In a quiet country spot near the west coast of Ireland there once was a poor farmer called Mick. He and his wife, Bridie, lived in a little yellow straw-thatched stone cottage.

They had a brown and white cow called Daisy and three fields. Two of the fields were small but had lush juicy grass that the cow enjoyed eating every day. The third field was much bigger, but very stony with lots of weeds growing in it, especially tall, yellow flowered ragwort.

Early one autumn morning, Bridie was milking the cow in a field when she noticed a huge mushroom in the corner of the field. As she went over to look at it more closely she could hear singing :

"Diddle diddle dum diddley iddle iddle dee, Diddle diddle dum diddley iddle iddle dee"

Then ever so quietly, Bridie moved nearer to get a better look at the mushroom. She was amazed at what she saw. For there under the mushroom sat a little man sewing a tiny shoe. It was a faerie shoemaker, a Leprechaun. Now, Leprechauns are supposed to have a store of gold coins in an earthen pot, hidden somewhere secret. Before he realised that Bridie was there she grabbed him by the arm saying "Gotcha my wee fellow – now tell me where your pot of gold is!"

But the Leprechaun with a worried look on his face, pointed behind her and shouted "The smoke! The smoke! Look at the smoke! Your wee cottage is on fire." Quickly she looked back over her shoulder at her home – and only then did Bridie remember her granny’s advice of long ago. "If you ever catch a leprechaun never take your eye off him or he’ll vanish." When she looked back, the little man had gone! Vanished into thin air!

When Bridie told her husband what had happened he was furious and shouted at her "You foolish woman! Don’t you know that you never take your eye off a leprechaun – That’s our chance of ever getting a pot of gold lost! He wouldn’t have fooled me so easily!"

However, early one morning a month or two later, Mick was leading the cow into a field when he noticed a gap in the stone wall around it. Fearing the cow would escape, he tethered her to the gate and went looking for more stones for the wall. "I’ll easily find enough stones in the big field" he thought to himself.

And sure enough the big field was full of stones and clumps of ragwort weeds. There were thousands of them, each with bright yellow flowers. Mick, just as he was picking up two big stones, heard something strange. He listened carefully and heard "tap tap tap" then "tap tap tap" again. The sound seemed to be coming from a big clump of ragwort close by.

Mick crept as quietly as he could up to the clump of ragwort. Leaning over he could see there was a small man with a small shoe in one hand, and he was hammering tiny nails, one by one, into the sole of the shoe. Mick was delighted – quick as a flash he grabbed the leprechaun.

Well, he wriggled and twisted, trying fiercely to escape, but Mick held him fast. After a bit the leprechaun gave up the struggle and said "Well, you have me, Mick – now what do you want from me?" Mick replied "The pot of gold, of course – I want your pot of gold wherever it is!"

"Alright then", said the leprechaun "But look out for your cow! She’s escaped her tether and is running away!"

Mick almost turned, but then he remembered how the leprechaun had tricked is wife. So instead he kept his eye on the little man and said "You can’t fool me with your tricks – come on now and tell me where the pot of gold is!"

"Very well then," said the leprechaun, "If you insist on having it, its under that big clump of ragwort. You’ll have to dig for it." Mick replied "Then I’ll have to go home for a spade!" Then he thought to himself…

"How will I ever find the clump of ragwort in this field which is only full of them?" It was then he had a clever ides. He took the white spotted red handkerchief from around his neck and dropped it over the top bunch of yellow flowers on the clump of ragwort. And turning to the leprechaun, he said "now promise me you’ll not take the hankie off while I’m getting the spade!" The leprechaun, with a strange look on his face, said he would not.

Mick ran back to his house, grabbed his spade and raced back to the field as quick as he could. But when he got back to the field he was speechless with surprise, for the leprechaun had kept his word. There in the big field was the clump of ragwort with the red hankie with white spots on top, but every other clump of ragwort had a hankie, just the same, red with white spots. "Curse that crafty leprechaun" yelled Mick "If I should live to be a hundred, I could never dig up all those clumps of ragwort weed." So that was the end of Mick’s hopes of getting the pot of gold.

Well you can imagine what Bridie said to Mick when she discovered what had happened. And poor Mick is digging the field to this day searching for the leprechaun’s pot of gold. Do you think he’ll ever find it?