rashore Posted March 22, 2017 #1 Share Posted March 22, 2017 Quote I’d like to salute this year’s St. Patrick’s day with a cryptozoological reflection on a favorite theme of Irish folklore–the Leprechaun. Could Leprechauns be inspired by some sort of diminutive relict hominids? That was a suggestion I brought up eleven years ago, at the March 2006 St. Patrick’s Day luncheon of a local Long Island women’s club of which a friend of mine was “Queen” and had invited me as a guest speaker. Leprechauns, as I told my audience, may not be just be a matter of legend and folklore. They may be something more than merely a charming, whimsical tradition repeated around Hibernian firesides from olden times. Rather, I noted, they are in fact as much a matter of occasional modern first-hand “close encounters” as any of the mystery hominids (Bigfoot, Yeti, *almas*, *kaptar*, *orang pendek*, *ebu gogo*, *nittaewo*, etc.) discussed by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe in The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates (Anomalist Books, 2006). The Irish believed in Leprechauns because they sometimes actually saw them, just as people have actually seen the Bigfoot, Yeti, *almas*, *kaptar*, and *orang pendek*. The Irish even claimed to have seen them in the 19th and 20th centuries! Thus, I observed, Irish newspapers reported well-publicized “close encounters” with Leprechauns in 1938 and again in 1959. I summarized those reports in my Red Hat Society talk, basing myself on the accounts given in Jerome Clark & Loren Coleman’s *The Unidentified* (New York: Warner, 1975), pp. 57-58, and in Jerome Clark’s *Unexplained!* (Canton, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1999), p. 424. Clark in *Unexplained!*, p. 425, cited John Barry, “Fairies in Eire,” *The Living Age* 355 (November 1938), pp. 265-266, as his source for the 1938 County Limerick encounters. http://www.cryptozoonews.com/leprechauns17/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted March 23, 2017 #2 Share Posted March 23, 2017 We 'used to have ' the 'little people here , according to Aboriginal stories . Obviously, when you hear some of these stories they are more of the 'mythical world ' . Yet, there are different types and levels . Many insist there were and are still ' little people' Aboriginals; sorta like pygmies .... but they are not related to pygmies as they are different . The Aboriginals didnt know what a pygmy was in any case . Then I met one ! he said he was a descendent of a 'rainforest pygmy people from Queensland ' ( nowadays, it seemed he or they had adopted the 'pygmy term ) . he invited me to look at him and check him out, he wasnt just a short person or little guy, his anatomy was specific , well proportioned, fit and muscular , for his size ( see below ) . I wasnt sure about all of this so I checked things out ... nope ( apparently the idea is 'out of fashion' now , and no longer taught ) . But going further back into Aussie Anthropology and ; two guys in middle 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldrover Posted March 23, 2017 #3 Share Posted March 23, 2017 11 hours ago, back to earth said: I wasnt sure about all of this so I checked things out ... nope ( apparently the idea is 'out of fashion' now , and no longer taught ) . But going further back into Aussie Anthropology and ; I looked into this once too, I can't remember much about it now, but wasn't there some pretty dark stuff attached to it? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
back to earth Posted March 24, 2017 #4 Share Posted March 24, 2017 Not apart and specifically , that I remember . Hmmmmm .... < thinks > .... no ........ nope ... I cant seem to recall ANY Aboriginal history after white contact that didnt have some pretty dark stuff attached to it ! Maybe the white head hunters found them extra procurable due to the size ? [ Yes, it happened , many of the skulls are still in the UK . And by the way - we still want Pemulway's head back ..... they really dont want to give that one back ! I think Pemulway's head went back 'whole' , not just the skull . 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted March 25, 2017 #5 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I suppose it is possible that the little people were real. I don't think any actual evidence has been found to date though. I do think the occasional buried "pot o' gold" has been found though... Aren't most Leprechauns depicted as having red hair? Wouldn't that lead to a Norse origin? Or maybe a Celtic origin? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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