The Witch and the Leprechaun.

The Witch and the Leprechaun

When I was a little girl I could see the Mountains of Mourne from my bedroom window. Like blue mounds of mystery, they glistened on the horizon. I lived at Number 8, Annalong Road, Ballykinler, County Down. If that house still exists, and you live there, may I say, Top of the morning to you, and hope you can get an extra thrill from reading this tale of childhood magic, set in your very own neighbourhood.

It was 1965 and The Beatles were quite a famous band. My elder sister was much older than I and had a red record player in her room. The 45s she played were kept in pocket albums with electric-blue and agent-orange, flowery patterns on the cover. There was at least one poster of the Fab Four on her bedroom wall and my party piece was to point to each one in turn and name them accurately, Paul, George, John and Ringo. My sister was very sophisticated and had little time to spend with a three-year-old irritation. I didn't care much, apart from knowing the names of the Beatles, I had little in common with her, anyway.

My days were spent in the beautiful meadows that sprawled down to the bog, which lay between the land and the shore. Long grasses came to exceptional life during the summer, when masses of glorious buttercups set them aglow, and it was a favourite pastime to flatten the buttercups and grasses into large rectangular areas. This was my pretend house. I made a kitchen, bedroom, sitting room and bathroom. It was not unknown for me to take a little tinkle in the area designated as the toilet as I became so lost in my game. The buttercups were thick and glossy and my skin had a golden glow, as I pottered and chattered in their reflected glory.

When the summer flowers had gone and the meadows were wet, or even snow-blanketed, my fascination turned upon the tower. Actually, there were two towers, one at my end of the fields and one, about a mile away, at their end. They were look-out towers left over from some period of shore defence never fully investigated by my young mind. My tower, as I called it, stood proud and tall. Inside was a spiral, stone staircase that led to the windy battlement. Parents were obviously, so much more relaxed in those days. It makes me shudder now, when I think of allowing a small child to gallop up those hard steps to the perilous heights. At intervals in the curved wall, as one climbed the stairs, were narrow windows, through which arrows could be fired. Imaginary battles and sieges raged in those winter meadows. I gathered stores of stones and mud pies, poured boiling oil onto mewling rabbles and knighted my best warriors. All this without a single child alongside me.

Whether it was because it seemed that I needed socialisation, or whether it was because I had expressed a desire to learn to read, it is not clear, but my mother enrolled me at Mrs. Malloy's nursery.

A smart woman, dressed in lambs' wool, tweed and pearls, Mrs. Malloy was an enthusiastic playgroup leader. Her house was all parquet floors and Agas. There was a grand piano in the spacious drawing room. Sun poured in through the large, sash windows. I enjoyed making shadows on the herringbone floor as I stretched and swayed myself into the character of a tree. Mrs. Malloy had a huge pencil with a tassel on the end, the sort of thing they sell at cheap, seaside resorts. She used it to rap naughty children across the knuckles. Often, Mrs. Malloy sat the group cry-baby upon her knee and soothed her, while the rest of us imagined we were seeds, bursting into life. One little boy did a pooh in his pants. I remember the thrill of disgust as I watched her topple the solid mass from his shorts and into the toilet. She had no helpers and so, by the time she noticed that five or six, astonished little faces were jostling for the best view, it was too late. We had all seen the humiliation of Robert McCaffrey. He's probably a High Court Judge by now.

Sometimes, Mrs. Malloy's son and daughter came home from university. Rupert and Alice were twins and they were quite the most fascinating people in Ballykinler. Rupert wore plaid trousers, or maybe that is just a trick of my memory, associating him with Rupert the Bear. He had floppy auburn hair and a handsome, lively face. Alice dressed in sun-ray pleated skirts, white ankle socks and black patent leather pumps. You have to remember the time; their style was de rigeur for wealthy, young intellectuals. Rupert and Alice were nothing like my secretive, irritable sister, who was about the same age, but had missed university and was working as a secretary for a firm of accountants in Belfast. The Malloy twins liked children. They became willing nursery assistants. Rupert would give donkey rides, Alice cooked wonderful kedgeree and sometimes, they told us stories.

When Alice told us a story, she wouldn't read from a book, held facing the seated huddle of children, so that we could see the pictures, like her mother did. She told stories from her head, free-flowing and full of imaginary pictures that enchanted us into mesmerized silence. She would whisper the scary parts as if she did not want her mother to hear. Alice's stories were conspitatorial and exciting.

