The Pirate and the Leprechaun

Bruce McMurty first saw the leprechaun at age six but told no one about him. It had a long red beard and a fedora with a jaunty red feather in the band. He knew the little creature was magical, there were no birds in all of Ireland that wore feathers that bright shade.

At nine he’d become very adept with his crossbow and snaring, and with his father ailing he’d become the meal catcher for the family. He had never forgotten about the leprechaun and may have sworn seeing him- just from the corners of his eyes, a small shadow whisked away behind a tree or a boulder. Every semi-sighting left Bruce feeling parted in two: chilled in his chest as if icy fingers coiled around his heart, while at the same time his nerves electrified like hot lightning flowed through them.

In the schoolhouse he had asked his friend Sooty if he believed in leprechauns. Sooty had said, “Naw Brucey. They’s just stories for little uns. Like Santi Claus y’ken?”

“But dwarves are real…”

“I’ve never seen one.”

Simmi popped her head between them. Bruce jumped and she laughed. Bruce found her sienna skin and large dark eyes something else. Exotic. Most other kids were very pale, with blue or green eyes and light-colored hair, often tinged with coppery red. Simmi said, “Leprechauns, eh? We had goblins in India called rakshasis. Went to a circus once and they had one in a cage. But it was a fake, all painted red to look evil. It was just a really small person.”

Sooty said, “like a pygmy?”

“Well sort of, I guess. They live in Africa I think.”

Bruce said, “But those are real…”

Sooty said, “Brucey here believes in leprechauns.” He elbowed Bruce in the arm.

“I do not! I was just asking about the stories…”

“Well, if you thought you saw one, it was probably just a dwarf---” said Simmi.

“---or a pygmy,” added Sooty helpfully.

Bruce nodded and asked no more. He wondered why a small person would duck out of sight. And why he felt so often he was being followed.

Now, at age eleven, out in the woods with his crossbow loaded, he thought back to that conversation with his friends. His pops was near death it seemed. He was out catching supper.

The bushes behind him rustled, his reminiscing flew away as he focused on the hunt. He raised his crossbow at the ready. A shadow hunkered there. The shadow hissed, “watch yerself young laddy,” then whisked back from sight. Bobby gasped but held his ground. The gorse and hawthorn shivered, bright yellow petals puffed, and through them came the shadow a-charging!

Out from the bramble charged a hideous figure galloping on all fours. Bruce’s resolve broke and he fired the bolt at its center!

The boar came to a sliding halt at his feet, the short bolt of an iron arrow sprouted from its forehead. Bruce let out the breath he’d been holding. He stood over the dead beast confused. It could not have spoken. ‘Maybe just losing me mind.’ He leaned down over its head and spotted something unusual. He pulled the bright red feather from the beast’s clenched jaws. With an iron crossbow bolt, he pried the mouth open, bracing himself from the gory sight of a small sized head, gooey with blood and brains leaking from its nose…but no, there was only the fedora.

Legend decreed that if you catch a leprechaun, you get his pot of gold. With all that gold, his father could heal, they’d have a nice home, his ma wouldn’t kill herself carin’ for pa while workin’ the spindle.

The sun had just about set under the rolling hills to the west, pinking the birches and bluing the alder leaves. Bruce sat crouched behind a fallen old oak, his calves were knotting, and his nose was running from the hairy moss an inch from his face. The hat lay on the ground before an upright oak in a little patch of loamy earth scattered with dried brown leaves.

He was about to call it a day when the bushes beyond the oak rustled. He placed a hand on his crossbow, lest it be the boar’s mate come for revenge. The shadowy thing approached the hat. It rose slightly, looked in all directions, then stepped to the fedora and bent to pick it up.

“ZZZZZZiiiiip!!!” went the snare.

“GAAAAAAHHHH!!!” went the creature as it swung by its foot six feet off the ground.

“Gotcha!” Bruce cried as he ran to his catch.

The wee man-like creature spouted and spitted words familiar to Bruce but not. He recognized ancient Gaelic, but the subject had bored him in school. He did know the word feckin and this one’s irate upside-down rant was peppered with it.

Bruce sat under the leprechaun, rubbing his cramped-up legs and let the wee one exhaust his supply of curses.

“Well then…I suppose you be wantin yer pot-o-gold then Boyo?”

Bruce had been mesmerized by the creature. He snapped awake as if he’d been dreaming and only stared, not trusting his mouth. He had heard that they were masters of trickery. At last, he said, “well…yes,” and shrugged his shoulders.

The upside-down face grew a sly, squinty grin. “Well then Boyo, I guess you’d best let me down so I can show you where the gold is.”

Bruce pondered the situation.

“Well, cmon now Boyo, bloods leakin’ from me ears here. Lemme down…”

“Shhhh! Ima thinking.”

“Well! C’mon Boy---”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Oh…okay…Bruce. C’mon now.”

Bruce climbed the oak and hauled the leprechaun up, as he did, he wound the rope tightly around its body then cut the rope. The creature flopped on the ground like a big fat caterpillar. When Bruce climbed down, the caterpillar said, “This is undignified! Boy---er, Bruce, I will not lead you to the gold unless you untie me.”

