What happens when you summon female Leprechauns?
This short story takes on the question of why all Leprechauns are male... sort of.
I knew the Pixies were messing with me earlier. They waited until I published my first story before bringing me this one. Like all my Celtic stories, some of this is historical fact, some is Irish myth, and some is straight out of my warped and twisted imagination. I will leave it to you to figure out which is which.
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It all started very late last summer, or perhaps I should say very early this fall. I was trying to get a very difficult article written on the Celtic myths in which humans become immortal, and my girlfriend, Annie, was feeling neglected... very neglected.
I’m normally not one to refuse sex, but I had to get the article finished for my publisher, so I told her that she could speed things up by reading the article and helping me catch significant errors in my grammar or spelling. I didn’t expect her to really understand the Gaelic references or the discussions on how to translate a particular rune, but she was very aware that the epitome of my spelling proficiency is remembering that there is an R in shirt.
After a few hours of silent reading, she asked, “So what’s the name for these evil Leprechauns that keep showing up in these myths? You never say what to call them.”
I held up a photo of a rune stone and pointed to one of the characters. “That’s it,” I said rather dejectedly. “It is applied only to the children of this one,” I pointed to another rune, “and a member of the Fey.” I pointed to another rune and said, “That rune we know how to translate... more or less. It is usually translated as ‘fairy,’ but a better translation is ‘member of the Fey.’ It’s someone who can claim the fairy mound as their home, and that’s not always what we think of as a fairy.”
Annie was still looking confused, so I continued, “Leprechauns are sort of the mules of the fairy world. They are the offspring of good and evil, but they, themselves, are neither good, nor evil. They are... ” I paused searching for the right word. “They are... are... mischievous.”
“And these children are always male?” she asked.
“Yes and no,” I replied. “Leprechauns are always male and always mischievous... except when they are female... and then they aren’t really Leprechauns... and they are evil.”
I picked up another picture of a rune stone. “Or at least I think they are supposed to be evil.” I pointed to the stone and said, “That’s another rune nobody can translate. It might mean evil, but it often occurs in sexual contexts.” I laughed and said, “It could just as easily mean horny.”
“Why don’t we hear more about these evil female Leprechauns?” she asked.
“They aren’t Leprechauns!” I said loudly, looking around to see who– or what– might have heard her. “And the wee men get a little upset if you equate the two of them. They are wee lassies and that means that they are NOT Leprechauns! There are no female Leprechauns!”
I looked around again making sure that neither Danny Boy nor any of his cousins was around. “I usually just call them imps,” I said hastily. “I know that’s not a Celtic word, but it fits. They seem to be evil spirits of some sort that do another’s bidding.”
I shuffled through my stack of rune stone images. “Or at least that is the prevailing theory. They seem to follow the direction of powerful women, like maybe Queen Achtland. She is one of the mortals who became immortal by marrying one of the Tuatha Dé Danann. I did a lot of research on her for this article and the imps get mentioned in one or two of her lesser-known myths.”
“Maybe you should investigate them further,” Annie suggested.
“I think I’ve already found everything there is to find about them,” I said, sounding very frustrated.
I set down my stack of photos and copies of articles and said, “I have discovered that one of the unique things about them is that it appears they are only able to be active on Dark Night... and no, that is NOT Halloween. Celtic Dark Night is the dark of the moon following the Autumnal Equinox. It is the true day when the barrier between this world and the next is thinnest.
“Dark Night is now less than a month away. That means it is over three weeks before October thirty-first this year. It is supposed to move around, at least on our calendar. The Romans screwed it up when they took Dark Night back to Rome and incorporated it into a harvest festival on the Roman solar calendar. But that’s the wrong day. If you want to celebrate Samhain correctly, you use a lunar calendar not a ... ”
Annie interrupted me, “Don’t get going on the date of Halloween,” she said tersely. “I’ve heard it all before.” Then she added somewhat angrily, “... several times.”
“OK,” I replied, trying to calm myself. “But there isn’t much to know about the Celtic imps– or whatever their true name is. The only time they are really mentioned for any length of time is in ‘The Cursed Book’ and nobody knows how to translate at least half of that section.”
“Is that the book that tells you how to summon demons and stuff like that?” she asked.
