Legends of The Isles: Fairies and Leprechauns (Documentary)

there's an old Irish tag that says in a twilight world somewhere between heaven and hell there lives a race of magical mischievous beings of course we don't believe in such things anymore but beware the tail has a cruel twist the less we believe it says the more we have to fear [Music] ever since there were people in Ireland stories have been told of the magical she a race of shadowing and use of beings they're the little people like the crafty leprechaun and his crock of gold the mermaid who yours sailors to their doom and the banshee with her blood-curdling cry we've all heard these lovely old fantasies but that's all they are right fairy tales make-believe innocent bedtime stories and childish superstitions nobody could possibly believe them in this day and age and so we rest assured knowing we're wiser and more sophisticated than fools who think otherwise but a bear one thing in mind according to legend the victims of these creatures are always the non-believers and many of the old tales aren't quite so harmless either even the most famous of them all the legend of the leprechaun leprechaun is a very tricky wee boy and the one thing is you should never take your eyes off him because he'll trick it if he can lose a young fella called make her greedy one time walking through the fields and he heard the tap tap tap suddenly the story goes Michael caught sight of a leprechaun quick as a flash he grabbed hold of the little fellow and demanded his pot of gold now the leprechaun knew he was trapped so he took Michael to a certain tree in the middle of a nearby wood beneath this tree he declared was the treasure all Michael had to do was dig it out Michael knew his tiny captive would escape if he left so he made the Leprechaun swear enough you have to make me a promise if I mark that tree with this red garter on my leg you'll keep that ribbon on it I promise no you sure I promise I promise on the pot of gold rates at Michael we set the Raimondo and tie the ribbon around the tree so off Michael ran to fetch his feet when he returned the Leprechaun was gone but the little fella had kept his promise a red ribbon was tied to every tree in sight he'd never find out which one the pot of gold was under and as he dug up the hole for us sure all he could do this it just goes to show never trust a leprechaun they're tricky boys a little superstitious mischief never harmed anyone we might think and yet some would say that mischief is the least of our worries for these creatures are said to have a much darker side all across Ireland our place is linked to this dark side of fairy magic lonely thorn trees standing stones and old forts each said should be avoided at all costs disturb them and run the risk of incurring of fairies wrath of course that's just quaint superstition isn't it like also called haunting tales there's really nothing to fear that's just what a certain fiddle player thought but as the story goes he lived to regret it well this was a great failure and he was coming home from a big duel and gone round the road the fiddler was making his way home one night when he decided to take a shortcut across some fields before long he found himself passing by a wrath of fairy fort and there on the rim of the fort where the fairy folk calling out for him to join them hardly able to believe what was happening he entered the ring and began to play for his strange hosts hosting the game was some great rain and he loved it and on hewing playing and they kept dancing our Roldan Tiaras passed and as the fairies danced around him urging him to play faster and faster filled his pockets with gold and his belly with drink honoured wink like that what Patti talked was the night and at last finally as dawn began to break they sent him on his way bewildered but happy his pockets filled with glittering coins and near dough when he reached his house he was surprised to find a young man standing at his door you have no business here said the man you've been gone two years and I've married your wife suddenly the fiddler realized he'd been tricked quickly he reached for the gold but all he found was horse dung manure and no ball still a pocketful of horse manure and a little stealth and time seemed harmless enough then besides is all in fun right just a fairy tale there's really nothing to fear or is there like thieves it said the fairy folk covered what we treasure most many believe they are harbingers of death in league with the Grim Reaper himself it is said that those who have heard the cry of the Banshee or the tap of her nails on the windowpane of the dead of night will soon know the true meaning of loss even the most innocent many claim have reason to fear those who believe the old tales say the fairies are stealers of children in cradles where infants are put down for the night they leave changelings withered creatures who quickly waste away and die according to legend the stolen child will never grow old instead it will live forever young in a realm without time discounted at your peril because this realm like the fairies themselves has always been a mystery its existence has never been proved but most mysterious of all it has never been disproved either [Music] fairytales let's face it are little more than children's stories and harmless superstitions only the very young or very foolish could believe in them we are too sophisticated we know better we have nothing to fear or do we [Music] too many even today fairies are not the cute gossamer winged creatures of children's fiction those who believe speak of ghostly shapeshifters spirits that can appear in any form even that of humans so how can we be absolutely certain we've never seen one one old story tells of a fisherman in the north of Ireland who falls in love with a mermaid refusing to believe she's one of the fairy folk he sets out to possess her an eventual II a wise woman can give him the advice that he needs and he realized is that every evening this beautiful girl unclipped her tail and turns into a human for a certain amount of time as she sits by the sea singing and so he steals a tail and with the tail he takes her par and so she must follow him home and in the course of time this pair have two children