Tales of Bearach C. O’Floinn 03

Now as you know the Leprechawn have a penchant for mischief and many a farmer has been right put out by his dog being fair worn before the day has started. We, of course, know as the dog's been ridden all night long from here to who knows where, Galway or Clare maybe, by one of the wee folk too lazy, by far, to run or walk itself. Sheep or goats too, I can tell you, have had the milk quite ridden out of them. Well, let me tell you a tale of one particular Leprechawn, Bearach Candlestick O'Floinn, who rode a sheep not far from here, and rather more besides.

Farmer Shea has a bit of a reputation in these parts, a proud man and very particular about his rights. Now the apple of his eye was his daughter, Maighdlin, a fine half if ever you saw one. He was wont to boast she was the prettiest thing this side of the land and was more than careful to ensure no local lad got so much as a sniff of her and certainly kept her well away from the young men. Now I'm not as saying he was an unpleasant sort, no far from it, and was right welcome at the inn.

Where Farmer Shea went wrong, as so many do, is to get on the wrong side of the wee folk and the one in particular I have already mentioned to you, Bearach Candlestick O'Floinn by name. Now I am not saying that Bearach was the completely innocent party for he was up to the mischievous pranks the Leprechawn are fond of—it keeps them from being overburdened by honest work I expect. All he had done was to keep the farmer awaiting a delivery all day. The driver of the lorry, you see, was not local and had driven all the way up from Dublin, even the other side of the Liffey. You could say it was his mistake to ask directions but the real mistake was to ask the diminutive old man with the cocked hat leaning on his stick at the crossroads. You'd have thought he'd have had more sense given the size of the man and the rather outmoded garb he wore. I mean who wears a red jacket, breeches and stockings these days but he was from the town and probably thought that's how an old culchie dresses in these parts and meant to have a good laugh about it that evening back in Dublin with his mates over a pint or two of the black stuff.

He's polite enough to the old fellow — at first, asking how he was ("Surviving") before asking the way to Shea's farm.

Bearach, it is him, starts by saying slowly, "I wouldn't start from here if I was going there..."

Which was none too helpful, but the driver humours him as the old man's only a 'muck savage' after all, "well, let's suppose I was..."

Bearach then launches into a complicated explanation with numerous directions, "turn right when you come to a cottage, turn left at Mrs. O'Rourke's, straight on where there are cows in the low field" and so on.

This leaves the driver no wiser so Bearach suggests amiably that he goes "straight on, turns right, then left and ask again."

Well, the driver doesn't think there's too much chance of there being anyone else to ask at that junction in the middle of the country but doesn't think there's much point listening to the old man any more so he drives on and then turns right and then left as instructed and is surprised and relieved to see someone sitting by the roadside when he comes to the next junction only, as he draws up beside him, it seems to be either the same man (but it can't be) or his twin. Well, this one is similarly not a great help, and he wonders if they are all daft in these parts, but gives him another set of directions and he finds himself right back at the first crossroads with the original old man again.

"What, back again?" asks Bearach.

The driver explains he was sent this way by someone who was the spitting image of the old man.

"Ah, that'll be my brother, he's an amadán, you don't want to listen to him. You should have gone right after there at the fork, not left..."

Of course Farmer Shea comes out of his farmhouse mid morning wondering where his delivery has got to and, the farm being on the top of a hill, he can see the lorry driving around the lanes but not getting to, or indeed any closer to the farm, going first one way, then another. After a time he espies the little old man in the red jacket and how he's not always in the same place and is pointing out directions to the driver and all. You can imagine the frown settling on the farmer's features as he realises who is making mischief and delaying the driver. Well he rings for the constable but the police are none too keen on the idea of arresting a Leprechawn, particularly when the farmer suggests a certain name as the likely culprit. So the farmer goes out himself to lead the lorry in but by now its stuck down the end of a dead-end track and it took the best part of the afternoon, and a lot of sweat and cursing for him to tractor it out and all the time he was none too sure he wasn't being watched and laughed at by a certain party who could as easily have been under a shamrock as up a tree.

