the rules of science. Science merely explains how things happen. Magic is when things that can't possibly happen, happen. Seamus didn't know anything about science, because he’d never bothered to learn. But he knew the rules of magic, and the rules said that you could get to the end of the rainbow, catch a leprechaun, and demand his gold. So because he didn't know he couldn't, Seamus actually arrived at the end of the rainbow.
The lucky dog.
It was beautiful, too. Imagine that light is a liquid instead of just light. Imagine that you could pour yourself a glass of red light, and drink it like water. Imagine that it tastes different than orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple light. Now imagine a waterfall made of liquid light, in searing bright colors. And now imagine standing under it.
It was beautiful, but Seamus never noticed, because he was looking for the leprechaun. He tried the green stripe first, because all the leprechauns he'd ever seen in pictures wore green, and so, thought Seamus, it must be their favorite color. If he'd thought a little harder, he would have realized that leprechauns wear green to blend into the grass so people like Seamus can't find them. Fortunately for Seamus, green WAS the favorite color of this particular leprechaun, and he did love to lie in it and rainbow-bathe (like sun-bathing, only green light doesn't burn you so badly, especially when you're a leprechaun). Seamus saw a man lying on the grass, no more than two feet tall. The little man lay snoring gently, eyes closed, pipe clamped between his teeth. His mouth seemed to be curled permanently into the smirk of a man who knows he’s the only one who got the joke, and is so pleased with himself that he doesn’t even mind that the joke was on him. The light glinted off the shiny buckles on his shoes. In a moment Seamus had grabbed the leprechaun by the back of the collar, lifted him off the ground, and was yelling "Gold! Give me your gold!"
"What? Who? Which?" piped a sleepy, startled little tenor voice. "Oh, it's another of the Big People, is it? Right, then, put me down, close your eyes and hold out your hand, and I'll run home and get the gold for you. Can't have you watch while I run home, otherwise you'll know where I live and be poppin’ in at all hours, and I can't have that."
"I don't think so, little man" sneered Seamus. "I've read the stories, and I know the rules. If I take my eyes off you for even a second, you can disappear, and you won't have to give me anything. No, I have you, and you're going to tell me where the gold is, and I'm not going to let you go until I've got the pot of gold in my hand."
"Oh, you've heard that one, have you? I'll have to have words with me cousin for lettin’ the word get out. Well, since you're so smart, what else do you know about the Little People?"
Seamus didn't know very many things, so when he did know something, he couldn't resist showing off. In the tone of a professor giving a lecture, he began:
"Leprechaun: from the Old Irish words luchorpan, or 'little body', and leathbrogan, or 'maker of shoes'."
"Aye, the English never could keep their Gaelic words straight. That's why they told everyone to stop speakin’ it."
"Don't interrupt, I'm trying to tell you about yourself."
"Fair enough."
"Leprechauns are the guardians of vast hoards of gold left behind by Danish invaders in the year... well, quite some time ago. They are greedy, and add to their hoard by stealing gold wherever they find it."
"Not at all like humans, o' course."
"Will you be quiet? They are also the shoemakers of the fairy kingdom..."
"I'm particularly proud of me buckles, have you noticed them?"
"...AND", continued Seamus, ignoring both comment and buckles, "when caught, must reveal the whereabouts of their gold in order to buy their freedom. Now, where is it?"
"This is robbery, you know. If someone three times your size grabbed you and demanded that you give him all your money, you'd call it a muggin’, and have him arrested. And how do you propose to explain your sudden wealth to the tax collectors? They'll know you didn't earn it, and so they'll know you stole it, and you'll end up in prison for life."
"Don't bother stalling, little man. The rules say you've got to give me the gold; and if the rules say so, it's rightfully mine. Besides, who's going to arrest me for stealing from a leprechaun?"
"Any honest judge would throw the book at you. Oh, very well, it's this way" the leprechaun pointed. "After all, it's only all the money I have, I've only been saving it for a thousand years, why should I complain about losing it?" he added, as Seamus carried him in the direction he had indicated. "It's not like it's mine or anything, is it?"
“No, it’s mine now”, gloated Seamus. The leprechaun muttered something in Gaelic, which I won’t translate because this is a children’s story. He tried several more ways of bribing or tricking Seamus, but the thing about a person whose brain is too small to hold more than one idea is that he can’t be distracted from that idea by anything – there’s no room for another idea to get in and sidetrack him. In other words, Seamus was too stupid for the leprechaun to trick him.
