Leprechaun

The stereotypical image of a leprechaun bedecked in green is particularly strong in the United States, where it is widely used for a variety of purposes, both commercial and non-commercial. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Many Irish people find the popularised image of a leprechaun to be little more than a series of offensive Irish stereotypes and a trivialisation of Ireland's rich and ancient culture. There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out to be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. Movies, television cartoons and advertising have popularized a specific image of leprechauns which bears scant resemblance to anything found in the cycles of Irish mythology. In non-leap years they usually celebrate their birthday on 28 February or 1 March. The term leprechaun language, used by some Unionists in Northern Ireland, is a pejorative for the Irish language. A person who was born on 29 February may be called a "leapling".

Leprechauns have also been used in jokes regarding fiscal irresponsibility, the idea being that the politician or political party being attacked has found a pot of gold, or is going to ask a leprechaun for the location of such a pot, accommodating their spending. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to 29 February. Costello addressing the Oireachtas in 1963:. According to a 1288 law in Scotland, fines were levied if the proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to a silk gown to soften the blow. This can be seen from this example of John A. (Source: Evans, Ivor H, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988). In the politics of the Republic of Ireland, leprechauns have been used to refer to the twee aspects of the tourist industry in Ireland ^{[17] [18]}. There is a tradition, said to go back to Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget in 5th century Ireland, whereby women may make marriage proposals only in leap years.

The cluricaun is considered by some to be merely a leprechaun on a spree ^[16]. We can't predict these changes accurately enough to be able to make a calendar that will be accurate to a day in tens of thousands of years. Some writers even go as far as to substitute these second two less well-known spirits for the leprechaun in stories or tales to reach a wider audience. In particular, the second component of change depends on such things as post-glacial rebound and sea level rise due to climate change. The leprechaun is related to the cluricaun and the far darrig in that he is a solitary creature. However, there is little point in planning a calendar so far ahead because over a timescale of tens of thousands of years the number of days in a year will change for a number of reasons, most notably:. The modern image of the leprechaun is almost invariant: he is depicted wearing an emerald green frock coat, and bestowed with the knowledge of the location of buried treasure, often in a crock of gold. Others claim, erroneously, that the Gregorian calendar itself already contains a refinement of this kind [2].).

^[15]. This is based on the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the mean tropical year. Some commentators accuse Allingham of leaving the legacy of the modern image of the leprechaun described below. (The most common such proposal is to avoid leap years in years divisible by 4,000 [1]. In a poem entitled The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker, the 18th century Irish poet William Allingham describes the appearance of the leprechaun as:. This suggests that the calendar needs to be improved by another refinement to the leap year rule: perhaps by avoiding leap years in years divisible by 8,000. Yeats, in his 1888 book entitled Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry describes the leprechaun as follows:. The accumulated difference between the Gregorian calendar and the vernal equinoctial year amounts to 1 day in about 8,000 years.

Samuel Lover, writing in the 1831 describes the leprechaun as,. The 33-year period is not completely regular; every so often the 33-year cycle will be broken by a cycle of 29 or 37 years. The leprechaun originally had a different appearance depending on where in Ireland he was found.^[11] Prior to the 20th century, it was generally agreed that the leprechaun wore red and not green. The system used is more accurate and more complicated, and is based on the time of the March equinox as observed from Teheran. In other stories they are told of riding shepherds' dogs through the night, leaving the dogs exhausted and dirty in the morning. The Iranian calendar also has a single intercalated day once in every four years, but every 33 years or so the leap years will be five years apart instead of four years apart. ^[10]. It is the month in which the sun is in the same sign of the stellar zodiac on two consecutive dark moons.

the leprechaun shouts at her that she is being chased by a swarm of bees, but when she looks around there are no bees and the leprechaun is vanished. In the Hindu calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar, the embolismic month is called adhika maas (extra month). She takes him up in her hand and sets out to find the treasure, but all of a sudden she hears a louds buzzing behind her. These postponement rules reduce the number of different combinations of year length and starting day of the week from 28 to 14, and regulate the location of certain religious holidays in relation to the Sabbath. In another story, a young girl finds a leprechaun and bids him show her the location of his buried money. The year before the postponement gets one or two extra days, and the year whose start is postponed loses one or two days. Upon his return he finds that every weed in the field has been tied with an identical red ribbon, thus making it impossible to find the treasure.^{[8] [9]}. In addition, the Hebrew calendar has postponement rules that postpone the start of the year by one or two days.