“Yes, it is,” I replied, “but there is no way I’m going to risk doing any of that. I’ve had enough trouble dealing with the wee folk when they drop by on their own. I don’t need to invite them– or perhaps some of the not-so-wee folk– to drop by for a visit.”
“But you said they are dormant except on Dark Night,” Annie replied. “How could they be dangerous?” She was using her whine-until-she-gets-her-way voice. I knew where this was heading... ... and I was right.
The ritual to summon the female wee person who is not a Leprechaun is rather simple. There is a standard containment circle and the right number of properly positioned charms and then some words in ancient Gaelic. That’s what really worried me. I was pretty sure about the number of charms and where to place them on the circle and how to interconnect them, but the Gaelic scared me.
Trying to make sense out of modern Gaelic is bad enough. Pronouncing the old tongue is even worse. And it was made even harder by the fact that I was almost stuttering because I was so afraid that if I mispronounced one of the words I might end up with the White Lady herself standing in my circle.
One thing I was sure of was that my puny charms and protections would have no power over the Goddess of Death and Destruction herself. But Annie kept whining, so I spread the powders and placed the charms and said the words and then waited to see if anything happened.
It didn’t.
Or at least I thought it didn’t.
Then Annie said, “Oh, they’re so cute.” She then reached into the circle and acted like she was petting a puppy.
“What are you doing?!” I yelled. “Do you know what you have just done?!” I almost screamed.
“I’m just smoothing down their hair,” she answered defensively. “They are beautiful.”
She looked over at me and said, “You can’t see them, can you?”
I shook my head and she continued, “They look sort of like naked Tinkerbells... except they don’t have wings and they have green eyes and red hair.”
“But you broke the circle,” I wailed. “They can get out.”
“Yes, they can,” she said. Her voice was suddenly husky and her eyes had a far away look.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“They are nuzzling and suckling on my breasts,” she said. Her breath was starting to get ragged.
“It’s as if I am also naked,” she breathed out in almost a whisper. “They can reach right through my clothing. The sensations are overwhelming.”
She was now laying on her back with her legs open wide. “They are soooo soft and gentle,” she said dreamily. “Their hands are so warm on my nipples,” she continued, then she gasped slightly. “And their tiny tongues feel absolutely marvelous on my love bud.”
One of them had evidently moved down between her wide spread legs. I wasn’t sure what to do. I still couldn’t see anything, but her hips were starting to buck up and down as if someone had mounted her. She was also starting to moan. That moan quickly morphed into a long, loud, shrill, keening wail.
I could tell from her scream that she had reached orgasm, but she didn’t stop. She kept bucking and trashing until she once again screamed out in orgasm... then another... then another. She seemed to be getting weaker and was starting to shake her head from side to side and call out weakly, “No... no more... no more.. no more.”
That continued for a few minutes until she suddenly took a very deep breath, relaxed, and started chanting softly, “Yes... yes... yes... yes... yes... YES!”
She lay there on the floor the rest of the night whimpering and moaning, alternating between “No. No more,” and “Yes... yes... yes...”
I wasn’t sure what to do, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want the imps getting out and wreaking havoc in the neighborhood. So, I drew a new, larger circle around Annie and then drew an even larger one just outside of that. Then I placed twice as many charms in the proper places to contain both her and the imps. After that, I sat in a chair watching over her. There was nothing else I could do.
I must have fallen asleep because suddenly the room was light and Annie was calling my name. Her voice sounded slightly strange, but she seemed to be rational.
“Are you going to keep us in here forever?” she asked, standing in the middle of the circle. There were two, tiny, naked females standing at her feet.
“Well?” she said after a few minutes.
“I’m trying to figure out how to let you out of there without letting the imps out.” I said tersely. “I really don’t want them loose in our world.”
Annie began laughing. “Look behind you,” she said with a smile as she pointed behind me. I turned around and there were four... no eight... no ten... more of those wee things standing behind me.
“That’s not possible!” I almost screamed. “I didn’t summon them! They shouldn’t be here!”
“You didn’t summon us either,” a very tiny voice said. It took me a minute to realize that one of the imps within the circle was speaking. “We were attracted by the smell of a woman in need. We knew that we could help each other, so we appeared in your circle where she expected us to be.”
“What do you mean attracted by a woman in need?” I asked.
