Working Class of the Fae

Author Terri Reid and Researcher Andrew T. Reid go green this St. Patrick's Day and discuss Leprechauns and similar entities. They discuss the differences and similarities of entities throughout the folklore of Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales that could all be considered the "working class."

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I have no other explanation for what I saw in first grade. I know this sounds dumb, but when I was a kid, I saw a leprechaun. Here's what happened. It was St. Patrick's Day, and we were making paper rainbows to hang from the ceiling. As students finished their rainbows, the teacher came around and hung them up above us. She laid strands of iridescent tassel on top of each rainbow, left to hang freely. After she had hung one up above my desk, she continued around the room. I was still neatly coloring mine when I saw something green flash by. I swear it was like Dash from the Incredibles. Suddenly, the iridescent tassels on the rainbow above me whisked and fluttered to my desk. I stared at that area in disbelief. Then I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. I looked to the windows and the door, only to see them all shut. I looked at all the other tassels on the hung rainbows, and they weren't moving from any breeze. To this day, I'm not sure if I was imagining things caught in optical illusion, or if I really saw what I think I saw. It's one of my most distinct memories. I don't really share this story with anyone because it makes me sound crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

23-year-old Reddit poster. Listen closely, old walls still speak.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Some things are hidden, not to be forgotten, but to be kept.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

The old house remembers what others forget.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

What is remembered is never true.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Listen closely, and you too may just hear Voices from the Attic.

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Um I'm Andrew T. Reed. I'm a uh researcher, storyteller, and just a big old general nerd.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Hi, I'm Terry Reed. Um I'm his mom. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

That's the only that's the only accomplishment she's made. Definitely not an author.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Which is, yeah, I think being your mom is a pretty good accompliment. Thanks. I'm also an author storyteller. Um obviously now a a YouTube phenom.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

So welcome.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Thanks for uh tuning back in with us. Today, we're gonna talk about some really interesting things. We started with this whole, it's St. Patrick's Day. So what should we talk about?

SPEAKER_04 2:52

So happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone. And uh um I hope you guys are wearing green.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

I'm hoping this drops on St. Patrick's Day, does it?

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Oh I I'm assuming around the same, hopefully around the week of St. Patrick's Day. I don't know exactly. I think St. Patrick's Day is on like a Tuesday or something, and this might go like the weekend before it or something. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

But anyway, happy St. Pat's and Gobra, as they say. And and so we decided, oh, we should talk about leprechauns because we're so original here.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

Yep. Us us Americans, you know, it's it's really funny because we talk about how we uh we're Irish, and I know that bothers certain people who actually live in Ireland, they're like, you're not Irish. We have Irish uh ancestry and and heritage, and we, you know, it we we are uh American Irish, which is definitely a different culture than just strictly Irish.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

Uh because actually, here's a fun fact people um in Ireland don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day as much. That's uh that's an American-Irish tradition.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

I'm not saying they don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day there, but it's a lot more cultural here, even to the point that they they dye the Chicago, dyes the Chicago River green, which isn't really that hard. No, no, not anymore.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Well, it has to change from brown to to green. Actually, that's not fair. It's it's beautiful. They do a really good job. And I had heard, uh, and and this could be again not true anymore, but I had heard that like in Boston there was more Irish than in Dublin.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

So don't tell, don't tell, uh, don't tell Dublin that.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Okay. Let's not get into that because we'll get hate mail.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

That's true. That's true. We're just not gonna get into it. Yeah, so these are all things that we are ignorant of. We're ignorant Americans. Um, but yeah, like like we mentioned today, we're gonna be talking about uh the the we folk, the fair folk. Um so as we kind of dive into it, uh make sure to hang up iron on your outside uh because we're talking about fairies.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Okay, so yeah, so I need to tell you this story. Yes. Okay, so um so I was doing research on on the Fae uh for my book, The Wild Hunt, and it interesting, and we're gonna talk a little bit about um the Book of Invasions, which is an old um Irish wild Irish history book. And and so I was looking at that, looking at other things of the Fae. And my mom, who is um was very um, very religious, very Christian religious, uh, very kind of you know, middle of the road person. And I'm telling her about this news story I'm writing. And she, okay, so she is 50%, 55% Irish, you know. So she she says to me, make sure you protect yourself. And I'm thinking, what? And she said, You're writing about the Fae. Make sure you protect yourself. And so actually, if you come to my house, you will find that there is iron, you know, in in cute little statuettes, iron by the front door, the back door.

SPEAKER_04 6:02

I don't know if you can see it.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

We've got even up here, we've got uh an iron horseshoe up on the on the window sills of the office that I I write, and and it's worked so far. Have not been attacked by the Fae. So hey.

SPEAKER_04 6:16

Before you did it though, I don't know. I don't know if you remember. This was before we started putting iron on the outsides of things. There was a necklace that you used to have, and it was up here in the attic. You put it down somewhere. This was years ago. Right. We still haven't found it.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

No, still haven't found it. And it was a Celtic necklace, it was one of my favorites. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

Yeah, I remember you were, you know, you were pretty devastated. And it's not like you would have nobody would have moved it and you wouldn't have put it like we have no idea what happened, but this was around the same time that you were working on that book, and that's why we started hanging iron on the outside of the uh that's a really good point.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Yes. And so we're not talking about, you know, uh Lucky Charms, they're magically delicious leprechauns.

SPEAKER_04 6:55

No, you know, no, and we're not talking when we say fairies, we're not talking about Tinkerbell either. No. Uh these there's a very interesting thing. When we talk about the fee, that's why we say the fee and not fairies. Um the the fe or the the east she also is a uh or just the she in general.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Or or uh and I'm always saying it wrong, so he's correcting me. The tuath to dunnen. Yeah, tuathadunan. I did it.

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Yeah, you did the the you did pronounce a little bit of the th. It's it's the tua to dunan, which is like the dunan. The th, I believe, is like a like a uh a little bit. It's like a soft uh oh, which you know Gaelic man.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

So you guys know what I'm talking about. So those guys, all all of those fay people, these are not they're not necessarily malevolent unless you do something to them, and then they will be. Yes, but they're kind of amoral, they're kind of like in it for themselves, they're kind of like teenagers, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

Teenagers with like godly immortal powers.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

That's right. Yes, yes, and so um so some of the things about protecting yourself and not messing with them, and and I think uh at one point we're gonna start talking, we're gonna talk about the Fae, but you know, some of the research I was doing this week was about, you know, motorways in Ireland that have been built around fairy trees because they knew if they cut them down, and and they they have in the past. I mean, they learned from their mistakes because people died, you know, so they they kind of go around that. Or um you you don't mess with a ferry mound. I mean, and and again, it is this um they live it. Yeah, they live it every day. They the the people understand that this is just not superstition, this is something that's really happening in their lives, right?

SPEAKER_04 8:52

And that's you know, we we one of the one of the stereotypes when it comes to Ireland specifically, uh that I think is is partially fair, but also as we as you know has been told, it's a little bit more than that. But you know, if you go and talk to somebody in Ireland, they'll they'll deny it, they'll deny any, you know, oh no, th fairies don't exist, you know, whatever. But then you you you go with them to you know to the pub and you get a few pints of them and and suddenly they start telling you about their own personal experiences or experiences their family members have had of of the we people. And it's like, okay, yeah, so you know, it's it's and and so as we we talk about this, as we talk about as we talk about the Faye and and Fairies, um, we're kind of talking about it from an idea of of of folklore a little bit because that's really the only knowledge basis that we have, but also with the idea that it's not old folklore, it's current folklore, which means it's encounters that are happening right now.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Well, and and and with the idea, and I we talked about this last time, we don't know what we don't know. Yeah, yes and and to presume that we are so smart and we know what lurks in the shadows of the world, um, is I think is a kind of a silly a dangerous actually assumption.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

It's it's very bold of us to assume that we know everything that's out there. And we also it's bold of us to assume that, you know, people that are living in a different part of the world that have experiences that we don't fully understand. Well, and also, you know, uh uh kind of something that uh that we've talked about as we've been compiling a lot of this as well is there are a lot of interesting cultural overlaps with certain things in Ireland and certain things here in the United States, um, and also other places as well. And that's kind of what a little bit of the basis that we're talking about. But first let's talk about let's talk about the majority of the she, which when I say east she, east she roughly translates to the people of the mounds, she meaning mounds, and so that's why um so you know it's it's the yeah, the people who dwell in the mounds, and they dwell the the mounds aren't necessarily where they actually like dwell, that's kind of how they get to the other world. But first, let's talk about a little bit about the uh origins that we kind of understand about the the she or the donnen.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

So according to the book of invasions, um so Ireland was uh settled and then there was a war, and then there was settled, and then there was a war, and then there was settled, and then there was a war. Six times. Six times. And I think the fourth time they talk about this group of people, the Tuatha de Donan. And in the Book of Invasions, they say that these people came in ships that blocked the moon. So, you know, UAPs. Um and and and within that their group, there was the aristocracy, you know, the the learned ones, and then there were the laborers. And actually the laborers ended up uh once once they had uh fought the war, won, and and then there was like there was a group of um basic like uh Irish natives, you know, that always were there. And then there was these groups that came in and conquered them. And so you kick out the conquering group, you still have the natives, and the Twatadunan came and and their laborer class came down and actually intermarried with um with the the uh the natives, uh uh the Celts, maybe I I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