Releasing the leprechaun, he leaves to get a shovel. According to the Metonic cycle, this is done seven times every nineteen years, specifically, in years, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. The farmer ties a red ribbon to the plant, first extracting a promise from the leprechaun not to remove the ribbon. In the Hebrew calendar the extra month is called Adar Alef (first Adar) and is added before Adar, which then becomes Adar Sheni (second Adar). The leprechaun assures him that the treasure is buried in an open field beneath a particular ragwort plant. The Hebrew calendar is also lunisolar with an embolistic month. A farmer or young lad captures a leprechaun and forces him to reveal the location of his buried treasure. The intercalary month takes the same number as the preceding month; for example, if it follows the second month then it is simply called "leap second month".

Many tales present the leprechaun as outwitting a human, as in the following example:. In the Chinese calendar the leap month is added according to a complicated rule, which ensures that month 11 is always the month that contains the northern winter solstice. By nature, leprechauns are said to be ill-natured and mischievous, with a mind for cunning. The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, so a leap year has an extra month, often called an embolismic month after the Greek word for it. Among the most popular of beliefs about leprechauns is that they are extremely wealthy and like to hide their gold in secret locations, which can only be revealed if a person were to actually capture and interrogate a leprechaun for its money. This is a very good approximation to the mean tropical year, but because the vernal equinox tropical year is slightly longer, the Revised Julian calendar does not do as good a job as the Gregorian calendar of keeping the vernal equinox on or close to 21 March. Although rarely seen in social situations, leprechauns are supposedly very well spoken and, if ever spoken to, could make good conversation. This rule gives an average year length of 365.242222… days.

Their pastime is in the making of shoes for other faerie folk such as themselves. The first year that dates in the Revised Julian calendar will not agree with the those in the Gregorian calendar will be 2800, because it will be a leap year in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Revised Julian calendar. In most tales and stories leprechauns are depicted as genuinely harmless creatures who enjoy solitude and live in remote locations, although opinion is divided as to if they ever enjoy the company of other spirits. This rule agrees with the rule for the Gregorian calendar until 2799. The tales are usually told conversationally as any other occurrence might be told, whereas there is a certain solemnity about the repetition of a folk-tale proper. The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4, except for years divisible by 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900. Stories about leprechauns are generally very brief and generally have local names and scenery attached to them. The excess of about 0.0076 days with respect to the vernal equinox year means that the vernal equinox moves a day earlier in the calendar every 130 years or so.

Leprechauns rarely appear in what would be classed as a folk tale, in almost all cases the interest of these stories centres round a human hero. This rule gives an average year length of 365.25 days. Some alternative spellings of the word leprechaun that have been used throughout the ages are; leprechawn, lepracaun and lubberkin. The Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4. The original meaning was of some kind of spirit and not specifically associated with the Irish mythological character:^[6]. The only tangible difference is felt in countries that celebrate feast days. The word leprechaun was first recorded used in the English language in 1604 in Middleton and Dekker's The Honest Whore as lubrican. This historical nicety is, however, in the process of being discarded: The European Union declared that, starting in 2000, 29 February rather than 24 February would be leap day, and the Roman Catholic Church also now uses 29 February as leap day.