Bruce scowled. “According to legend, I caught you fair and square. You must lead me to the gold.”

“You know I’m, er, magical. I can get away if---”

Bruce said, “no you can’t. You must show me the gold, its leprechaun law. Then you are free to go on yer way. What do I call you anyways?”

“I am Sluagh. You are Bruce. I give. You’ve apparently know everything.”

Bruce untied him while keeping his weapon poised and ready.

Sluagh stretched, his spine popping like chestnuts on the fire. Then he said, “ahem. You have something of mine…” he pointed to his bare head.

“Oh. Yes. Here.” Bruce handed him the smooshed fedora.

Sluagh said, “cmon then.” And headed through the now dark woods. He bent, picked up a branch and it became a torch. They walked for miles and Bruce suddenly worried for his ailing poppa and by now worrying mommo.

“Ah, dinought worry for them. They outta misery soon.”

“What? Wait! What do you mean?”

They rounded a bend on the deer path they’d been tramping down and there lay a big iron cauldron. Sluagh tipped it with his foot and by the light of the stars, out poured twinkling, shining doubloons of pure gold. “My grant has been fulfilled. And now young Boyo, I am free to depart.”

True to the legend, he was free and so he leapt into the hawthorn and was gone.

Bruce decided to bury the treasure then come fetch it with a wagon the next day. His Mommo would not have to mend clothes and wash linens no longer. They’d get the best doctors for his Poppa. A nice clean house of bricks. It took him until midnight to dig the hole then cover the gold. Then, the long journey back to the town and his hovel of a home. The whole way back, he dreamed of a better life.

It was nearly dawn when Bruce was home.

His father lay still in his bed. When he bent to hug him, the arm that lay out from the blanket flopped forwards. The hand uncurled. A single gold doubloon tumbled to the floor.

His father was dead. Where was his mommo?

He went back for the gold right away. For gold can solve all his problems… so he believed.

The sky was pale blue when he found the fallen log and the marker, a strip of his shirt. But…the trees were different. His cauldron of gold was beneath an alder with a log next to it. The log was beneath a grand scotch pine. Where leaves had been, the ground was now littered with large cones. He had no idea where to look. “AAAAAgh! Oh Mommo. Sorry Pops.” He wept like a baby.

“Aaargh…whatchoo wailin aboot?”

Bruce froze like the statue of Sir Angus Ogilvy in the city of Dublin he’d seen once as a small boy when his poppa was fit to travel and trade.

“Down here, I ain’t gonna bitechoo.”

Bruce went towards the voice and found a man under a thick patch of bramble bushes. The man was curled up fetal style and sat up as Bruce neared. He was grungy and stank like old piss and the sweat of a hundred slaves. He shook his mane of dark hair, leaves and twigs flew. “Allo allo. Come. I am meek as a kitten, do not worry young sir.”

Bruce saw the man’s hands were tied in front of him with good hemp rope. His shirt and britches were faded slate grey, resembling pajamas more than the suitable attire one such as he, judging by his manner of speaking, should be attired in. “You’re a prisoner.”

“Hmf. I was a prisoner. Guilty of no crime. Please young sir, if you may?” the scoundrel raised his bound hands towards Bruce and nodded towards the hilt of the sgian dubh in the boy’s boot.

“Not so fast. I may be young but am no ijit.”

“Well young sir, I can plainly see yer not. What be troublin’ you? Heard ya talkin’ and screaming like a babe. Pray tell…perhaps I kin ‘elp.”

Bruce was embarrassed to have been heard. The filthy man was tied up. He told him his story. And felt a weight lift from his back as he did so.

“Well. What a story.”

“Tis true! Look!” Bruce reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of gold doubloons. The man’s eyes grew wide.

Bruce took a step towards him with the coins in his palm. “You see?”

“Argh!” cried the man. He curled up over his tied hands into a ball. “That be cursed gold young friend.”

“Cursed?”

“Aye young lad. I believe yer story. Now…iffin youse untie me, I’ll tell ya whatchoo wanna know. About how to find yer mother and defeat that thar Lep-ree-chaun.”

Bruce didn’t really have anything left to lose. He sliced the ropes with his sgian dubh and wheeled backwards in haste as the man stood and stretched. The prisoner’s garb was filthy. But the man in them held an air of self-contentedness. When he asked for a bath and shelter and food, Bruce brought him home. On the way, Bruce said, “who are you anyways?”

“Oh, young sir, allow me to bathe and appear presentable. Then…”

When the stranger emerged from the tub clean shaven but for a long dark mustache, dressed in his father’s clean Sunday shirt and britches, he bowed for Bruce and said “Ha! Captain Wexley Greenheart at yer service young lord.” He bowed low and tipped an imaginary tri-corn hat.

“But! But! You’re a pirate!”

Greenheart rose on tiptoes, nose pointed to the sky and hand over his chest. “Ah yes. I am that one I ass-uuume you’ve heard tale about.”

“What the feck you doin’ in Ireland? Don’t pirates sail the Cribbeen?”

“Twas them English barstids, them navy men that took me ship and put me in rags. I was headed to Portugal, to wheres I were born you see. Me mother, she be ailin’… you get the picture?”