and the children right playing one day and it's raining and they rush into the barn two planets throwing straw around and they dig down through the straw in their game and they come to this shiny area destined thing under some old moldy short straw it hasn't been interrupted for years and when the mother saw this beautiful shining iridescent thing lying and among the straw she realized it was her tail and she sent her children back into the house did she clipped the tail on and she flung herself off the highest cliffs and sighing her way back out to sea very happy at last but when her husband came home that night he was devastated to realize that his bride had gone and he never saw her again it's very very unhappy but at night when the children were are asleep she would come back into the house and she would comb their hair and smile and sing to them because she was happy to be back reunited with her own people at last a new version of an old tale we might think and yet according to the local superstition of Rathlin Island on the northeast coast the story is true here it said the descendants of that same mermaid live on they can be identified or so it's claimed by the webs of skin between their toes brave indeed are those who would go there asking for proof according to legend the fairies are a use of crafty creatures who can appear and disappear without trace this of course is quite convenient for the weave folk after all if they're invisible who's to say they don't exist some however actually claimed to have found proof during the 19th century in the southwest of Ireland a farm labourer came across a strange object he believed it was an actual shoe belonging to the fairies terrified of the bad luck that might befall him if he kept it he quickly passed it on strangers may seem it still exists this is a shoe that was found first in 1834 and there are several strange things about it first you will see that it shows signs of wear in the sole and heel secondly it's been at some time mended rather clumsily there are two heavy stitches in the back of the heel itself at one time it's had laces you can just see the eyelet holes at the end there I've showed it to a cobbler he tells me that it's as good work as any cobbler could do indeed better because of its size and you can see how small it is I've also shown it to the curator of a doll's museum and she says that it's certainly not a doll shoe it's far too well made for that it would be interesting to have the leather tested in a laboratory I've not had this done but in order to do it properly we'd have to snip a bit off the shoe I think that probably the Paris might like that lightly such fears may seem harmless enough but others aren't quite so innocent the poet WB Yeats once wrote come away o human child to the waters and the wild with a faery hand in hand for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand this poem the stolen child has always had a bittersweet message in the past the legend of the changeling the child stolen by the fairies was never meant to entertain and is often resonated with genuine tragedy the changeling traditions wasn't doing particularly well well perhaps that had been changed it wasn't that the child was in some way handicapped or disadvantaged the wee folk quote of limb they had substituted one of their own women in childbirth were often taken away by the fairies again maternal mortality being an extraordinarily high there's an extraordinary high risk of maternal mortality here and so fairies came to plague him to interact directly in people's lives in this kind of way and could be blamed for all sorts of mishaps or things which might naturally go wrong which were otherwise difficult to explain crib death Don syndrome all sorts of maladies that affect the young might have been the cause of such superstitions and by rights medical science should have put an end to the changeling tradition a hundred years ago but strangely it didn't [Music] even today there are many still alive who remember ash being smeared on the faces of young children to ward off the wee folk according to the changeling legend the fairies are discerning meticulous thieves and filthy youngsters are of no interest to them once customs like these were common the little folk was spoken of in hushed voices certain places were said to be inhabited by the fairies mounds and forms of trees those who interfered with them according to local superstition risked a fate worse than death the innocent nonsense might assume these days but one fact remains these places still exist and to this day even those who say they don't believe will never destroy them dig them up or even till the soil nearby why what could they possibly have to fear all over Ireland there are trees ancient standing stones and hills which legend has it are possessed by the fairies tamper with them it said and he risk disaster a quaint old custom perhaps but if this is the case why do farmers still refuse to plow the soil where they stand why our modern roads and motorways diverted instead of passing through them why in an age of rational thought are these places still considered untouchable has an entire country gone mad or is it simply safer not to tamper with things we don't understand despite their strange appearance many fairy forts as we might suspect are quite innocent some are roughs violent homesteads which were common in Ireland right up to medieval times but others have a much more ominous background these are the tombs of Ireland's prehistoric ancestors ancient mausoleums of stone and earth where the dead were buried over 4000 years ago later with the arrival of the Celtic people who came to Ireland centuries before the time of Christ these old graveyards began to be seen as strange supernatural places they knew that these tombs weren't part of the natural landscape they knew that some people's somehow had built them but these were mysterious peoples of the past so that they're situated there continental Celtic gods in these tombs in Ireland in these old rats in the landscape and also the Celts had a belief that when one dies one doesn't just disappear that one lives on in another world beside this world so that within these ancient tombs and within these ancient artifacts in the