Case INT/0002 — Ballycullane, Co. Wexford, c.1933
SINGLE WITNESS / CONVERSATIONAL / TOOL OBSERVED
- Date of events
- Circa 1933; recorded 1938.
- Location
- Near Ballycullane, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Beneath a hawthorn.
- Witnesses
- James Nolan of Coole. Named here because the source archive names him.
- Summary of account
- An entry in the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection records that Nolan encountered a very small man dressed in red and green beneath a hawthorn. The figure carried a tiny hammer, spoke briefly with Nolan, directed his attention to somebody across the road, and was gone when Nolan looked back.
- Alternative explanations
- None recorded in the source. The account is a close match to the traditional pattern — solitary figure, cobbler's tool, misdirection, disappearance on loss of eye contact — recorded before that pattern had been flattened by mass media into the modern greeting-card form. Sceptical readers will note that a good match to tradition cuts both ways, and the archive agrees, which is why the classification describes the account and not the man.
- Sources
- National Folklore Collection (dúchas.ie), Schools' Collection, “A Leprechaun”. A serious archive, collected by schoolchildren from their elders under teacher supervision in 1937–39, and the reason this file exists.
- Editorial notes
- Compare the misdirection element with the directed-attention problem in Killough (INT/0001). In Killough, attention directed towards the figure ended the first observer's sighting; here, attention directed away ended the only observer's. The archive maintains a short internal note on whether these are the same phenomenon. The question is open.
- Revision history
-
Date Change 17 Apr 2016 File created following digitisation of the Schools' Collection. 17 Apr 2016 Classification TOOL OBSERVED added the same afternoon. The hammer had been overlooked in the morning.