Lucky Leprechaun...

This is my most recent snow globe, so recent that I only received it this week. My daughter Cloë, you know the one that’s just hit thirty, brought it back for me from Cork - her fiancé Jamie having whisked her off to Ireland for a long weekend as a birthday surprise.

Obviously he’s a leprechaun (not Jamie, the little creature in the globe) and obviously he’s lucky (again not Jamie, although he may be for all I know).

Just recently Lady Luck hasn’t exactly been smiling on me and I’ve never really had the luck of the Irish, so I’m hoping that my new globe changes all that. Perhaps if I rub it a few times my Leprechaun might jump out of his globe and grant me three wishes. I’ve often thought about what my three wishes would be if I found a bottle with a Djinn inside it, or rescued a witch’s cat from a well. Usually I can’t get past my first wish being for a million more wishes – but there’s probably some contractual clause to stop that from happening, it’ll be in the small print, paragraph 16 ‘wishing for more wishes make all other wishes null and void’ - just my luck really.

Maybe he’ll lead me to his pot of gold. All leprechauns have a pot of gold, usually at the end of a rainbow. At the very least he could make me some shoes, they’re meant to be good cobblers.

Whatever happens, if he does pop out and grant me some wishes, I mustn’t take my eyes off him. Take your eyes off a Leipreachán even for an instant and he’ll vanish, disappear, never to be seen again. They’re tricky little creatures.

Leprechaun’s carry two leather pouches, in one there’s a silver shilling, a magical coin that returns to his purse each time it is paid out. In the other he carries a gold coin which he uses to try and bribe his way out of difficult situations like being caught stealing milk from a sleeping cow, drinking someone else's Guinness at the bar - that sort of thing . This coin, more often than not, turns to leaves or ashes once he’s parted with it - but that’s pretty much always my experience of all money anyway.

Look at him sitting there on all that gold, smiling. He’s got his eyes closed, do you think he’s asleep or just pretending to be?

Oh, well I’ve nothing to lose. Here goes… I hope I don’t rub him up the wrong way.