Finally, they arrived at the leprechaun’s house, and though the little man tried to convince Seamus to release him “So I can go in and get me pot of gold, see. You’re too big to get through the door…” , Seamus wouldn’t be fooled, and the leprechaun sighed and waved a hand irritably, and suddenly the door was big enough for Seamus to walk in. The leprechaun directed Seamus into the kitchen, pointed to the stove, and said, “Well, there it is, you horrible man. Take it and choke.”
“What, it’s in the oven?”
“No, you fool, it’s sitting right there on the back burner. My pot of gold. Right in front of you.”
Seamus looked again, and there, indeed, was a pot – a saucepan, six inches wide, with a non-stick coating, and a single tiny golden coin sitting in the middle of it. Seamus shifted his grip on the leprechaun to choke him, and bellowed,
“What?!?!?! THAT’S the legendary pot of gold?!?!?! It’s supposed to be a bathtub-sized cauldron full of gold coins worth millions, billions, trillions, whatever’s bigger than trillions!!! WHERE IS THE REAL ONE, YOU LITTLE …” and at this point Seamus used some more words that I won’t write down because this is a children’s story.
“Ick eek oak-eek hock ike ock” choked the leprechaun, who was turning blue, and didn’t like it because it clashed with his green clothes.
Seamus loosened his hold slightly, and the leprechaun gasped for air.
“What was that?”
‘I said, it’s the only pot I’ve got” panted the leprechaun. “How would I cook in a pot the size of your bathtub? I’d never budge it! YOU’D never budge it! Do you know how heavy gold is? You’d need a crane and a coupla trucks to cart off a cauldron of gold! And you’d spend half of it on the hauling fees! Anyway, I like that pot” he added sulkily. “Perfect for makin’ soup, that pot is.”
“But the hoarded gold from the Danish invaders! There was tons o’ the stuff!”
“Aye, sure there was, a thousand years ago when I got it. But I’ve spent it, haven’t I? Had to buy groceries, didn’t I? Even a ton o’ gold don’t last forever, you know.”
“Make another pot with your magic, then! Big! Pot! Of! Gold! NOW!!!!”
“It don’t work like that, you madman! The only gold you can make with magic is fairy gold that disappears as soon as it leaves the fairy world! If I gave you that, you’d just come back and assault me again! But this is a real pot, used by a real leprechaun, and has real gold in it! That’s all the rules call for, and that’s all I’ve got! The rules don’t say it has to be a big pot, or that it has to be full o’ gold – just a pot with gold in it. Do you want it or not? ‘Cause if not, I’d be much obliged your puttin’ me down and leavin’ me house.”
And no matter how much Seamus bullied the leprechaun, even threatening to drink all the whiskey in the house (that reduced the little man to tears), the story didn’t change, and Seamus had to accept that it wasn’t a trick this time. Still grumbling things I won’t repeat, Seamus took the pot off the range, and dropped the leprechaun with a snarl. Seamus took the coin out of the pot, looked at it, and demanded, “What kind of coin is this, anyway? I’ve never seen one like it.”
“It’s a Finn Mac Coul farthing. Not very big, but genuine, and lots of historical value. Oldest thing in the world, ‘cept us little people.”
“Aye, and the most worthless thing ‘cept you, too.”
“Isn’t it bad enough your attackin’ an’ robbin’ me, without your insultin’ me, too? Take the gold, go buy somethin’ with it, it’s small but it’s still a lot more money than you’ve ever had before, you lazy slob of a man!”
Seamus stormed out the door, stopping only to throw the empty pot at the leprechaun, who ducked.
“Well, at least I’ve got me cookin’ pot back” , muttered the leprechaun, as the door slammed.
(To be continued...)
© John M. Munzer
"The leprechaun's pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! Of course!" cried Seamus. "It's simple! You go to the end of the rainbow, catch the leprechaun, and he has to give you his pot of gold! I've seen the pictures in books, it's a cauldron the size of a bathtub filled with gold coins, worth a million dollars each!"
Seamus had been looking out the window of his run-down little shack, watching the rain fall, watching the roof leak, watching the two-foot weeds waving in the wind, watching the cat claw the furniture. But when he saw the rainbow, he knew he’d found the way to get enough money to pay someone to fix everything.