Now Farmer Shea did not take kindly to being played around with and resolved to have revenge on the party who had been acting the maggot. To cut short what is getting to be a long story he has Bearach Candlestick O'Floinn banned from the pub, him having 'influence' and all. That did not go down well at all; mad as a little wasp was Bearach, a sight to behold.

Now it may not have been that evening, but it was not long after that Maighdlin stepped out of her front door for a run. You know how these young people can get the fitness idea into their heads, well she had it bad and out she comes from the farmhouse all in her running gear—you know, shorts, sports bra, branded trainers, singlet, Walkman, that sort of thing—and off she goes down the lane at a trot. She's known around the parts so she gets a cheery wave from those she meets on the road and she goes a fair distance. Maighdlin's a good runner. Weather is fine, her breathing sound and she's running well with no stitch or anything and the music is good... all that is until she comes up by the moor. Well it seems the weather takes a bit of a turn for the worse and it starts to rain, what's more the path seems not as clear as it has been and the branches of the trees and the bushes seem to catch at her and it's not long before her fancy running gear gets a bit torn, then a bit more ripped. That does not please her one little bit, that gear's expensive and, anyhow, she's getting cold now. The Walkman's gets turned off and she goes on down the track when, all at once, she stumbles and there's a real nasty rip and her running shorts are in tatters and her panties in none too good a state either. She can hardly credit this but runs onwards as the evening draws on and the rain gets wetter. The path's muddy and she slides a bit only to feel another big rip and her singlet and bra are on their last legs, well it's not that many more yards before they come away altogether and there's Maighdlin running in just her panties and trainers. 'Course it's not so easy for a girl who's quite well endowed to run with her boobies all bouncing around so she stops for a few moments unsure of what to do, she's got to get home unseen in her state so she sets off back holding them still in her hands only to find she manages to catch just the very edge of her panties on a bush and they rip too. They hold on for a few more yards, though not as decent as Maighdlin would wish before they too get snagged on a branch and are left just hanging there like a little flag to show she's passed by.

Imagine now Maighdlin running through the rain with just her trainers on, as fine a lass as you can think about. Well, what a sight for an old man such as I! But I was not so foolish as to be out in that rain any more than you were—more's the pity, as you could have confirmed for yourself that Maighdlin's fair head of hair was not her natural colour and she does have that Shamrock tattoo that is rumoured. Oh, you didn't know about that?

Ahead, to her dismay, she espies, standing on the track, a man, not a very big man at all, dressed in a great big sheepskin overcoat. There's nothing but to run up to him, the rain running down her and with her breasts all a bouncing, no other track to turn down and she doesn't want to turn around again and run further away from home.

"How's you cuttin'?" He says matter of factly as if there is nothing at all unusual in a pretty young girl bouncing down a track in the rain of an evening, though he does add, "you'll catch your death running around like that." And then he offers her his sheepskin overcoat, gentlemanly like.

Well Maighdlin should have had more sense. She really should have known she was a talking to one of the Leprechawn and Bearach Candlestick O'Floinn to boot, all ruddy hair, wizened old face and all. But she accepts the offer and he pulls off the coat turning it inside out as he does it so the fleece is on the outside — a bit odd and that should have put her on warning but she was so keen to hide her nakedness, I suppose she didn't think straight or else it was the cold and wet. The coat is warming and fits her like a glove. She thanks him and it seems that only then she notices his red jacket and breeches and it dawns on her what she had done and that it is customary to offer a Leprechawn something in return for a favour.

The Leprechawn looks a bit concerned as the rain falls down. "Oh dear my jacket is getting wet, and my lace." He doesn't like that. "And it's a long walk home for an oldish man like me."

Maighdlin meanwhile is all cosy now in the sheepskin and feels sorry for the little man, why, she thinks, he can't be more than three foot tall.