So yeah, because so and and when it comes to the Book of Invasions specifically, I guess one thing that that w we should definitely clarify is that you know the the the Book of Invasions is a is kind of I won't say a rewriting necessarily, but it's you know, a lot of a lot of uh a compilation after the fact. Yeah, yeah, definitely, you know, looking at at posts, but also it's people of the the Catholic faith, the Catholic tradition trying to retrofit Irish beliefs into Catholic tradition. And so, you know, for instance, like the first uh the first invasion that happens before anyone is even, you know, on on Ireland is uh from Noah's um Noah's granddaughter, I want to say, S uh Cisair, I think is her name. I don't remember exactly what her name is, but something along those lines, um she goes in with a group of people, uh a small group of people, and then you know, 40 days after they make it to Ireland, the flood comes up and they're they're wiped clean. And so it's one of those things, you know, that it's the the Book of Invasions is basically like, you know, every it's it's them trying to justify, you know, Cesare could very well have been what like a a Celtic goddess. Yeah, goddess, like a Gaia type character or something. And and the Catholics were like, well, you know, I bet that sounds a lot like that sounds a lot like Noah's granddaughter. That's probably what it was.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

And so, you know, so a lot of this But wouldn't Noah's granddaughter, I mean, be way after the flood.

SPEAKER_04 14:35

I mean, well, I guess it depends on on it how old you think.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

It's true. Noah was like 600 years old.

SPEAKER_04 14:43

And I believe she was Ham's Okay. Um she she came from the lineage of Ham. And so I don't remember exactly how old that whole they were when they went on there, but you know, she was denied entrance for some reason. Um and uh and she went and and the thing is I don't I don't think that she was a bad person necessarily. I don't think that they ever claimed that. Uh she just, you know, wasn't allowed to be on the ark, and she just went to live in Ireland for a time, um, and then and then died. So uh, but you know, so so a lot of this like the the what done and when they're first introduced, they're they're um supposed to be supposedly descendants of so you have a group of people who came from Greek, um from Greece. No, no, this is before the Fearbulk. Okay, uh, because the Fear Bulg were were descendants of those original people who came in, and then they were attacked by the uh Femorians. Uh they were warred and then they were scattered, and a lot of the people went back to Greece, uh, who then became slaves. He they handled bags, they became Fear Bulg, bag people. Um, but then another group of people went north and they became learned and they they became really good into pagan because you know you can't have you can't have gods and you can't have fallen angels. Those can't be what the what the Tuat Dunan are. Yeah. And so it has to be this group of people that were scattered and were driven north and came back who were able to fly. And so that's what they kind of retrofitted it to be a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Okay, it's interesting though, as I did um as I read that book of invasions, so the Tuat Dunan were were redheads, you know. And so they no, I I shouldn't make that ginger remarks, no ginger remarks. So anyway, they were redheads, and um if it then, of course, you know, you start going down these ra rabbit holes, and so then I was doing some more research, and it turns out that they have found mummified remains in China of these giant redheaded people at about the same time that the Tuath Dunan supposedly landed in their ships that could fly and block out the moon.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

So I don't know that that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

I know it's all connected, I know somewhere, and I was gonna say um Bridget, Saint Bridget, she was supposedly uh one of the goddesses of the Tuathodonin. And and which is why that there's there's St.

SPEAKER_04 17:20

Bridget's Cross.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

It's very interesting. Yeah, because it's a fertility cross, and so but they're a fertility goddess, right, and they made her a saint again to kind of Christianicize the whole pagan thing, and even the name Tuat the Donin suggests that these are because Tuat the Donin roughly translates to the people of the goddess Donna.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

Because the the um when you look and and the the unfortunate thing is we don't know who the goddess Donna is. We only assume that it's that Dannan means the goddess Donna because of the um I guess of the the vocabulary, the the way that Gaelic is um the way that Gaelic is at the the end of uh the the Anan means uh uh essentially means a female goddess type figure. Uh and so, you know, so it doesn't make sense. These if these were the these people that that originally came from from Greek, they wouldn't be the people of the goddess Donna. They wouldn't be children of the goddess Donna, they would be children of blah blah blah. I forget the I forget, I think it starts with an F. I don't remember exactly what the name of the there are gonna be people in the comments who are, you know. Gonna know this stuff. Who hopefully we're counting on you. Yeah. I you know what I'm gonna quickly I'm gonna do a do a Google search real quick and remind myself, um, well, not a Google search. I'm gonna look at my old notes.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

And in the meantime, we'll play the song Odonna. So no, we we really won't, but as he's doing that, so you have this group of Fay, and and they're um at least the first, the Twelfth Donin, are are divided into this aristocracy, which during the war, for example, when they fought, um the arm of one of the uh Twelfth Donin leaders was cut off, and they ch talk about in the book of invasions them creating a replica hand that would could move out of silver. And so whoever the if if you can believe what they wrote in the book of invasions, whoever these people were, they were very sophisticated and able to manipulate things that um that uh you wouldn't think were able to have done at that time. So from that, the fee, um, we kind of go into a whole bunch of different characteristics. You know, when we again, this is not Tinkerbell and they're not two inches tall. When you you think of Fey, there's Fey that are are giants, there are Fey that are as tall as regular human beings, there's Fey that are short, but there's also classifications, and and this is what we want to talk about is is the working class fee, you know, the Fred Flintstone Faye, or um um, I'm trying to think of the the old show, the honeymooners.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

Honeymooners, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

The honeymooners fee.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

The the blue collar. The blue collar fee or or maybe in this case it might be red collar.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Or green collar if we're talking leprechauns.

SPEAKER_04 20:32

We're gonna talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

We are uh so that's kind of what we want to talk about. We want to talk about these working class fee that that either do stuff on their own, like leprechauns are are cobblers, they're shoe cobblers, but they're cobblers for the fee, or some of these working class that actually work with people and work with us. And and as long as you treat them nicely, they do nice things. And it's just when you don't treat them nicely, it's not very good. So um I'm almost there.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

I'm so close. Uh I couldn't find it in my old. I wrote notes, but for some reason I can't find them on the phone. So I'm actually just googling it. Okay, what people invaded in the book of envisions.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Okay, so I'm gonna tell you while he's doing that. Let me read to you one of the the stories I found out. Oh he found it.

SPEAKER_04 21:21

No, uh well, yes, but also uh okay, okay, okay. So the six the sixth group of people found it, I found it. Good Cesare and her followers. This this is Sesare C-E-S-S-A-I-R. So it's like Susudio.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Susudio.

SPEAKER_04 21:40

Never mind. I don't know. I don't know Susudio.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

You don't know Sususudio? Okay, Phil Collins? Oh yeah, I got required. Right. I'm sorry, I'm going to Sususudio.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

Look, my my Phil Collins is uh two worlds and family.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

It's It's Tarzan.

unknown 22:01

I know.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

I know. So it's not Phil Collins. It's Disney. It's Tarzan.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

But Phil Collins did sing it. He did sing it. Well, he's he did the entire soundtrack. Right, right. And also Brother Bear. Yes. Anyway. So Cesara near followers. So Sarah's the granddaughter of uh Noah uh 40 days before. Then you got Parthalon. They're the second group of people. They also all died.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

I know. The Namidians. Namidians were the group of people who came in later on, and they were the people that were scattered by the Femorians. So interesting, the Femorians, to my knowledge, are almost like they're very similar to like what the Jotans would be in Norse mythology, where they're not giants necessarily, but they're like weird things that can be a lot of different people. Because what the Twatanin have have generally been are that's why they're the fair people. They're always the fair people. And actually redheads. Redheads. And so kind of skin that burns. Well, and but also fair, fair as both, you know, fair skinned, but also fair as in beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, gorgeous. Um, but then one of the other things as well uh that I wanted to talk about before we get into the the you mentioned the two groups of people, and um specifically in the book of evasions, there's a quote where they they they mention they're categorized by two groups of people. Gods were their men of arts, non-gods, their husbandmen. So basically, the people of the arts were considered gods or royalty, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Aristocracy.

SPEAKER_04 23:35

Aristocracy and the people who were their husbandmen, people who did more of the the other cultural things, yes, they were the ones that were non-gots. And I think that applies not just at this point, but I think as we're gonna talk about throughout the rest of it. So yeah, so I didn't mean to cut you off. That specific quote, and then also one from Yeats as well, um which I I do like this quote a lot. So here is it Yeats? Yates, it's yeats. I said yeats, it's yeats. I'm disappointed in myself. I said yeah, I said yeats. Guys, don't don't hate me too much. Uh but here's what Yeats said William Yeats. Do not think the fairies are always little, like you said. Everything is capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or shape pleases them. Their chief occupations are feasting, fighting, and making love, and playing the most beautiful music. Once again, teenagers. Sorry. No, you're not wrong. Wow. Oh my gosh, I don't like that. But also it's very accurate. But here's the here's here's the big one. This is I I have this bolded. They have only they have only one industrious person amongst them. The leprechaun, the shoemaker.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Right? And then as we we researched it, and not too, is that from Yates who said that only one industrious. We learned that the shoemaker has cousins. So so we're gonna talk about leprechauns and their cousins.