Seamus knew that he couldn't run fast enough to catch the rainbow (and anyway, running was too much work), so he borrowed his friend Sean's car, promising that when he got the gold, he'd buy Sean a new convertible. That is, he promised himself - Sean was out for a walk, and there wasn't time to find Sean and ask to use the car. But Seamus knew all would be forgiven once he bought Sean a convertible. Seamus floored the accelerator and drove East for all he was worth.
Now, most people know that you can't reach the end of the rainbow. It's an optical illusion, a trick played on the eyes by the light. You may as well try to walk into a movie screen and help the hero save the day. However, magic doesn't obey the rules of science. Science merely explains how things happen. Magic is when things that can't possibly happen, happen. Seamus didn't know anything about science, because he’d never bothered to learn. But he knew the rules of magic, and the rules said that you could get to the end of the rainbow, catch a leprechaun, and demand his gold. So because he didn't know he couldn't, Seamus actually arrived at the end of the rainbow.
The lucky dog.
It was beautiful, too. Imagine that light is a liquid instead of just light. Imagine that you could pour yourself a glass of red light, and drink it like water. Imagine that it tastes different than orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple light. Now imagine a waterfall made of liquid light, in searing bright colors. And now imagine standing under it.
It was beautiful, but Seamus never noticed, because he was looking for the leprechaun. He tried the green stripe first, because all the leprechauns he'd ever seen in pictures wore green, and so, thought Seamus, it must be their favorite color. If he'd thought a little harder, he would have realized that leprechauns wear green to blend into the grass so people like Seamus can't find them. Fortunately for Seamus, green WAS the favorite color of this particular leprechaun, and he did love to lie in it and rainbow-bathe (like sun-bathing, only green light doesn't burn you so badly, especially when you're a leprechaun). Seamus saw a man lying on the grass, no more than two feet tall. The little man lay snoring gently, eyes closed, pipe clamped between his teeth. His mouth seemed to be curled permanently into the smirk of a man who knows he’s the only one who got the joke, and is so pleased with himself that he doesn’t even mind that the joke was on him. The light glinted off the shiny buckles on his shoes. In a moment Seamus had grabbed the leprechaun by the back of the collar, lifted him off the ground, and was yelling "Gold! Give me your gold!"
"What? Who? Which?" piped a sleepy, startled little tenor voice. "Oh, it's another of the Big People, is it? Right, then, put me down, close your eyes and hold out your hand, and I'll run home and get the gold for you. Can't have you watch while I run home, otherwise you'll know where I live and be poppin’ in at all hours, and I can't have that."
"I don't think so, little man" sneered Seamus. "I've read the stories, and I know the rules. If I take my eyes off you for even a second, you can disappear, and you won't have to give me anything. No, I have you, and you're going to tell me where the gold is, and I'm not going to let you go until I've got the pot of gold in my hand."
"Oh, you've heard that one, have you? I'll have to have words with me cousin for lettin’ the word get out. Well, since you're so smart, what else do you know about the Little People?"
Seamus didn't know very many things, so when he did know something, he couldn't resist showing off. In the tone of a professor giving a lecture, he began:
"Leprechaun: from the Old Irish words luchorpan, or 'little body', and leathbrogan, or 'maker of shoes'."
"Aye, the English never could keep their Gaelic words straight. That's why they told everyone to stop speakin’ it."
"Don't interrupt, I'm trying to tell you about yourself."
"Fair enough."
"Leprechauns are the guardians of vast hoards of gold left behind by Danish invaders in the year... well, quite some time ago. They are greedy, and add to their hoard by stealing gold wherever they find it."
"Not at all like humans, o' course."
"Will you be quiet? They are also the shoemakers of the fairy kingdom..."
"I'm particularly proud of me buckles, have you noticed them?"
"...AND", continued Seamus, ignoring both comment and buckles, "when caught, must reveal the whereabouts of their gold in order to buy their freedom. Now, where is it?"
"This is robbery, you know. If someone three times your size grabbed you and demanded that you give him all your money, you'd call it a muggin’, and have him arrested. And how do you propose to explain your sudden wealth to the tax collectors? They'll know you didn't earn it, and so they'll know you stole it, and you'll end up in prison for life."