Another derivation has the word "leprechaun" deriving from luch-chromain, meaning "little stooping Lugh", Lugh being the name of a leader of the Tuatha Dé Danann.^[5]. For example, the former feast day of Saint Matthias, 24 February in ordinary years, would be 25 February in leap years. An alternative derivation for the name, and the one quoted by the Oxford English Dictionary, is leath bhrógan, meaning shoe-maker — the leprechaun is known as the fairy shoemaker of Ireland and is often portrayed working on a single shoe.^[4]. Where this custom is followed, anniversaries after the inserted day are moved in leap years. This is the etymology given in the Collins English Dictionary.^[3]. Hence the term bissextile day for 24 February in a bissextile year. One of the most widely accepted theories is that the name comes from the Irish Gaelic word leipreachán, defined by Dinneen as "a pigmy, a sprite, a leprechaun; for luchorpán"; the latter word Dinneen defines as "a pigmy, a leprechaun; 'a kind of aqueous sprite'";^[2] this word has also been identified as meaning "half-bodied", or "small-bodied". The extra day was originally the second of these, but since the third century it was the first.

There are a number of possible etymologies of the name "leprechaun". Since 45 BC, February in a leap year had two days called "the sixth day before the calends of March". . Days were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so 24 February was ante diem sextum calendas martii ("the sixth day before the calends of March"). ^[1] While anyone keeps his eye fixed upon them, they cannot escape, but the moment the eye is withdrawn they vanish. The Roman calendar originated as a lunar calendar (though from the 5th century BC it no longer followed the real moon) and named its days after three of the phases of the moon: the new moon (calends, hence "calendar"), the first quarter (nones) and the full moon (ides). They are said to be very rich, having many treasure crocks buried during war-time. The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans.

Their trade is that of a cobbler or shoemaker and they are often described as being seen working on a single shoe. So the Gregorian leap year rule does a good enough job. They usually take the form of an old man and enjoy partaking in mischief. But in 8,000 years' time the length of the vernal equinox year will have changed by an amount we can't accurately predict (see below). Leprechauns and other creatures of Irish mythology are often associated with "faerie forts" or "faerie rings" — often the sites of ancient (Celtic or pre-Celtic) earthworks or drumlins. This difference of a little over 0.0001 days means that in around 8,000 years, the calendar will be about one day behind where it should be. They are a class of "faerie folk" associated in Irish mythology and folklore, as with all faeries, with the Tuatha Dé Danann and other quasi-historical races said to have inhabited Ireland before the arrival of the Celts. The reasoning behind this rule is as follows:.

In Irish mythology, a leprechaun (Modern Irish: leipreachán) is a type of male elf said to inhabit the island of Ireland. Thus 1996 was a leap year whereas 1999 was not, and 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not. a familiar which increases the amount of meat recieved from killing an enemy in the online game Kingdom of Loathing. The Gregorian calendar, the current standard calendar in most of the world, adds a 29th day to February in all years evenly divisible by 4, except for century years (those ending in -00), which receive the extra day only if they are evenly divisible by 400. former Deep Purple guitarist Richie Blackmore often dresses up as a leprechaun for promotional photo shots and when playing live. . Lucky Charms breakfast cereal. Leap years (which keep the calendar in sync with the year) should not be confused with leap seconds (which keep clock time in sync with the day).

the Wagga Brothers emblem. A year which is not a leap year is called a common year. the Boston Celtics logo. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. the mascot of the University of Notre Dame. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. Alosha Trilogy, by Christopher Pike. A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year.

The books of Herminie Templeton Kavanagh, on which Darby O'Gill and the Little People was based. Tidal acceleration from the sun and moon slows the rotation of the earth, making the day longer. Rowling. Precession of the equinoxes moves the position of the vernal equinox with respect to perihelion and so changes the length of the vernal equinoctial year. K. The Gregorian leap year rule gives an average year length of 365.2425 days. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. The vernal equinox year is currently about 365.242375 days long.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The Gregorian calendar is designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter (celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the Moon that falls on or after 21 March) remains correct with respect to the vernal equinox. Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer. Spellbreaker: Secret of The Leprechauns. Leapin' Leprechauns.

The Luck of the Irish (Disney Channel Original Movies). Kabouter Plop (Plop the Leprechaun). Treehouse of Horror XII, an episode of The Simpsons. Finian's Rainbow.

Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Leprechaun.