SPEAKER_04 25:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

So let me start with a couple of fun stories. Um, and this is from Reddit. When I was six and my sister was four, we both got a got out of bed at three or four in the morning, and we're gonna go to the living room and then to get a snack from the kitchen. So kitchen by way of living room. But my sister stopped dead still in front of me and was staring at our coffee table by the sofa. She said then that she was seeing a tiny green girl dancing quietly on the table. I never saw a thing, but all these years gone by now, and she has never changed her story or forgot any detail. It was always the same time every time she tells the story. Um, I have no idea, but did she see a leprechaun?

SPEAKER_04 26:00

It's interesting. So it's interesting that that you brought up green uh several different times. And so um in one of the the things that I one of the articles that I researched for this one of the journals, um, uh let me see if I can find the name of the journal that I I I did. I didn't put it in here. Um but I emailed it to you. Okay. Um the name of the journal is I promise I won't be doing this too often. He said after he did this like twice in a very short amount of time. Uh everyone followed along. Yes, yes. Um I literally sent you the email.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Right, and it's like a 77-page PDF.

SPEAKER_04 26:51

Let me hit let me go to the sent messages. There we go. Um, it's called it it's from uh so the the fairy is called The Leprechaun and Fairies, Dwarfs and the Household Familiar, a comparative study by Oh no, it's a it's a very Irish name. Okay. I'm gonna get it wrong. I already know I'm gonna get it wrong. Uh Dermud uh Dermud O'Gillian, I think. Dermud Ogillion.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

That sounds good. An Irish Oh, you're gonna have me. Darmoud Ogillion, I would say that too, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:28

Yeah, and if I'm wrong, come at me. Uh please don't. I'm sensitive. But um so that so this I got a lot of my information from him. He did uh he he went through a lot of folklore, uh specifically a lot of leprechaun folklore, but also a lot of uh other folklore that we're gonna be diving into as well. But um so I guess when it comes to the description of leprechauns, I want to ask you when you think of a leprechaun, what do you generally think of? What are the descriptions that you you usually have?

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Uh I Lucky Charms magically delicious. But you need no um uh the green hat with a big buckle on it, the little green cute suit, probably brown breeches, uh and then black shoes with another gold buckle, and probably a waistcoat inside, and a lot of green, some brown in there, but very earthy, I would say. That was that's very interesting, very interesting, and red hair, and red hair, and a and a beard. Okay, yes, yeah. So um and it's it was in Darby Ogil and the little people, so which is fair. It's gotta be right.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

Well, so sorry, it's I think you're not you're not wrong, but so here's here's the description that he that he goes through, and he's he's combed through a lot of different and this is Irish. This is Irish mythology, and I will say, well, I I I won't I won't try to I'll say say this afterwards. So physical description. So you you know small to tiny, usually 12 feet or or or two, sorry, two feet or or or smaller. Um old, wisened, wrinkled, okay, uh, very often bearded and everything like that. Here's the interesting thing. In most folklore, they're clad in red, generally speaking. More more than four times are they mentioned in red than green.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

And so the the three most common colors are red and then green, okay, which is second, and then black. Um and so generally he's wearing like a red coat and then like green britches. Uh the belt, the the buckles, those are all also common. Uh, you know, you have the yeah, the the gold buckles and everything like that. Um would red be like closer to Christmas time? He just well, so he's usually wearing a red and green combination. Okay, so he's already he on the Christmas, absolutely. Uh before Christmas was really celebrated all that much.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Is a forerunner of Christmas. Yes, yeah. Okay, now we know who Santa Claus stole the outfit from.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

And so you guys might if if you are watching this, you might have been wondering why we put a gnome up here. Well, it's because the hat is generally a pointed hat or or uh conical hat.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:18

And so honestly, they're starting to sound pretty gnome-like. I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:23

They're not because the hats that they they have on Lucky Charms is that's it's well, because the Lucky Charms hats are are a lot more because they're like top hats. Yeah, yeah. They're they're a lot more contemporary to what people uh understand Lucky.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Lucky Charms lied to me.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Yeah, they are magically delicious, but they're not magically accurate. But the thing I think I and this is my this is me assuming things. I think the reason why green became associated with leprechauns, especially here in the United States, is because green is a national Irish color. Right. And so I think when people thought of something that represents Ireland, exactly. I mean, even we put them in green, even in uh even in Peter Pan, you have Tinkerbell, who is a fairy. Fairies are very often Irish. She's wearing green.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

That's that's true.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

Well, in the Disney version, fair, but also I think even in the plays, in the old plays, she was often. I don't know if she was I I didn't go to those old plays. When I go to plays now, she's wearing green, and that could be because of Disney. But I mean, you know, green is often associated with fair folk because of Ireland.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Well, and also because the fair folk uh are woodland creatures, and so they need to camouflage themselves.

SPEAKER_04 31:36

So that I mean, but uh a leprechaun isn't trying to, you know, uh they're not trying to camouflage. Not not the not leprechauns.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Well, the stories I hear, they're not crazy about you finding them because they're solitary, right?

SPEAKER_04 31:51

That's the other thing, too. That's what makes them different than most fairies, as well. Is that you know a lot of these people that with all these creatures we're gonna be talking about are very solitary right, you know, beings and industrious, and as as they said, they're industrious.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Okay, so there is a a woman. This is an interesting book. It's called The Beautiful Side of Evil. I know.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

What a good title!

SPEAKER_02 32:16

And her name is Johanna Michelson. Is it Johanna or Johanna? I I think she's American, so I would say Johanna. I mean it could be Johanna. Johanna means family, and family no, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_04 32:30

I was misquoting, I was misquoting uh uh Lelo and Stitch. Ohana means family.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

We did tell you we had ADHD and would um those kind of would happen.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

I loved how you went along with me so readily. Ohana means family. Oh no, it doesn't. No, it doesn't, it doesn't, and I'm a liar, and I'm sorry. Anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Getting back to the podcast. So anyway, she was a child of the 60s culture, and she was kind of trying to get into new age, and she ended up being an assistant to a healer in Mexico. Oh and then she found out that she was the unwitting pawn of dark forces and found herself oppressed by demonic forces. So she wrote this book, which is actually a Christian book called The Beautiful Side of Evil, and she had an experience with leprechauns.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

So let me read what she said. I just I just want to pause here. What a wild chain of events. In in Mexico, you're get being taught, I'm assuming, essentially black magic, so you can heal people thinking that it's like white magic, you know, healing magic, but it's it's you know, that's that already is a crazy twist of events. And then again, this is Mexico, and she has a uh a leprechaun experience, which is just like you know, different cultures. Right. That's I'm excited. Okay, so go ahead, continue.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

She said several days later, the little people made their appearance. They stood one to two feet high, transparent as Professor Cot, and I don't know who that is, so I I apologize. Dressed in green and brown, their small, ugly faces were plump, ruddy, and their eyes twinkled as they peeked out at me from behind a wood pile at a theater workshop. Frequently, four or five of them accompanied me on the walks I took through the mossy graveyard planted just behind my dormitory. They never spoke, just played and romped and made me smile. Yet sometimes, unlike the certainty of what I saw in the theater, I wondered if I really saw them, if they were really there.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

It's interesting because I mean with the traditional Irish folklore or traditional Celtic folklore. Yeah. You don't get groups of leprechauns.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

I'm wondering if these were brownies because they were by the wood pile and brownies, brownies uh who not not the delicious chocolate treats that we so enjoy, but the Faye part of it. Um brownies we'll be talking about brownies a little bit more. And they're kind of the Scottish version of leprechauns.

SPEAKER_04 35:37

Kind of. Yeah, yeah, uh kind of. And they're you know, sometimes sometimes they're often they're described as as actually being brown. That's you know, and often they're very hence the name. Hence the name brownies, you know. The Scottish, as we know, are very creative and in I am partially Scottish, be careful. I'm me too. Okay, that's that's true. I mean, but you look at you know, you got the red cap. Why is he name that? Well, he's got a red cap. Well, I think that that's to it's a cool name. I'm not saying it's not a bad name. Brownie the scene to avoid confusion. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, I'm not I'm not disagreeing, but you know, they're also often very hairy. Uh I think more than just you know, the the leprechaun.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

But um so so that could be a brownie. So could be so I I could concede that maybe leprechauns do wear red, although Darby O'Gill and the little people they didn't.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

Well, and I also wonder as well, because this is a theme that we find in in a lot of uh paranormal and supernatural things. I wonder if our our interpretations and what we what we uh believe or assume sometimes maybe changes how they appear to us. How they appear to us. Because they were read before, you know, and and granted, the the journal that that I read was from 1974, I want to say, 74 to 76, somewhere on there. And so, you know, be the uh the leprechaun, I don't think was I mean it still was obviously a staple here, but it wasn't as much ingrained, I don't think. And so I wonder if nowadays because we assume leprechauns wear green, I wonder if now when we see a leprechaun, they will be wearing green. But I don't know if that's you know, and maybe maybe something around here, because that's the other thing too. I mean, you know, there there are other things as well that try to pretend to be other things and and all that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

But I was gonna say, I'm trying to so that there's a book that I love for um researching, and it's by Thomas Kitely, and he was a professor, I think, at Oxford, and he did the World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little People. And basically what he did, it was it was awesome. And he went and he got firsthand, he interviewed people. Did he interview gnomes? He no people who had experiences seeing the gnomes. He didn't interview is that is it that book? This is it is actually, yes, it is. So should I hold up?