"Don't bother stalling, little man. The rules say you've got to give me the gold; and if the rules say so, it's rightfully mine. Besides, who's going to arrest me for stealing from a leprechaun?"
"Any honest judge would throw the book at you. Oh, very well, it's this way" the leprechaun pointed. "After all, it's only all the money I have, I've only been saving it for a thousand years, why should I complain about losing it?" he added, as Seamus carried him in the direction he had indicated. "It's not like it's mine or anything, is it?"
“No, it’s mine now”, gloated Seamus. The leprechaun muttered something in Gaelic, which I won’t translate because this is a children’s story. He tried several more ways of bribing or tricking Seamus, but the thing about a person whose brain is too small to hold more than one idea is that he can’t be distracted from that idea by anything – there’s no room for another idea to get in and sidetrack him. In other words, Seamus was too stupid for the leprechaun to trick him.
Finally, they arrived at the leprechaun’s house, and though the little man tried to convince Seamus to release him “So I can go in and get me pot of gold, see. You’re too big to get through the door…” , Seamus wouldn’t be fooled, and the leprechaun sighed and waved a hand irritably, and suddenly the door was big enough for Seamus to walk in. The leprechaun directed Seamus into the kitchen, pointed to the stove, and said, “Well, there it is, you horrible man. Take it and choke.”
“What, it’s in the oven?”
“No, you fool, it’s sitting right there on the back burner. My pot of gold. Right in front of you.”
Seamus looked again, and there, indeed, was a pot – a saucepan, six inches wide, with a non-stick coating, and a single tiny golden coin sitting in the middle of it. Seamus shifted his grip on the leprechaun to choke him, and bellowed,
“What?!?!?! THAT’S the legendary pot of gold?!?!?! It’s supposed to be a bathtub-sized cauldron full of gold coins worth millions, billions, trillions, whatever’s bigger than trillions!!! WHERE IS THE REAL ONE, YOU LITTLE …” and at this point Seamus used some more words that I won’t write down because this is a children’s story.
“Ick eek oak-eek hock ike ock” choked the leprechaun, who was turning blue, and didn’t like it because it clashed with his green clothes.
Seamus loosened his hold slightly, and the leprechaun gasped for air.
“What was that?”
‘I said, it’s the only pot I’ve got” panted the leprechaun. “How would I cook in a pot the size of your bathtub? I’d never budge it! YOU’D never budge it! Do you know how heavy gold is? You’d need a crane and a coupla trucks to cart off a cauldron of gold! And you’d spend half of it on the hauling fees! Anyway, I like that pot” he added sulkily. “Perfect for makin’ soup, that pot is.”
“But the hoarded gold from the Danish invaders! There was tons o’ the stuff!”
“Aye, sure there was, a thousand years ago when I got it. But I’ve spent it, haven’t I? Had to buy groceries, didn’t I? Even a ton o’ gold don’t last forever, you know.”
“Make another pot with your magic, then! Big! Pot! Of! Gold! NOW!!!!”
“It don’t work like that, you madman! The only gold you can make with magic is fairy gold that disappears as soon as it leaves the fairy world! If I gave you that, you’d just come back and assault me again! But this is a real pot, used by a real leprechaun, and has real gold in it! That’s all the rules call for, and that’s all I’ve got! The rules don’t say it has to be a big pot, or that it has to be full o’ gold – just a pot with gold in it. Do you want it or not? ‘Cause if not, I’d be much obliged your puttin’ me down and leavin’ me house.”
And no matter how much Seamus bullied the leprechaun, even threatening to drink all the whiskey in the house (that reduced the little man to tears), the story didn’t change, and Seamus had to accept that it wasn’t a trick this time. Still grumbling things I won’t repeat, Seamus took the pot off the range, and dropped the leprechaun with a snarl. Seamus took the coin out of the pot, looked at it, and demanded, “What kind of coin is this, anyway? I’ve never seen one like it.”
“It’s a Finn Mac Coul farthing. Not very big, but genuine, and lots of historical value. Oldest thing in the world, ‘cept us little people.”
“Aye, and the most worthless thing ‘cept you, too.”
“Isn’t it bad enough your attackin’ an’ robbin’ me, without your insultin’ me, too? Take the gold, go buy somethin’ with it, it’s small but it’s still a lot more money than you’ve ever had before, you lazy slob of a man!”
