The leprechaun has been classed as a "solitary fairy" by the writer and amateur folklorist
William Butler Yeats. Yeats was part of the
revivalist literary movement greatly influential in "calling attention to the leprechaun" in the late 19th century. This classification by Yeats is derived from D. R. McAnally (
Irish Wonders, 1888) derived in turn from
John O'Hanlon (1870). It is stressed that the leprechaun, though some may call it fairy, is clearly to be distinguished from the
Aos Sí (or the 'good people') of the fairy mounds (
sidhe) and raths. Leprachaun being solitary is one distinguishing characteristic, but additionally, the leprachaun is thought to only engage in pranks on the level of mischief, and requiring special caution, but in contrast, the
Aos Sí may carry out deeds more menacing to humans, e.g., the spiriting away of children. This identification of leprechaun as a fairy has been consigned to popular notion by modern folklorist Diarmuid Ó Giolláin. Ó Giolláin observes that the
dwarf of
Teutonic and other traditions, as well as the
household familiar, are more amenable to comparison. According to
William Butler Yeats, the great wealth of the leprechauns comes from the "treasure-
crocks, buried of old in war-time", which they have uncovered and appropriated. According to David Russell McAnally, the leprechaun is the son of an "evil spirit" and a "degenerate fairy" and is "not wholly good nor wholly evil".
Appearance The leprechaun originally had a different appearance depending on where in Ireland he was found. Before the 20th century, it was generally held that the leprechaun wore red, not green.
Samuel Lover, writing in 1831, describes the leprechaun as,... quite a beau in his dress, notwithstanding, for he wears a red square-cut coat, richly laced with gold, and inexpressible of the same,
cocked hat, shoes and buckles. According to
Yeats, the solitary fairies, like the leprechaun, wear red jackets, whereas the "trooping fairies" wear green. Yeats' leprechaun wore a jacket with seven rows of buttons with seven buttons to each row. Yeats describes that on the western coast, the red jacket is covered by a
frieze one, whereas in
Ulster the creature wears a cocked hat, and when he is up to anything unusually mischievous, he leaps onto a wall and spins, balancing himself on the point of the hat with his heels in the air. According to McAnally the universal leprechaun is described as follows: This dress varied by region. In McAnally's account there were differences between leprechauns or Logherymans from different regions: • The Northern Leprechaun or Logheryman wore a "military
red coat and white breeches, with a broad-brimmed, high, pointed hat, on which he would sometimes stand upside down". • The Lurigadawne of
Tipperary wore an "antique slashed jacket of red, with peaks all round and a
jockey cap, also sporting a sword, which he uses as a magic wand". • The Luricawne of
Kerry was a "fat, pursy little fellow whose jolly round face rivals in redness the
cut-a-way jacket he wears, that always has seven rows of seven buttons in each row". • The Cluricawne of
Monaghan wore "a swallow-tailed evening coat of red with green vest, white breeches, black stockings," shiny shoes, and a "long cone hat without a brim," sometimes used as a weapon. In a poem entitled
The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker, 19th century Irish poet
William Allingham describes the appearance of the leprechaun as: ...A wrinkled, wizen'd, and bearded
Elf, Spectacles stuck on his pointed nose, Silver buckles to his hose, Leather apron — shoe in his lap... The modern image of the leprechaun sitting on a
toadstool, having a red beard and green hat, etc. is a more modern invention, or borrowed from other strands of European folklore. The most likely explanation for the modern day Leprechaun appearance is that green is a traditional national Irish color dating back as far as 1642. The hat might be derived from the style of outdated fashion still common in Ireland in the 19th century. This style of fashion was commonly worn by
Irish immigrants to the United States, since some
Elizabethan era clothes were still common in Ireland in the 19th century long after they were out of fashion, as depicted by the
Stage Irish. The buckle shoes and other garments also have their origin in the Elizabethan period in Ireland. ==Similar creatures==