SPEAKER_04 38:11

I mean, for for for those of you listening at home, she's holding up uh a book called The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little People.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

A compendium of international fairy folklore by by Thomas Keitle. It's really interesting. Um but and and so I copied one of the the stories down, and it's funny because the Irish can't tell a short story. It starts with you you guys have been hearing us. That's true. It starts with Mrs. L, having heard that Molly Toole, an old woman who held a few acres of land for Mr. L, had seen leprechauns resolved to visit her and learned the truth from her own lips. Accordingly, one Sunday after church, she made her appearance in Molly's residence, which was no very common thing. Extremely neat and comfortable. So it goes on about the people that were in um Molly's house, the food that was there, the fact that she offered her bread, and then she gave her butter with the bread, and the butter was delicious.

SPEAKER_04 39:14

I mean, it went on and on and on. Oh, wait, so so wait. So Molly is feeding them or they're feeding Molly?

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Uh Molly is feeding Mrs. Al, who came to hear the story.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

Okay, so so okay, okay no, no, Faye is being fed and no one's eating Faye food. Okay. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

It it is um it is, let's see. Uh sure you know the mistress can't be but hungry after her walk. Oh, never minded, Molly. It's too much trouble. Trouble indeed. It's as nice, it's as nice butter, ma'am, as you've ever put a tooth in it. And it was Mary herself who made it. So it goes on.

SPEAKER_04 39:52

If if we had any Irish listeners, I first of all I apologize. And if you're still with us, thank you for sticking with us.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

It wasn't that bad.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

It wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad of an Irish accent.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

A nice half griddle of whole meal bread and a pint of fresh butter were now produced. And Molly helped the mistress with her own hands. So then it goes on. I mean, this is like page two and a half of it, and we still haven't gotten to the leprechauns. So he says, So then uh Mickey, who who has a son, who happens to be there in the room too, and we and we're introduced to Mickey like several pages ago. Okay, they're both M names, Molly and Mickey. And he says, I'm used to people seeing leprechauns in them days, mother, said Mickey, laughing. Hold your tongue, you saucy cabu, cried Molly. What do you know about them?

SPEAKER_04 40:40

Yes, I'm gonna start calling people that.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Yeah, saucy cabu. Yes, saucy cab. And then, leprechauns, said Mrs. L, gladly catching the opportunity. So two pages in, after her walk on a Sunday, which was not common, into a house that was not normally neat, Mrs. L finally gets the opportunity to ask about the leprechauns. Did people really, Molly, see leprechauns in your young days? Oh, indeed, yes, indeed, Mom. Some people say they did, replied Molly, very composedly. Oh, come now, mother, cried Mickey. Don't think to be going it upon us that way. You know you've seen them one time yourself, and you had not the gumption in you to catch them and get their crux of gold from them. Now, Molly, is that really true that you saw the Leprechauns deed? And did I, ma'am? But this boy's always laughing at me about them, and that makes me rather shy of talking of them. And so then she she goes on to say that um she was coming home late one Monday evening from the market for her Aunt Kitty. Uh God be merciful to her. Of course. And and Aunt Kitty kept me to take a cup of tea. It was in the summertime, you see, ma'am, much about the middle of June, and it was through the fields I came. Well, ma'am, as I said, it was late in the evening. That is the sun was near going down, and the light was straight in my eyes. Been there, driven down. And I came along through the bog meadow, for it was very shortly after I was married to him that's gone. Got her. Oh, so she's a widow.

SPEAKER_04 42:20

So she's a widower?

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Yes. And we were living in this very house that you're now in. And then when I came to the castle field, the pathway, you know, ma'am, goes right through the middle of it. And it was then a f as fine a field of wheat, just shot out as you'd wish to look at. And it was a pretty sight to see it waving so beautifully with every air of wind that was going over it, dancing like to the music of a thrush that was singin' down below at the hedge. Well, ma'am, I crossed over the stile that's there yet, and went along fair and easy, till I was near about the middle of the field, when something made me cast my eyes to the ground a little before me, and then I saw, as sure as I'm sittin' here, I love that term, as sure as I'm sitting here, no less nor three of the leprechauns, all bundled together like so many tailors in the middle of the path before me. They were not hammering their pumps or making any kind of noise whatsoever, but there they were, the three little fellows, with their caulked hats upon them, and their legs gathered up under them, working away at their trade as hard as may be. If you were only to see, ma'am, how fast their little elbows went as they pulled out their ends. Well, every one of them had his eye cocked upon me, and their eyes were as bright as the eye of a frog, and I could not stir one step from the spot for the life of me. So I turned my head round and prayed to the Lord in his mercy to deliver me from them. And when I went to look again, ma'am, not a sight of them was to be seen. They were gone. Like a dream.

SPEAKER_04 44:02

So does she mention?

SPEAKER_02 44:03

She doesn't mention what they're wearing.

SPEAKER_04 44:05

Well, no. No. She does mention that the hats were were cocked. A little saucy look. Yeah. They were saucy cubs. Yeah, they're yeah, they're they were they were coned and they were, you know. Yeah. They were they were uh Yeah, they were they were cool leprechauns. But no, does she she mentions that they are going about doing their trade? Does she mention what they're doing?

SPEAKER_02 44:24

No, she did they're and so edges. I don't know what that means.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

It because she says So leprechauns are typically known to be cobblers. Cobblers, right? They're they're working on, and that's the thing. They're called leprechauns because they're only working on one shoe. Whenever they're seen, they're working on one, not a pair, just one. So why is that is that because I I leprechaun means one shoe? Uh something along those lines. I don't exactly know. That's that's what Yates seemed to imply. Okay. Uh that leprechaun somehow means, you know, a single a single shoe or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Well, and this it says if you're only to see, ma'am, how fast their little elbows went as they pulled out their ends. Could be sewing the shoe. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

I could I could see that. Because especially if she just is going about their trade and she says they're leprechauns, then that's you know, the kind of the implication. So that's very interesting. Yes. Um, and so it's another thing that's interesting as well. So, you know, it's it's mentioned the the crocs of gold is mentioned. Uh, and that's I won't say that's a newer thing, but the the idea of like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that's more contemporary. Right. But um leprechauns are often known to have some kind of knowledge about treasures, whether it's a a a croc or there's often associated with them, they they they often have like two bags with them. One is a uh almost like a magical coin purse bag that will give you essentially an unlimited supply of gold. Right. Uh, but then the other one is kind of a worthless coin purse.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

If you take it and you think it's the good stuff, it's gonna be bad stuff.

SPEAKER_04 46:09

It's gonna be dirt. Yeah, exactly. And and you know, it's it's a lot of a lot of it has to do with, you know, the idea of greed and everything like that, you know, they're the because I mean, if you look at what the leprechaun is, they they are hard workers. Uh, but it's also very interesting that, you know, one of the one of the staples of leprechauns that we're gonna see later on is is kind of their are echoes of that. One of the big things is that they are uh their possessor of knowledge of treasures. They have access to treasures that obviously we want, and that is a common staple with these kind of solitary, though again that's another one where there are multiple leprechauns with each other. Right. So which they're not usually but they're not usually s said, but also it doesn't I guess I guess solitary doesn't necessarily mean that they have to only be one singular, but solitary as in they tend to stick to their own. They don't they don't go with the rest of the faith. They don't they don't dance with royalty because they don't want to, and I get it, because you know, fancy parties are lame.

SPEAKER_02 47:17

As an introvert, totally you gotta find your people, you gotta find your people. You don't wanna the other thing that leprechauns are known for is three wishes. So if you catch a leprechaun, first of all, interesting. That's that's new to me. Oh, really? Okay, so more like the like our common you know gin. Yes, it the three wishes, and generally they're tricksters with the wishes, and so you get your three wishes track again. Darby O'Gill and the little people, you know, his first wish was that if if you remember the movie, Darby brings, he's got the king of the leprechauns in a sack, and he says, Okay, my first, and and Darby is unfortunately uh a person who is well known for imbibing quite a bit. And so they think that instead of doing work, he likes to go to the pub and tell stories. He's a storyteller, he's also a drinker, and so they tend to go hand in hand. They kind of do. So um, so he catches, and I forget, it's the king, uh, Brian Baru, maybe. It anyway, it's the king of the leprechauns. And so he's got him in this the sack, you know, and so he brings him into the pub, and the sack is you can see the outside of the sack and it's moving. And you hear that's right, exactly. And he says, I my first wish, I want people to be able to see you. And so he opens it up, and people look in. When he opens it up, he looks, and it's the fairy, it's the leprechaun. But when he shows it to people, they see it as a rabbit. And so they saw him, but it's a rabbit.

