Which Irish Myth Are You?

Though they are the most famous, leprechauns are relatively new in Irish folklore. Its depiction is often inaccurate, depicting a caricature of short, green Irish people instead of the traditional red military coat worn by the original leprechaun figure. The character was first referenced in Echtra Fergus Mac Léti, the medieval tale following the King of Ulster, who was kidnapped by three lúchorpáin. After escaping and capturing his foes, the leprechauns offered him three wishes in exchange for freedom.

Similar to the Greek siren, banshees are depicted as pale women with silvery hair and draped in white or gray cloth. Sometimes she is seen as a young women, sometimes as a wash lady cleaning her bloody rags, but she usually appears as an elderly lady, letting out a blood curdling scream that supposedly brings death to whoever hears it.

According to Irish legend, fairies sometimes had deformed children, and would send them to the human world to be switched with a normal baby. The changeling left behind would be associated with bad omens and misfortune, with the myth appearing in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Gone with the Wind.

This terrifying legend tells the tail of a cruel dwarf tyrant who rises from the dead and terrorizes the people. To defeat him, he must be killed and buried upside down. Some people believe that he was an inspiration for Dracula, according to the legend that Abhartach drank the blood of his subjects.

Dating back to the 8th century, the ellén trechend is a three-headed monster that emerges from cave to go on a rampage. There is some dispute as to what kind of monster it is, with some claiming it to be a bird, while others attribute it to Aillén, the fire-breathing dragon defeated by Fionn mac Cumhaill.