Leipreachán and Mermaid

transcribed at

The Leipreachán and Mermaid  [duchas:4788880]

The leipréachán is a small man about one foot tall.  He is dressed in a red suit.  His occupation is mending shoes, and minding a pot of gold.  There is an old belief, that any body who sees him, and catch hold of him, and keep looking at him all the time, will compel him to tell where the pot of gold is hid.  If you lose sight of him he disappears.
I heard of a person who caught a leipreáchán.  The man asked him where the gold was hid.  The leipreáchán said, I will show you if you let me go.  The man did so and the leipreáchán disappeared.
The mermaid is half a

The Leipreachán and Mermaid  [duchas:4788881]

woman, and half a fish.  She is supposed to be sitting on a rock, combing her beautiful hair.  I heard a story about a mermaid that was brought ashore.  She was sitting on a rock combing her hair.  A man saw her, he came to where she was and took her cap.  The man went home with the cap and the mermaid followed him.  After a while they got married, and had four children.  One day the man was looking for something on the loft.  The cap he had taken from the mermaid fell down.   She immideatly picked it up, and ran away into the sea.  The man tried to catch her, but he failed.  The mermaid never laughed in her life, until she got he cap.  The she laughed loudly.