landscape they believed that the Otherworld people lived on [Music] even with the arrival of Christianity in the fifth century belief in this mysterious world of the Dead survived gradually as paganism disappeared the tombs became ghostly monuments to every guard and goddess every banished demon and lost soul of Ireland's heathen past despite the disapproval of the church the old superstitions refused to disappear right up to the last century for example iron tongs were often laid across the tops of cradles the custom seems bizarre now but once it made perfect sense to the Celts iron was believed to ward off evil spirits and so many centuries later the folk memory survived and iron tongs like horseshoes became good luck charms strangely even now in a time when such beliefs are considered totally rational they linger on and still today many of those who claim they don't believe wouldn't dare put the old superstitions to the test welfare is in a sense our spirits but whether they exist or not I don't personally believe in them but belief is a matter of emotion as well as of rationale and I wouldn't interfere with a fairy fort that is an old earthen work force in the landscape we are we are told that if you dig up one of these forts or if you cut down a fairy tree a tree standing all alone in the landscape if you cut that down some bad luck will befall you so that even though rationally I wouldn't believe in them I wouldn't like to interfere with these places nevertheless even when fairy forts occupied valuable land which could be used for farming roads homes they were never disturbed and there are many who are still convinced of their magical power I know man I went to school with him in fact and he would swear that he saw a leprechaun seated on the edge of a fort one morning shaving himself and no matter home he was questioned he's still persistent in the belief that he did see a leprechaun in the vicinity of the fort so you know that belief was very very strong that there were the abodes of fairies instant fairy for in the modern world the superstition which once surrounded the fairy folk has faded but strange as it may seem a great many people still believe why is it simply that old habits die hard or could there really be more to the legends than we these days we are tempted to dismiss fairy legends as tall tales and harmless superstitions but why then do so many cling to the old ways is it just force of habit or could it be something more sinister fear perhaps even if people are inclined say oh I don't believe in fairies they're still very aware of the power of the fairies and so the function in all kinds of ways they can directly or indirectly actually govern people's behavior and on a more symbolic level they reflect the fact that there are great environmental and supernatural forces which play upon people's realizations in all kinds of ways that the perhaps they don't always a client for in the past people's behavior was governed in more earthly ways - and certain fairy tales are very little to do with magic a returned emigrant for instance a cheating husband or wife even a drunken farmer could always blame their mysterious disappearance on the fairies they hadn't simply gone missing they had been lost in a fairy field or kidnapped by the wee folk certainly at times the little people provided an all too convenient alibi most today say the fairies no longer exist Christianity they claim has long since stamped out all trace of their existence and banished the pagan beliefs which kept them alive according to some the last of the fairies died out around 30 years ago since then it is said there have been so many masses and prayers offered up for the dead but Ireland has been cleansed of all superstition Christianity it seems has finally banished the fairies yet thirty years ago exactly the same thing was said and thirty years before that and thirty years before that no doubt thirty years from now it will be said again even the legends it seems our elusive fairies you see are never connected with the present always with the past surprisingly even the famous leprechaun is a late comer to fairy law like the mermaid this mischievous elf like figure was only introduced to Ireland during medieval times although few will risk bad luck by admitting it the king of the fairies is little more than a colorful imposter fairies are largely superstition now but there has to be some basis in fact further Mars wouldn't have survived for this long and especially since and the church had such an influence on the lives of people back 50 60 100 years ago why would religious people still do these things in tribute to fairies they're going against the church's teaching and such it's possible that the little people do exist I wouldn't like to test it out by insulting them [Music] but what are the fairies most intriguing legend the elusive crock of gold it's just a myth of course but can we be so sure during the 19th century accounting Limerick farmer risked a lifetime of bad luck by planting rows of potatoes in a fairy fort on his land [Music] but later as he tilled the soil he unearthed the goblets of solid gold encrusted with jewels it was the RDoc chalice a priceless piece of ninth century church art which had been wisely hidden in the fort to protect it from theft for 10 centuries people's belief in the fairies have kept it safe since then things have certainly changed the original fairy fort is all but destroyed now but the chalice is displayed in the National Museum of Ireland as the nation's most valuable treasure [Music] [Music] perhaps as many say belief in the little folk was never more than just superstition but superstition or not the fairies kept Ireland's most priceless treasure safe for a thousand years and even today many people whether they say they believe or not are still not willing to defy the little people or go against the old taboos because heaven forbid they might actually be real are you prepared to take that risk [Music]

Channel: DocSpot

Views: 369,258

Rating: 4.8364458 out of 5

Keywords: Leprechaun, Fairie, Fairy, Myth, Legend, History, Europe, England, Ireland, Scotland, Irish, Tales, Folklore

Id: igPx1S01fGg

Length: 26min 9sec (1569 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 09 2018