SPEAKER_04 49:00

And so he fulfilled the wish, but it was a trickster, which is also an interesting because that's uh that sounds like a puka.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

Oh, interesting, and that would be another Celtic Yeah, a shapeshifter kind of yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:13

But all all Faye tend to have capabilities of being able to do some kind of shape shifting or glamour type thing that they can look like what they want to.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Um but anyway, go ahead. But there's also other stories than uh folklore stories about people who, like one person said, he wanted to own this island, you know, this, and so they put him the was put on an island that had no people and no uh no buildings and no sounds awesome. Yeah, well, that's true. As long as it can get Wi-Fi. So his he had to use a second wish to, and so it it and I think it's it again that that you can't get something for nothing.

SPEAKER_04 49:54

Yep, is is kind of the theme. And so when it comes to their moral alignment, I have that. So so the things that I I kind of I made notes on on you know what what they are, which is solitary Irish being. Um he's an occupational specialist specifically. He's a cobbler. Uh I talked about the physical description, the social structure, uh, almost always solitary.

SPEAKER_03 50:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 50:19

Um this is interesting, because again, from the journal, quote, two are never seen together, which apparently we've we've shown is is incorrect, but other creatures are also, I mean, dwarfs are clans, right? They're clansmen, and so and we're gonna talk about them a little bit because they're kind of similar, but the economic role, because you know, we're talking about them being the working class. They're they're the they're the blue or the red or the green collar, uh, they're not white collar, they're not they're not aristocracy.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Aristocracy, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_04 50:50

So you got the shoemaker of the fairy host, knowledge holder of hidden treasure, possessor of potentially magical coin purse, sometimes treasure guardian. Uh so he basically, I mean, I put this was this is my words. Um basically, he's the one guy that invested in Bitcoin early. Uh, except instead of Bitcoin, he invested in making shoes. Gold coin. Yes, yeah. I this dude, even though you know Ireland at this point when they were originally telling the stories, they didn't really do capitalism necessarily. This dude, I bet, loves capitalism. Yeah. I bet he's a he's a big fan of it. Uh, relationship to authorities, uh, serves fairy community indirectly, not depicted as ruling or noble, sometimes trickster towards humans, never court aristocracy in folk tradition. Uh, and then here's the moral alignment. You got trickster, but often they're they are tricksters in defense because humans will see them and they will try to get something from them. And so they trick them not to push, but as a defense mechanism. Uh, they punish greed, but they rarely kill. I don't know if there are any stories of them actually killing, uh, but also I'm I put rarely because you know I'm not fully sure. Um, but they tended to choose psychological as opposed to physical violence. So they they make they they punish people psychologically and not um not violently, and then yeah, so that's um and then there are also some like offshoots of these are things that people have thought could also be leprechauns, like a leprechaun in different scenarios, right? But they could also potentially be their own their own creature. One of them is the uh clericon, who is I think that's how it's pronounced, the chloricon, which is the drunk leprechaun.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

Oh yeah. Uh chloricon, yes. Yeah, because the way you said it almost sounded like a Star Trek Klingon kind of thing. So I'm just I am a Cluricon of the Clurconian planet.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

Yes. Uh live.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

Right. So that's the kind of the drunken cousin who never got a job and and doesn't you don't have to call me out like that so much.

SPEAKER_04 53:05

Uh it's a little her fulb affair. Uh yeah, so so some people think it that that could be a a drunk leprechaun. That could be the same leprechaun, but just you know, you know, on Saturday night. Exactly, exactly. Okay. Uh but it could also be something a little bit different. But you know, it's a close as a same but different. Yes, exactly. The other one that people, and this is a little bit less so, but still close enough that it could be potentially the same thing is the far Darig, uh, which is the red man for his red cap and coat. Well, I mentioned the red cap. This is not the same thing as the red cap. Red cap is Scottish and also a lot more monstrous.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 53:45

Uh, so this is a dude who does happen to wear a red cap. Okay. Um, but he the far fair the far darig is more of a practical joker. So we mention how you know the leprechaun is more he's a trickster defensively. This guy is a trickster, but more offensively and a little bit more maliciously. There's a story I will summarize briefly about, you know, somebody who essentially says, I don't really have any good stories. And so, you know, he's not allowed entrance into this house because he doesn't have a good story to tell. Uh, this is from Yates, by the way. Right. Um, they can be found in Yates. And so he he goes, he has to sleep in like a barn, and then something comes over and basically is like, Hey, uh, you're gonna help me kill this dude. You're gonna help me bring the body out to uh a place where we're gonna bury the body, you're gonna help me dig it. Um, and you know, kind of force him to do all these things, and then you know, he leaves, and I think later on, either later that day or the next time he comes over, he sees that same guy again, and the guy kind of gives him a little bit of a wink and he says, Now you have a story to tell. Um, so pretty malicious jokes, um, but you know, not violent towards the person that he's joking um with. Because I we don't know if the the the dude that they you know he helped kill was actually a a a person or if it was an illusion or whatever it was. But you know, so that's so those are so those are some of the the things that we know about leprechauns.

SPEAKER_02 55:29

So can I segue? Is that okay? Are we ready to segue? Segway. So I'm looking at, you know, looking for leprechaun stories. And uh, so you know, of course, where do you do your best research? Reddit. So I'm I'm um I'm looking for leprechaun stories, and I find this leprechaun which I think is a leprechaun story. And so let me um here's the fun thing.

SPEAKER_04 55:54

There's so much bleed over. Yes, these are also the fun thing, the the thing that I guess before we we dive into more things, I think part of the thing we I keep saying thing a lot, one of the ideas that we really want to convey here is that even though we are naming these entities as different things, and which they might be, but we're we uh we're also kind of we don't want to imply that they are definitely different things. We also don't want to imply they're all they're definitely the same things, because they could be, but they might not be. And that's there's I think we as people like to categorize everything, even and that doesn't even work in the animal kingdom. Like as we categorize different animals, we can't always neatly put what the heck is a platypus? You know, where what box do we put that bad boy? That's it's weird, and so and especially things that we can't fully understand, you know, that's that's more than natural, but that's supernatural. We we don't want to try to categorize these things because there's so much bleed over. They're there it could be the same entity, it could be 18 different entities that we just don't know because we we can't study it necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 57:09

So and the other interesting thing is that as we were studying it, we have similar entities um geographically far apart from each other, folklore that goes back hundreds of years before modern communication was out there of similarly descripted entities doing similar things. Yeah, and it's like how does that is it zeitgeist where it's like, oh, that's a great idea. Let's come up with that. Or is it that these people are actually seeing these creatures and they happen to look uh uh a lot alike and do similar things? So, okay, so my story that I thought was a leprechaun story, um, again, read it, it says the first story takes place in 1991. My ex-boyfriend's dad was the chief of police of a small town located directly outside of a city. He had several police officers who worked for him, and one was a young rookie cop that she was gonna call Mike. The police officers in that jurisdiction often assisted the city police with calls. Mike was going to such a call one cold day in the beginning of March. He was driving down a road that on either side was a field of tall, dead brown grass. All of a sudden, Mike saw what he thought was an animal coming out of the grass on the left side. He said that he saw the next sequence in like events in slow motion. You know how that is kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 58:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

He tried to slow his cruiser down. He saw that it was not an animal, but indeed a small, bald, dirty man dressed in ragged clothes, approximately two feet tall, running out from the grass.

SPEAKER_04 59:03

That'd be actually terrifying. Running out.

SPEAKER_02 59:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:06

Just imagine this this tiny little dude just right. He's terminator running in your car.

SPEAKER_02 59:13

He slammed on the brakes. The cruiser did not stop fast enough, and he hit the small man with the front of the car. Oh my gosh. The man flew up in the air.

SPEAKER_03 59:25

This isn't funny.