The other imp spoke, “We feast on sexual energy,” she said. Then she laughed. “And it isn’t the ancient Dark Night... or the modern Halloween that makes us visible. It is a person’s belief that we exist. That just happens to be strongest on Dark Night... or Halloween.”
The first imp took back over, “Your belief, not your badly mis-pronounced words pulled us into the circle. And Annie’s belief was even stronger because you had told her that we exist and she trusts you implicitly... at least in things ancient.”
“Somehow,” Annie said, “my body knew that I needed what the imps could give me.” She shrugged and said, “I guess that’s why I broke the circle.”
“So will they stay with you forever?” I asked.
A tiny voice from behind me said, “We need to keep moving from person to person. Our magic is temporary and only works for a short while.”
Another voice added, “But we might be back next year.”
I looked at the ten naked little women who were partially surrounding me and said, “Are you a coven or something?”
“Something,” the two in the circle said in unison. “We normally travel in groups of twelve to increase our magic.”
I hesitated for a while. Actually I stepped toward the circles and then back three or four times before I finally used my foot to rub a break into the white ash that formed the outer circle and the gray ash that formed the inner one.
Annie immediately ran over and wrapped her arms around me. Her tongue was deep in my mouth. After a while, she pulled her head back and said, “We need to go to bed... now! I’ve learned some new things that will blow your mind... among other things.”
The imps, meanwhile, had formed a circle of their own. Their voice sounded much louder as they spoke as one, “We hold no grudge against you because you have released us without harm and restored the power of the twelve.” Two of them giggled but the common voice continued, “And we have fed well.”
The voice turned harsh as the twelve beautiful imps looked up at me and morphed into tiny hags with fiery eyes. “But if you wish to escape all retribution,” it said loudly, “there is one thing you must do.”
“Name it,” I said calmly. I think I sounded calm. ... OK, I could barely say it I was shaking so hard in fear.
The imps returned to their tiny, naked beauty and said in a single, very sweet voice, “All we ask is that you publish the story of what has occurred here tonight on your normal story sites with the rest of your Halloween stories. Then when women read it, they will believe in us... if even for just a second.”
There was a pause and then the voice continued. “And if they are even slightly turned on by your story or other stories they have read, we will know, and we can appear, just like we did here.” There was a tiny giggle and the voice of just one of them added, “We might not make ourselves visible, but we will be there.”
One of the imps– I think one of them from the circle– jumped, or flew, or rematerialized onto my left shoulder. “Just think of it,” she said in her tiny voice as she tugged on my earlobe. “Women will be sitting there reading your story and will suddenly feel a tiny hand or tongue on their nipples.”
Another imp popped up onto my right shoulder. “Or if they are lying down while reading,” she said, “We will be able to sample the nectar their arousal is creating.”
The two of them then said firmly, in unison, “You WILL publish what happened.”
The remaining ten morphed back into their scary hag personae and added loudly, “... WON’T YOU?!!!”
“Ye... ye... yes,” I stammered back and they all disappeared. That was it. There was no snap or boom or sound of any kind. They all just turned to mist and quietly evaporated from the air.
That’s what happened. I wrote down everything later that day... much later, after Annie and I finally got out of bed.
I really didn’t want to publish the story, though, because I truly believed what the imps had told me and I didn’t want to make them real to all the females– and perhaps males– who read my stories. I knew my story would release them on the world, but every time I went to delete it from my computer, one of the imps would suddenly appear on my keyboard wagging her finger at me. In fact, recently, one even floated up in front of the screen and pointed to my “Ready to Publish” folder.
Sorry, Ladies, maybe I’m a coward– at least when it comes to magical creatures– but I am going to relent and move this story to my Ready to Publish folder. And when it gets closer to Halloween, I will submit it to my story sites.
I can’t help it that my writing can sometimes make something so believable that it seems real. I’m sorry– I really am– if you are now feeling strange little hands on your nipples and tiny little tongues farther down. I didn’t want to do it, and besides, it’s too late now. You’ve already read the story and the imps became real to you even if for just a moment. That’s all they really need.
There is nothing you can do, so keep calm. They mean you no harm. They only want to feast on your sexual energy, but to do that they have to take you higher than you have ever been before.
Enjoy them while they are here. Just don’t call them female Leprechauns.
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END OF STORY
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