"Could you, perhaps, carry me a little way?"

She thinks he can't be heavy so she lifts him up on her back and off they go down the track. His weight was truly not great at all and she trotted along easily with the leprechaun bouncing up and down a little on her back. It was then that Bearach Candlestick O'Floinn got out his magic wand. Now you are thinking of something black with white at both ends. Well this was different, it had only one end and that was ruddy. Now yourself is thinking how can a stick have only one end. Well if I said he kept it in his breeches would that give you more of an idea?

So there he is being carried piggy back, Maighdlin trotting along happy and warm and Bearach saved the bother of walking and thinking, as he bounces up and down on her back, what he might do to her later that evening with his magic wand. Well, all that waggling around of the magic wand and its rubbing against her back as she bounces along was bound to release some magic and Maighdlin begins to feel it just a bit difficult walking on just her legs so she bends and gets down on her hands as well and is soon trotting along the track on all fours and finds that so much easier, so much more natural and quicker as well. It's easier for Bearach too as he's properly riding along on her back and he holds on to the wool of her coat just by her neck and digs his heels in a bit to make her go faster and off Maighdlin goes at a gallop. The coat feels really cosy now and for a moment Maighdlin is puzzled at how she's running so fast on all fours until she realises she's a sheep now. Oh yes, she really was.

Old Bearach puts away his wand, digs his heels in harder and whoops as he rides Maighdlin over the land; the moon comes from behind a cloud and there, for anyone there to see, is the strange sight of the red coated Leprechawn riding a sheep like it was a horse. On and on they go and poor Maighdlin really gets quite tired even with her four legs but she can't stop with her rider urging her on, not until they come to the field opposite the very pub Bearach has been banned from earlier in my tale. The wild ride slows and Bearach lets Maighdlin have a rest and pull at some good green grass.

Farmer Shea is in the pub drinking beer and regaling the regulars with how he dealt with that rogue, Bearach Candlestick O'Floinn. Now they are not so sure about that at all, me among them, but we are happy to drink his beer and listen. He goes outside to answer a call of nature, he having drunk a good deal of the beer, when he calls us. We come out, glasses in hand being loathe to leave them and see him pointing at the field across the road.

"Look," he says, "have you ever seen a ram's bollocks like those?"

In the bright moonlight we see a ram tupping a ewe and, as the farmer says, the ram's got the biggest pair of bollocks you've ever seen and is at the ewe, covering her.

"Prettiest little ewe I've seen either and looks like the pair are enjoying that fuck as much as I ever have, right hammer and tongs."

Well, we look and then we look at each other and look back again and then look at Farmer Shea. Can't he see, we think, what's plain as plain can be that that ram is the Leprechawn, Bearach Candlestick O'Floinn and the ewe he's tupping is young Maighdlin? You don't come from the country, you know, and not be able to see such things as so.

"I'd like to breed from that ram, not seen the like afore."

Well certainly the size of a ram's bollocks shows its fertility, any countryman knows that but did the amadán know what he was saying - no!

After a time the ram pushes the ewe along out of sight, still going at it, but Farmer Shea goes on and on about this ram and his great big bollocks and we just stand and stare at him, taking the odd pull at his beer because listening can be thirsty work. All at once we hear a light clattering in the lane and we turn and out of the gloom comes a sheep cantering along the road with, of all things, a rider; a tiny wizened old man in red jacket and breeches holding on to the scruff of the ewe's neck with one hand and his cocked hat in the other and he waves it at us derisively as he races past — or more particularly waves it at Farmer Shea. It's then that the penny drops and you should have seen the farmer's face as he realises what old Bearach had just been doing in the field with Maighdlin.

I can't imagine, my friend, that was all Bearach did with Maighdlin, tupping her as a ram in a field. I can't but think he rode her to a nice dry warm barn before getting his magic wand out again and having a merry old time with her before the dawn. But I knows little of that and he has not confided more in me.