SPEAKER_04 59:26

No, it's not funny. But I also just I just can't like I'm imagining, I'm picturing it in my head, and this would be a scene.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

This would be a scene in a comedy where you know, Mike jumped up and ran to the front of the car. He said he looked right down at the small man, who he then noticed had reddish brown hair. The man began screaming and evil and laughing evilly, hopped up, ran into the grass on the right side of the road, and Mike ran after him, but all he heard was the sound of his evil, mocking laugh. It goes on.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:07

Okay, good. I was gonna say he just wanted to get hit. That's kind of messed up.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

When he got back to the station, he was visibly shaken. My ex's father said that he was pale white and could barely choke out the story. When he finished telling them what had happened, everyone except my ex's dad began howling with laughter. So they did an Andrew.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:29

Look, okay, I'm not, I'm not laughing in disbelief. I'm not laughing at him. The situation, I can, if I picture it, because I can imagine if I put myself in that situation where I first thought I had just murdered somebody or or manslaughtered, right? I guess somebody with my car, that's not good. But then on top of that, you have somebody who by all rights should absolutely be dead now. Yeah. Stand up and not just stand up, but then start laughing. Like that is horrifying.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:56

It wasn't laughing, it was evil laughing.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:58

Evil laughing. Like more I do want to know what that sounds like, but also I don't. Yeah. Because I mean, I I've heard something in my it, my mind's eye, granted, well, my mind's ear, I guess. Um something similar in uh I guess the the best way I can describe it when I was in in California, Southern California for a little bit, it was it was cackling, witch cackling. And so, you know, we we we hear evilly laughing, and I get it. And I remember I had to quickly get out of that situation because it was horrifying. Yes. And so I understand, but also just you know, trying to imagine it, it's it's difficult to picture it without it feeling like a a comedy.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

I'll continue. Yes. Okay, so um, so everyone there is laughing. The other cops teased him relentlessly about the leprechaun story. Since it was about three weeks before St. Patrick's Day, one of the cops went to the dollar store and bought a leprechaun hat. Obviously the wrong kind, because we have discussed that already. He left it on Mike's doorstep with a note stuck in the brim saying, I'm coming for ya, Mikey. The next morning, Mike came in crying and told my ex's father he was quitting the police. Jeez. My ex's father believed Mike and said he could tell he was extremely sincere in his belief that he'd hit a leprechaun. He told other cops to leave him alone about it, and then Mike worked with him for years to come. I first heard this story from my ex's father. I could tell that he really believed Mike had seen what he had seen. Later that year, Mike was over at my ex's house, and I asked Mike about the story. He grew pale and quiet, and he told me exactly the same story my ex-father had told me about it earlier. He insists and has always insisted that he hit a leprechaun with his car. So then, though, she tells another story about uh being at a friend's house, and uh the bedrooms were up on the second floor, and they were spending the night, and she her friend came to school one day and said that she had seen a leprechaun in the hallway of her her house. And so she said, um Because they were talking about it. No, actually, no. This was this was when she was little. This was when she was little. So this is before. Yes, before way before. And she said, Um, I could tell it scared her. I asked if she'd ever seen it before, and she said she had. She said she'd heard rustling noises out of the hallway and gotten out of her bed to peek around the corner. In the corner of the hall, she saw a small man, approximately two feet tall, in dirty clothes with red hair. She froze with fear. Then she said the man disappeared. She said she'd seen him uh she had seen him before out of the corner of her eye, moving in the hallway at all hours of the day. I remember her clear as day saying to me that it did not look like the leprechaun on the Lucky Charms box.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:11

Which it wouldn't, but also it doesn't sound like a leprechaun in general because And that's what she said.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:17

She says later on in her discussion. Now that I'm older and do paranormal investigation myself, I believe what Mike and Susan, that was the little girl, both saw are what are called Tommy Knockers. Tommy knockers are leprechaun-like creatures believed by immigrant coal miners to live in the mines and move tools and such things. This being Western Pennsylvania. Yep, that that tracks. Each location where the leprechaun, leprechaun, was seen was above or near a coal mine. They are often described as dirty, scraggly, sharp-featured looking little men with reddish hair. I cannot express how sincere both of them were to me when telling their stories. So that brought me into this whole Tommy Knockers. And you know, unfortunately, uh Stephen King wrote a book called Tommy Knockers. And he admits that he wrote it when his brain was addled with cocaine. He was in the throes of deep cocaine addiction during that time. Which some of the best and some of the worst art uh comes from. Um that was what was that? Yeah, and hair um heroin? Heroin. Poppy seeds, is that uh what is uh the the the dens that used to do heroin? Thank you. Opium, that was it. Yes, opium. So he was opium and epps.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:45

Our uh our our drug specialist thank you, thank you, thank you. Hey, I I get it. I've worked, I've worked cameras, I've worked editing, I get it. Just kidding, just kidding.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Anyway, um Where am I going with that?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:04

So yeah, so Stephen King King was in the midst of a drug trip as he wrote the majority of Tommy Knockers.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:10

And so Tommy Knockers is about this um town in Maine. Stephen King is obviously Maine. I was gonna say he is not on the tourism bureau in Maine because who the hell wants to move to Maine with all of the Stephen King crap?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:25

Yes and no, because I will say there are a lot of weird people who would go to Maine who would love to live in Maine because of a lot of the weird stories that that you know, because of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:35

They have the cryptozoology museum in Maine. I would love to go see that.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:40

But I will also say, while a lot of the horror stories and horror authors and those kinds of things, a lot of those are are Maine. I personally think the best stories tend to come from closer to the Appalachian Mountains. Oh, that's and we're gonna talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:56

So anyway, well, I mean, that's that's what the Tommy Knockers are often associated with the Appalachian.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:01

Because of mining, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, all of those mines.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:04

Virginia Mountain Mama.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:06

Yeah, take me home.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:07

Country roads.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:08

So anyway, going back to Stephen King. Yes. So Stephen King wrote Tommy Knockers, but what he wrote was this alien spaceship had everything was aliens. Had been buried in the ground, and these people of this community in Maine dug it up and it gave them these special powers, but it also kind of created this Borg-like, everybody in the community was um kind of connected with each other, but it was a malevolent connect. Because if outsiders came in, it was like we will kill them. Probably not like that. I I I have not read the book, did not see the movie, I just didn't didn't do anything for me. So anyway, Stephen King says it's the worst book he's ever written. Although comments on uh Reddit, a lot of people just just loved it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:01

But it has nothing to do with little two foot men that worked in mind and that's a lot of that's honestly a big problem that I have with a lot of Stephen King's excuse me, a lot of his a lot of his books in general, when he talks about creatures from folklore, yeah, he takes the name and it, I mean, the Windigo is something else that he takes the name of, and he just I mean he can he makes something else entirely, and it's like why there's already so much rich folklore associated with these creatures, with these entities. Why use that name if you're not gonna use everything associated with it?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

Isn't a crown a clown creepy enough? Why do you need to turn it into an alien spider?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:42

Right, right, and honestly, the alien spiders in the movies, anyway, are always way less scary than the clown. Right. I mean, you know, you got I I I watched the first um it when I was probably a lot younger than I should have been with Tim Curry. Um, but I remember not actually, especially at by the end, where they literally they're just kicking a plastic spider. I'm like, what what is this?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:05

Isn't scary? What is this? If you want scary spiders, go into Lord of the Rings.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:09

Yeah. I mean, that's a spirit, but I mean, like yeah, Shelob is is, yeah. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:14

Anyway, so go going back to so Tommy Knockers. So they are not alien spacecrafts that uh affect people's mind in small main towns.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:24

Instead, they are completely different part of the uh it is the right country, wrong, wrong region.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:31

Right. Exactly. So but but they have a history, they go back in um okay, so I'm gonna really mess up uh a title too, but it's in German. So uh so Irish people, take a deep breath. Now we're gonna mess with German language. Now we're gonna start poking at the Germans. So this is this uh Georgius Agricola, who was born from who was lived from 1494 to 1555, sure, describes supernatural beings in German minds. His D anamantibus, anamantibus. Anamentibus? That sounds very good. Okay, it sounds it sounds less German and more Latin. Maybe it was. And then there's another word. I'll I'll say it, and then you can say it the right way. Subterraneous, Libr. That sounds right, and Libre, I think I did right, yeah, identifies a spirit he calls Kobalos. And I'm almost sounding it Spanish, and I shouldn't. Well, I mean Latin and Latin and Spanish. Yeah, Latin and Spanish. He claims the Greeks shared these sorts of entities which were gentle, full of laughter, and eager to appear to be working. He says they are called little miners because of their dwarfous, dwarf fish stature, which is about two feet. They are venerable looking and are clothed like miners in filleted garments with a leather apron about their loins. This kind does not often trouble the miners, but they idle about in the shafts and tunnels and really do nothing, although they pretend to be busy in all kinds of labor, sometimes digging ore, sometimes putting into buckets that which has been dug. Sometimes they throw pebbles at the workmen, but they rarely injure them unless the workmen first ridicule them or curse them, and then all bets are off.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:30

So can you spell cabolos?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:34

C-O-B-A-L-O-S.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:39

So because so that sounds a lot like one of the things I've already done research, and I just want to see um if it's accurate. Yes, okay, I was right. So kobolos, another term for kobolos that we're a lot more familiar with are kobolds. Um, which so if you're like me and you play DD, the first thing that you think of with kobolds are creatures very similar to adjacent to goblins. Oh, that fits in really well. Yes and no. Okay, because well, yes, because I mean, yeah, they they there are a lot of associations with goblins. Right. But when I say D D goblins, I'm talking about things that are okay. Yeah, these these are like, you know, tiny shriveled little guys, but like especially the kobolds have more like lizard-like features. Oh um, but these so kobolds though were a lot more uh well actually I have no idea. What did you go? So okay. What are kobolds? Like as like is said here, kobolds in in German folklore, Germanic house spirit or mind spirit, often also associated with ships as well, ship spirits, too. Oh uh, yeah. So here's the physical descriptions. Small humanoid, sometimes childlike, sometimes gnome-like, sometimes grotesque. So they're I mean, and that's the fun thing about a lot of these kind of creatures, um, and also sometimes invisible, often invisible. So they're that's why they are considered spirits, even if they have physical bodies. How do you see an invisible well they they show you themselves like like spirits they're not invisible anymore? But when they're throwing pebbles at you, you know something's there, but you How do you know it's cobalt?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:35