“Yes, I do.”

“As luck would have it, ole hurricane Lenore took that ship and tore it part as iffin itwere paper. I were tossed overboard like a raggedy dolly. Clung to a mass-o-timber. Me own ship is out there on the seas, floatin free, the tow line snapped thank goodness.” Greenheart placed both palms over his heart and sighed. “May she still be floatin’ deckside-up.”

“You mentioned perhaps me findin’ me mum…”

“Ah yes. Well now … it be a fine thing you havin in yer possession that handful of gold…”

Bruce lifted his full palm towards the pirate who Vee-ed his fingers over his eyes to ward off the evil he felt emanated from the gold.

“Yes, yes. That gold is cursed by the leprechaun, that’s how he gleans is revenge. It contains is magic it does. You can use it against im.”

“But how do I even find him?”

“Follow the gold. C’mon. Show me where you found im.”

Bruce led Greenheart to the tree from which the wee one had hung from. And don’tcha know---them coins in Bruce’s pocket grew warm. He took one out and saw it was glowing ever so faintly. Greenheart nodded solemnly. Bruce circled the tree, on the far side, the coin glowed brighter. The two of them followed the increasingly glowing coin all the way to the hill overlooking the harbor.

Greenheart stopped, his mouth agape. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“It her. It’s my sweet Bloody Revenge.” He picked up his pace and practically flew down the hill. They ducked behind a warehouse. There were two ships docked. An immense galleon and a smaller brigantine painted black. The galleon had no gangplank; a crew of many men bustled about her deck, unfurling sails and hoisting lines. Men and women in fancy dress waved at the small crowd on the dock below. The black ship was being loaded: grizzled sailors and black men, bent under the weight of crates, chests, and artifacts wrapped in burlap. Upright men barked orders as sharp as whip cracks.

The two dozen oars of the galleon were set in motion and the ship pulled away from the dock. Once out of the harbor, the winds would catch the sails and take over the propulsion on the open sea.

“Seems like theys be settin’ sail tomorra mornin’”

“The gold. It’s still glowing. He’s around here somewhere,” said Bruce.

“He’s on that ship. Most likely sellin yer ma to the captain or bartering with him to take her away to sell. I seen them blackies theys put ta work, them be slaves. The gaul of it! My sweet Revenge---a slaver ship! Rots me heart it does.”

The crowds were passing the warehouse as the sun was setting and the galleon a speck on the horizon.

“What do we do now?”

“We wait til dark. Hang on a minute. Wait ere.”

Greenheart slipped around the warehouse which seemed deserted just then. Bruce heard a muffled thump and a short cry that was more of a gasp. Seconds later Greenheart returned…with an ornately etched spyglass in his hand.

“Did you---nope. I don’t wanna know.”

“No, ye don’t.” Near dark, it was increasingly difficult to see aboard the ship. With the spyglass, however, it was still possible. “There they are. Feckin bastids. Leprechauns and Slavers, peas inna pod. Theys laughin.”

“Lemme see.” Bruce took the spyglass and watched as the despicable creatures went right aft and below the deck.

“Aye. Night ‘fore a sail…they’ll be drinkin’ an’ feastin. We wait.”

Four hours later, after telling Bruce of his plan, Greenheart said, “Should be good n snockered by now. Let’s go.”

Sure enough, the snores of the captain radiated from his cabin. There were a few hollers and bursts of drunken laughter from the crew’s quarters. The lookout was sleeping as Greenheart tiptoed by him. In the slave’s quarters, he spoke softly to the men and the few black women amongst them as he picked the locks deftly one by one.

One stood out. She was fair of skin and blue of eyes. She was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. He told her her son was with him on board. When the crew were all snoring, their throats were slit one by one.

Outside the captain’s door, Maeve McMurty, called softly, “Mr. Wee Man, oh Mr. Wee Man…I seem to have lost my shoe.” She’d been assured by Greenheart that leprechauns can hear like cats with them big ole pointed ears an all.

Sluagh opened the door and peeked out, weaving a bit. Maeve was gone from view. But something glowed like a small lantern by the railing to his right. ‘Gold!’ His ugly, misshapen face cragged into a wide sharklike grin. He stumbled forward and bent to pick it up. Then two boy-sized feet stepped from the shadows. Sluagh growled, “It’s mine. You can’t have it.” He held it in both hands.

“I don’t want it. Any of it.” He tossed the rest of the gold onto the deck.

The little evil one tried to bend to pick them up…but found he was frozen. A petrified little devil. “Wha---?”

“That’s right. They were mine fair and square. So was the magic they held. Goodbye.” Greenheart and Maeve stepped up from behind Bruce and tossed the little bugger overboard. They threw the tainted coins after him.

Together, they tossed the dead crew overboard as the freed slaves set sail. Greenheart let the ex-slaves have a go at the captain who awoke at dawn in chains. Some would stay on as loyal a crew a pirate captain could ever hope for.

Bruce loved the sea and was happier than he’d ever been, standing alongside the captain as his first mate. And Maeve found Wexley Greenheart dashingly handsome.