Seamus stormed out the door, stopping only to throw the empty pot at the leprechaun, who ducked.
“Well, at least I’ve got me cookin’ pot back” , muttered the leprechaun, as the door slammed.
(To be continued...)
© John M. Munzer
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Chasing Rainbows (part 1)
(The Story of Seamus O’Reilly and the Leprechaun)
The first thing you need to know about that rainbow up there, children, is that the leprechauns have been having a joke at our expense for the last thousand years. No one’s ever gotten to the end of the rainbow, or ever will, because there is no end of the rainbow. Only those who have seen one from the air know that the rainbow is a perfect circle. Even if it was solid enough to touch, which it isn’t, and even if you could get to it, which you can’t, a circle has no beginning or end, so you’d just go round and round until the light changed and the rainbow disappeared in a tinkle of faerie laughter. The leprechauns have known this all along, of course, since all the Fair Folk can fly and they’d seen rainbows from the air centuries before airplanes had even been thought of. And that’s why they’ve spread the story about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – and laughed and laughed and laughed, the little devils.
But, on the other hand, a circle in the sky could be said to begin, and end, everywhere at once. When I look at the rainbow from the ground, the place that my eyes tell me is the end is in fact the place where someone else is standing miles away, looking at the same rainbow and believing that its end is right where I’m standing. Which means, if I can only see things from outside myself, if I can only bend my mind the right way, that the rainbow’s end is wherever I happen to be.
Funny things, rainbows. On the one hand, they don’t even really exist. They’re just the image the brain creates from the information the eye gathers when light hits water molecules a certain way. And on the other hand, they are the essence of all that is real – light and air and water, energy and matter in their simplest, purest, and most common forms. But most of all, they are real because we see them. Remember that, not just about rainbows, but about everything. And that’s where magic happens, where the unreal becomes real and the impossible becomes the everyday, where the Wright brothers found the way for humans to fly, where we have always flown – it’s all about what you see in your mind, in the place where the rainbow ends.
But enough philosophy, you want a good story. And I’ll tell you one, about a man who did find the rainbow’s end after all, and about the tricky leprechaun he met there, about magic and gold and quests and practical jokes and shoes with big shiny buckles. (You’ll see, later.) But first, look up once more at the rainbow before it disappears, because that’s where it all begins.
© John M. Munzer
The first thing you need to know about that rainbow up there, children, is that the leprechauns have been having a joke at our expense for the last thousand years. No one’s ever gotten to the end of the rainbow, or ever will, because there is no end of the rainbow. Only those who have seen one from the air know that the rainbow is a perfect circle. Even if it was solid enough to touch, which it isn’t, and even if you could get to it, which you can’t, a circle has no beginning or end, so you’d just go round and round until the light changed and the rainbow disappeared in a tinkle of faerie laughter. The leprechauns have known this all along, of course, since all the Fair Folk can fly and they’d seen rainbows from the air centuries before airplanes had even been thought of. And that’s why they’ve spread the story about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – and laughed and laughed and laughed, the little devils.
But, on the other hand, a circle in the sky could be said to begin, and end, everywhere at once. When I look at the rainbow from the ground, the place that my eyes tell me is the end is in fact the place where someone else is standing miles away, looking at the same rainbow and believing that its end is right where I’m standing. Which means, if I can only see things from outside myself, if I can only bend my mind the right way, that the rainbow’s end is wherever I happen to be.
Funny things, rainbows. On the one hand, they don’t even really exist. They’re just the image the brain creates from the information the eye gathers when light hits water molecules a certain way. And on the other hand, they are the essence of all that is real – light and air and water, energy and matter in their simplest, purest, and most common forms. But most of all, they are real because we see them. Remember that, not just about rainbows, but about everything. And that’s where magic happens, where the unreal becomes real and the impossible becomes the everyday, where the Wright brothers found the way for humans to fly, where we have always flown – it’s all about what you see in your mind, in the place where the rainbow ends.
But enough philosophy, you want a good story. And I’ll tell you one, about a man who did find the rainbow’s end after all, and about the tricky leprechaun he met there, about magic and gold and quests and practical jokes and shoes with big shiny buckles. (You’ll see, later.) But first, look up once more at the rainbow before it disappears, because that’s where it all begins.
© John M. Munzer
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