It could be the invisible man just whipping pebbles at you. Throwing pebbles at you.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:40

I I I think I think because they're in a mine. I think because you're in a mine, you're getting pebbles thrown at you, and nobody else is doing it. I think usually the assumption is um that you know that it's blame it on the cobalt. Yeah. I mean even if they're not there.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:55

Well, that's the thing. People are blaming them.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:56

That's well, but that's that's often what happened. I mean, so here's a here's another fun little tangent. Gremlins are associated with so gremlins are uh essentially kobolds before airplanes. Oh when something goes wrong, it's because of a gremlin. And I've heard that before. And that like, and and it's not just like, oh, there is a malfunction, it's a gremlin. Like, no, no, no. Like these are creatures that actually cause problems that that you know, and but they're invisible. These are things that that you can see there is something that has caused a problem, but there's no explanation. And so they're if they're a gremlin.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:35

I think maintenance men have uh made those guys up. It's gotta be a gremlin.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:40

I don't know. There are some there's some lots of things. My job's gotta be gotta be a gremlin. It's not my fault. It's my one it's a gremlin. Definitely a gremlin. Um, social structure, again, often solitary, but I'm assuming as well that even though they're solitary, they're probably groups of them as well. Okay. Um, and then they're herds. Clans, I think, probably would be more appropriate. Okay. People don't travel in herds, maybe packs, not herds. Oh, if they're invisible, how do you know? Oh my gosh. Um, they're also the social structure is all also strongly place bound. So they, you know, whether it's the mines or a house.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:16

You have to say it. The mines, the mines like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:19

The mines of Moria.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:21

Um, their economic role. They are their mine labor guidance.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:27

Uh or detection. That's so kobolds. The reason why, or not the reason why they're called kobolds, but the reason why we have a medal called kobold is actually named after kobolds.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:37

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:38

Yes. Um and then, but they also do household tasks. And here's another fun one. They are also guardians of subterranean wealth.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:48

Ooh, more, more of that gold mining treasure kind of cousin thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:53

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But yeah, so they they are are very there are a lot of commonalities between Kobolds and Tomenachers, as well as other stories in the Appalachian Mountains as well. So which I there are there are two there are two um explanations for that possibility. One is that there are a lot of German settlers in the era, German and also Scotch-Irish settlers moved to the Appalachian Mountains. And so the culture could have moved with them, the entities maybe as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:25

So let me go on and tell you a little bit more about Tommy Knockers. Tell me. Okay, so Tommy Knockers actually begin in in Cornwall and Wales, with the the um the miners there, interestingly. And mining has gone back in those areas, I mean, for millennia.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:44

I mean, it's been a lot, maybe not millennia, but Wales, Ireland, and like lead mining and yeah, that whole area.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:51

You know, I did a little bit of research recently. Those are all part of the same ancient mountain structure as the Appalachian mountains. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:01

So these um there's there's two origin stories. Um, one believe that um the Jews who crucified Christ were sent into the mines to work. And they That was pretty gnarly. I know, and they actually turned into these Tommy knockers, and so that's the their spirits ended up being these Tommy knockers, and that was actually oh, and I'm not gonna go look it up right now, but it was it was written in in one of these ancient stories. I don't think it was Yates, but somebody wrote that that's what happened to them, and so there was, you know, so yeah, yeah. I mean, I you know the other thing is, yes, the other thing is I mean, so there's the the Faye area, but then some people also believe the Tommy Knockers could be the ghosts of miners who were killed in in accidents. Um and so what and and the term tommy knockers is comes by they hear knocking in in in the mines, and knocking in the mines often precedes um a mine collapse. And so these this knocking actually so they they they Which is you know it's a it's a it's a harbinger of a bad thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:26

Well, a mine, I guess mine labor guidance it could be also you know uh an early warning.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:30

Right, and they have been known also to use the knocking to guide people to a new vein of of ore, but but guarding subterranean wealth, yeah, exactly. Well, not guarding, but bringing the people that they like to that subterranean area.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:45

Okay, so so having uh having a knowledge of it, and then you know, determining whether or not somebody's worthy to go to that that area, and so they basically became um part of the the Cornish uh legends, and the miners would, you know, and I'm always saying this word wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:06

There's a pasties is the the the pie, the meat pies. Pasties is the pie. Yeah, and so what they would do is they would take their meat pies into the things and they'd leave the crusts for the tommy knockers, and that would give them, or they would leave cake for the tommy knockers, and then the tommy knockers would kind of protect them. If you didn't do that, your tools could be um missing, all kinds of mischievous stuff could happen. And interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:37

Then Yeah, that's that's very that that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:41

So when the Cornish came over, because a lot of the Cornish were really well known as amazing miners, and so when they started the mines in uh West Virginia, Virginia, I mean all along the Appalachians, yeah, they actually would tell the Cornish miners, they'd say, Do you have a relative? And they'd say something like, Well, um, what was it? It was Cousin Jack. He said, Yeah, my cousin Jack, you know, if you pay for his way, you know, he'd come and work the mines. And so they got the nickname, Cornish Miners got the nickname Cousin Jack, because everybody was the cousin Jack. Interesting. And and so, um, but then the Tommy Knockers became part, whether they brought them over with them or whatever. But they were they're a huge part of uh that Appalachian mythology, but the the leprechaun-ish looking, but not as dapper as as a leprechaun.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:44

Right. Well, and and it's very interesting. Um, you know, when you talk about the the bread and everything, that's also very closely associated with another group of entities that we can Is it alright if I segue to the next one? Yes, please do. Please do. Um the the next one. And I I think you actually have a not a firsthand, but uh a first hand account that you that you know of. Um but let me get to it. It's the it's the brownies. Uh because brownies are also very similar to that, like when she mentioned, you know, the when you mentioned the the the bread situation. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:21

Um man, where the heck did my so the the story I have is actually my grandfather told the story and he actually was from West Virginia. He he he's Scottish, but he's from West Virginia, and he remembers as a boy going out of the house and looking at the wood pile and seeing a little little man uh in brown uh at the wood pile, a brownie. And he swear, he swore that he had seen a brownie when he was a child. So now when you saw the brownie, did he did he try to did he give a bread or did he try to I think he was shocked and ran back into the house because he was a little boy. Fair enough. Uh which I might no, I I don't think I would. I I would say, whoa, what is that?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:09

I mean, yeah, yeah. The heart. And then I would be lured into the fairy mound and die and well, okay, so we're gonna talk we're gonna talk about brownies because because another interesting thing as well, especially, you know, it's not as much with the leprechauns, a little bit, but less so. Um, but more so with with the the brownies and the kobolds, is that there's a there's often a you can develop uh a relationship with them a little bit. If you treat them nicely, right, they will in turn do nice things for you. But if you disrespect them, then they will in turn disrespect you. And so you can do things to to keep them with you. And so here's so the brownies, uh, they are mainly Scottish, though they're also English and they bleed into Irish mythology a little bit. Um, but they are household spirit type creatures that are attached to farms and homes. Um honestly, uh uh potentially I I don't know if it's a necessarily a good description, but in when I when I was researching, Brownies, the the creature that kept coming to mind is the is the house elf from uh Harry Potter. Dobby. Yes, um which I'm I'm assuming that you know those the house elves are based off of I don't know if there were house elf English tales, but there are a lot of house spirits that are very similar to that, as well as like you know, here brownies. Um so their physical description, they are small, brown or earth-toned, hairy or rustic. And when we say when I say hairy, I'm not just meaning like a beard. Right. Like full-on, you know, hairy. Um think uh oh the from the black cauldron. Who's the guy? Who's the the the little dude from the black cauldron? Gurge. Yes, Gurgee. Um, which is Welsh, which I think also brownies are are Welsh as well. So that I think he might have been a brownie. Um sometimes grotesque, sometimes also invisible, uh, especially when it's doing household tasks. Uh so the social structure here, they are also solitary, but they are generally to attach similar to kobolds they're attached to to locations, but but brownies are attached to specific households.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:33

Um so here's their economic role. They are night labor. So what they do during the night, they they clean houses sometimes, but they are mostly associated with churning butter, milling grain, um, wrong page.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:50