One day, as we had finished being trees and flowers to the plink plonk of the grand piano, Alice settled herself in the big leather armchair. I remember the anticipation making my tummy churn as I scrabbled myself a good position on the Indian, silk rug at her feet.

She began her tale. It was about a witch who had died last Monday. She told us that she could only tell us the story because the witch was dead, and that she would surely have been turned into a pillar of salt had she told the story while the old woman was still alive. I hugged my tummy to stop it from leaping out through my mouth.

The witch was greedy and powerful. So greedy and so powerful that she could turn anything into gold. She did not invite friends round for lavish dinners. She did not buy beautiful gifts for widows. The very thought of bringing up an abandoned baby as her own, turned her wicked, old bones to bog-water. In short, she was a selfish, old witch.

The one thing that perplexed the witch was that she smiled every morning. It was just a little smile, but an unconscious, warm smile nevertheless.

She wondered if it was the thought of all her money, stacked in earthenware pots in the cellar. Beautiful as it was, she had to admit, she did not think of it first thing every morning.

She considered whether it was the misery of the leprechaun who she had enslaved to polish her mildewy, old shoes. Then she heard him singing a merry tune as he went about his work and scowled.

No, it was a mystery, something made her smile but she could not capture its essence, and so she had learnt to ignore it. Each morning she smiled, shook her head, and began plotting her wickedness for the day.

One day she had a brilliant idea,

"I'll turn everything that does not serve a purpose into gold. " she cackled, as she considered how pretty all that gold would look crammed into earthenware pots. Within a flash of a sunbeam, the mud on the floor was turned to gold. The sheets of her lousy, old bed were turned to gold. The letterbox on her ramshackle, old door was turned to gold. The weeds in her brambley, old yard were turned to gold. She looked around her and saw the big spaces which were her windows. They had not turned gold. "I said everything that served no purpose!" she shrieked. She thought about all the nosey-parkers that might try to look in at her windows. She thought of all the cold draghts that blew in through her windows and all the dead wasps that gathered on the sills of her windows and she howled into the dusty, rank air.

"Turn the windows into gold!" she screeched.

The next morning she woke and rose from her cold, gold sheets. She hobbled down to her stale, damp cellar and looked at her gold in the earthenware pots. She caught the leprechaun by his bruised, little ears and demanded her polished, mildewy slippers. Then she stopped and shook her head.

"I know what's on your mind." said the leprachaun. "You're wondering where your little smile is this fine morning." he sniggered.

"You're right!" said the witch. "I have not smiled today. Whatever is the matter?" she wailed, but the leprechaun never told her, and she never found out.

Alice looked at us all, one by one. She smiled and began to rise from her chair. I could not contain myself any longer. Surely she was not going to leave the story there. She had to tell us what had stopped the witch's smiles. When the cries of protest had reached a crescendo, a leprechaun walked into the drawing room. He skipped to the piano and sat upon it, pulling his suspiciously long legs up into a crossed position beneath him.

"Well, here's the leprechaun." said Alice. "Let's ask him."

"Yes please, Mr. Leprechaun." we all clamoured, as he smiled and winked mischievously.

"First, you will all be having to come out with me onto the green. I'll be showing you where the old witch lived, until she died, last Monday." he said. Mrs Malloy appeared at the door, from the kitchen, where she had been preparing tea. Her face was a picture of astonishment, but she said nothing, as we were led out, helter-skelter, past the neatly trimmed hedges and onto the green.

"Look!" said the leprechaun, pointing back, over the house, and toward the little, tumble-down cottage on the hill. Before I swung around to see where he was pointing, I noticed a bouncy lock of auburn hair escape from under his green hat. "Look at the house with the golden windows." he called, as we gazed, in amazement, at the glittering gold that shone from each window of the old, stone hovel. "Now turn and look in the other direction." commanded the leprachaun. We spun around and were greeted by the vision of beauty that was the sun setting behind the Mountains of Mourne. The purple mounds were now shot through with golden rivers of sunlight. "That is what made the old crone smile." said the leprechaun. "Every morning, the wicked old witch glimpsed the Mountains of Mourne through her grimy, old windows. That was enough to make even her vicious, old heart smile. But gold makes poor windows. She could no longer see the most glorious sight on earth, and she lost her smile." he said. We gasped with wonder.

True magic was woven into my life that day. Whenever I see sun-goldened windows as a winter sun sets, I will remember Alice and Rupert, the leprechaun. I will also remember the tranquil, ethereal beauty of the Mountains of Mourne, and give a little smile.

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