About 150 years ago there was a terrible famine that ravished the entire country of Ireland. The potatoes were rotting in the ground before the farmers could dig them up. Hundreds of thousands of Irish men and women lost their jobs, their homes, land and some even lost their lives because they could no longer make money to buy food and pay the rent. Sadly, those who survived were forced to leave their homes to find food or face certain death!

They went searching for other jobs, opportunities and food throughout Ireland and across the sea. Most had no choice but to live in the glens and forests until passage on one of the ships could be arranged. These were the very same glens and forests that fairies and wee people known as leprechauns lived.

Leprechauns were known to be a happy, hard working, jovial and very rich lot. They typically spent their days working hard as cobblers; making beautiful shoes for all the fairies. When the work was done they would celebrate their earnings as they sang and danced the night away. Fairy gold, the purest, most precious metal known in the entire world was all that really mattered to leprechauns. They worked very hard to get it and even harder to keep it; in fact wee people got very little sleep because they always wanted to keep a close, watchful eye on their gold.

Legend said that if a human could catch a leprechaun then the leprechaun must tell them where their fortune was hidden. It was also just as well known that if provoked the wee people had a very mischievous, tricky, and vengeful nature. Humans, if they were smart, avoided leprechauns, and unless crossed, leprechauns did not interfere with the business of humans.

So now you can understand why the wee people became very nervous when all the farmers and their families began camping in and around their land. While most knew better and did not trust humans some of the younger more adventurous leprechauns were a bit curious and some of the older leprechauns wanted revenge. Whatever their reason for being around the humans many wee people found themselves mistakenly packed away in travel sacks, and luggage trunks. The leprechauns had no choice but to be silent and wait, because if they called out for help a human would surly hear them and demand their gold.

A good many leprechauns were just moved around the country of Ireland. It was a hardship for them to figure out where they were and a mild inconvenience for them to get back to their own lands but they were the lucky ones. For so long as a leprechaun breaths the air and stands on the blessed soil of Ireland they remain powerfully magical and lucky forever. Others did not fare as well.

Many Irish families managed to book passage on schooner ships, like the Jeanie Johnston, and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada and America. It was on these very ships that leprechauns and found their way to America.

When the travel sacks and luggage trunks were finally unpacked and the leprechauns freed they were in foul moods. They immerged confused, hungry, penniless and miserable with muscle aches. The worst of their discoveries came when they learned that with Ireland no longer beneath their feet and above their heads they were not as powerful. The Leprechauns blamed the humans for their misfortune until they realized they now needed the help of the humans.

With no idea as to how they would get back to Ireland the leprechauns learned there was only one thing they could still rely upon, their scent and desire for gold! Leprechauns could smell and even feel the gold in the ground but no longer had the magic or the strength to retrieve it.

Not ones to give up on a fortune, leprechauns began using humans to get the gold for them. At night when humans were fast asleep in their beds leprechauns would whisper in their ears where to go and what to do, “Go south to Georgia” “Go west to California and Oregon (Jacksonville!).”  How else do you think people learned where to find the gold?

Leprechauns in America learned to live with their diminished magical powers but they never forgot and they will never stop blaming the humans for what happened to them. That’s why they promised that on every St. Patrick’s Day they would wreak havoc on the humans around them. They agreed that they would find and take as much gold as they could, play as many cheeky pranks, and make as much of a mess as they could possibly could manage. They are determined to keep it up until they find their way back home to Ireland!

Please email your questions, ideas, advice and stories to familyviews@ymail.com or visit www.familyviews.blog.com. Be assured anonymity is absolute!