See if I can and while you're doing that, there are also it's interesting, once again, there are those same kind of creatures, house creatures, house elves, house goblins, whatever you want to call them, in Scandinavia, in Germany, and I mean all of them have that same where you leave them some milk and you leave them a bit of bread. And then, but if you don't, then your milk will sour. Yes. Uh, your bread won't rise. I mean, all of these bad things will happen to you if you do not do that. Was I jiggled mine? Okay. Um uh yeah, all those things will happen if you don't pay homage to them.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:30

Exactly. Because yeah, so so like she said, they all you know, they they require offerings, milk, cream, bread. Uh they also lives, they tend to livestock as well. So they're farmhands, the best kind of farmhands. Um, they have little to no ties with fairy uh uh aristocracy. Uh, but like you mentioned, I think a big thing is that they they they serve, they maybe would be considered servants, but not slaves. Right. You have to pay them. Right. And if you don't, like you said, they will make your life kind of miserable. They're benevolent if respected, but vindictive if insulted. And so um similar to other things, this one especially though, there are very specific exploitation patterns that you want to avoid. If you offer clothing, uh if you sock. Yep. No, that's exactly that's why I say Adobe fits a lot of these, yeah, you know, a lot of these, a lot of these things. If you offer them clothing, if you mock them, or if you fail in your hospitality, which is where I think the house elf trope differs, right? Because they're treated like slaves, but they're not slaves, right? They they they are servants, and so you need to treat them properly, and if you don't, they will leave forever. And they will potentially, if you are insultful enough, insulting enough, yeah, they will curse you and they will make your life, like you said, kind of um really, really difficult. And so I will say I'm kinda even though it would have made life a little bit easier, I'm kind of glad that uh your your your grandpa didn't necessarily try to, you know, try to leave out bread or something, because then so the upside with that if if you leave bread and stuff out there is that you you will have uh an entity to help you out. Uh the downside is that at any point in time you can accidentally, you know, uh mistreat it, and then that will turn very quickly against your favor. Yes. So interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:30

I I did have a story, and I was looking through it and I can't find it, so I didn't print it out. But it was about that kind of a house elf kind of creature, maybe a brownie, and but this one you were supposed to leave porridge. And you'd leave porridge and you would leave butter on the top of the porridge, melted on sounds delicious. Sounds delicious. And uh this uh elf, I guess, came and he saw the porridge, but there was not butter on the porridge. So he killed their cow. And then he ate the porridge and he found that the butter had slipped and it was at the bottom of the bowl. So he felt bad. So a bit of an oopsie poopsie. He no, he just went and stole the neighbor's cow and gave it to them.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:15

So you know And that's and that's the amorality that we're talking about. Exactly. They they don't they don't care. They don't care about what we think is right and wrong. Right. There is no right and wrong. What they're right, well, they're right and wrong are tradition and customs. Yes. It is they're the the the hospitality specifics. They are very much creatures of the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Um you know that yeah, if they kill a cow, they'll replace it. Yeah. They won't they won't pay for it. It's gonna be someone else's cow, but they'll, you know, oops, you got a cow?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:54

That's fine. It's it's like the little raccoon on uh Galaxy, what what is the Guardians of the Galaxy? Oh yeah, yeah, right. What if I want it?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:03

What if I want it more than they do? Yeah, yeah. No, but you don't understand, sir. I want it more than they do. Exactly. That's a that that that's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:09

So I'm gonna Sedgeway segway.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:13

Yeah. You you got it the first time. I don't think it's a good one. I did. Why am I not doing it? That G, man, that soft G.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:18

The Attic Elf. Um again, because there's there's another in that whole Tommy Knocker stuff. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:26

We're talking about the Hopsville goblins. We're talking about goblins.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:29

So uh let me read. Ooh, I like that, kind of.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:34

Um I I didn't like it as much, but I like that you like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:38

You know, that's so this is this is Reddit again. My parents have a home about 30 minutes from Hopkinsville. And in 2007, my cousin and I saw an illuminating being very similar to the ones described in this encounter. I hadn't heard of the incident until I Googled.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:55

I'm assuming that when he says this encounter, this was about the Hopskinville goblins, which was a nineteen fifty-seven encounter or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:03

So um let me go back. I know it's I know it's 1955. Five. Um, an alien, supposedly an alien attack, but the people that had it happen to them never said it was an alien attack.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:17

Yeah, no, the alien, because because it was the 1950s, aliens were any encounter that happened in the United States that wasn't it was stamped as aliens, right? Which isn't necessarily accurate to the people there, it's not accurate necessarily because I don't think anyone in the Appalachian Mountains were like no one in the hills thought that it was aliens. Right. That was that was us. No, they said goblins.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:38

They they had said goblins, and they didn't even say they were green. No, that was that was also added media. Media said something wrong. I know what I'm shocked, shocked I said. It's on the internet, it's gotta be true. That's true. So, even though there was no internet there. Anyway, I'll go back to uh my story. It materialized out of thin air. And dang it.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:04

Um to be continued.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:09

I hate when this happened.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:11

Um you hate it when you have a story and you flip the page and it's the wrong page.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:14

It's just the wrong page. Uh okay, you're just gonna cut that one out and we're gonna go with another one.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:22

Um, we're we're getting uh we're getting the head shank now. You gotta find the story, dang it. I I believe in you.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:29

I know. I and you know what? I need to number these because I don't number my stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:33

I I get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:34

I I'm the same way. I've learned that I've learned that lesson. Okay, maybe that was it. Maybe it was just materialize out of thin air, period. But that's kind of disappointing.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:42

Well, but but that that does also um that does fit the pattern for a lot of these guys because they don't materialize out of thin air, they stop being invisible.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:52

Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay, so this is so maybe it is, maybe it just finished. And that's like, huh. So this this says, um, I grew up in Partridge, Kentucky, which is near Kingdom Come State Park, if you're familiar with the area. Anyway, I was recently able to visit a place called Portal 31 in Lynch, Kentucky with my wife and daughter.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:14

What a heck of a name.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:15

Portal 31 is one of the few mine tours in the area that you can go to and actually experience with the history of the coal industry. Not only was to Kentucky, but also the long-standing effects of what it had on the area. And these effects are still being felt today. As we were leaving, we stopped at the cafe outside, and I was walking around while waiting for my wife to order. While looking across the street, I noticed a very large power plant. I believe it was an old power plant, or it might still be active, but I don't know. But while I was looking at the power plant, I noticed what I can only describe as three small creatures, roughly three and a half feet tall. My daughter is slightly taller than they were, and she just turned five. These creatures matched the descriptions of the original Hopkinsville case. And growing up in Kentucky, I was excited as one could be. It was like seeing a real life superhero. Got the big eyes, got the pointy ears. That's right. It looked like they went into the building. And by the time I got my wife, who had her camera, they had gone gone. So sadly, I don't have anything to show apart from a really cool story that I will probably tell anyone who will listen for the next 10 years. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:30

What he didn't see is their little um time cards, and they were going into the plant and checking in and Joe.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:36

Well, cause yeah, because I mean, if if if there is any association with these goblins and I mean and Tommy Knockers and Kobolds, if there are and there are associations there, then they are they are industrious. Yeah. There there are a lot of stories about them being industrious.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:56

And they're still hanging around those. Well, okay, so another one. My family and I live in West Virginia, again, mining.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:03

My mother always told me that once as a child in the 1970s, she and her family went to Lost World Caverns, which is a tourist attraction cave that you can walk through. And she uh saw what she has always described to me as a troll. She said her parents laughed at her when she said she had seen it, and nobody believes her to this day. She has told me since I was a child, and with such sincerity that I have always believed what she saw. She described it as something ancient, like a part of the earth itself. As an adult, very recently, I've heard more and more about Tommy Knockers. West Virginia has a lot to do with the whole mining industry. So I wonder if she saw something similar. Very interesting to me that so many people see the same things in states so close to each other.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:55

And from countries so far away, but are all so closely tied again, not only to mining, yeah, but like like I mentioned before, to that specific ancient mountain range.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:08

Right. Well, and that's true. We should talk about that sometime. Yeah, we definitely need to talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:12

That's that's yeah, that's uh a potential breadcrumb for another, you know, episode later on. But I think we might be running a little low on time. Uh we had we we had another little bit about dwarfs, but um We kind of covered it with the minds of Moria. Exactly, yeah. I think uh I I I think I think this is gonna be where we where maybe we we wrap this episode up. Thanks for joining us again.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:37

We really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:38

Yeah, if if you guys have any um any stories about your own experiences with with little people, whether you are from America or you are from Ireland or from any country.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:52

And Greenland and Iceland have these same kind of stories too.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:55

Which are also part of that same phone range.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:57

Yeah, so we we really need to sometime talk about that. Well, we will talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:02

And also let us know other things that you want us to talk about as well. If there are other things that you're interested about, whether it is, you know, it's more folklore uh things, or whether it's something a little bit more spiritual in nature, or it's something potentially from beyond the stars. Yeah, uh, whatever. You know, we're we're we're always open to looking up a whole bunch of more fun things.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:27

And taking on these weird adventures and these uh weird rabbit holes that we go anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:32

Yes, yeah, yes, it's fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:34

Great St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, yeah. Stay safe. Bye.