Embarrassingly, North Americans enjoy adopting holidays that have nothing to do with them and making them an excuse to drink/eat/buy in excess. Saint Patrick’s Day is no exception.
For a day that was initially intended to celebrate the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, there seems to be a confusing focus on binge drinking and plastic green hats. Without rigorous historical documentation of the Saint, it’s impossible to know that Saint Patrick himself did not, in fact, spread the gospel of binge drinking and plastic green hats. It is safe to say, though, that Saint Patrick had absolutely nothing to do with leprechauns.
According to John Winbury, in "The Elusive Elf: Some Thoughts on the Nature and Origin of the Irish Leprechaun", a leprechaun is “a solitary creature, whose principal occupation is making and cobbling shoes, and who enjoys practical jokes.”
The leprechaun’s passion for shoes has sadly not been carried along in modern leprechaun lore. Instead, they’re mostly known for having very bad Irish accents and chasing after pots of gold at the ends of rainbows (even the modernized leprechaun has not yet embraced science, for he is certain that you can truly reach a rainbow’s end). On Saint Patrick’s Day, the leprechauns enjoy about 72 hours of heightened relevance before fading back into obscurity for the remainder of the calendar year.
But what if these little shoemaking weirdos are onto something? If there is, indeed, something at the end of the rainbow, it must be spectacular if they’re willing to throw all logic and dignity aside in pursuit of their treasure.
This all leads me to ask: What kind of treasure will you find, when you follow the rainbow to find your fortune?
QUIZ: Which Treasure Will You Find At The End Of The (Lunenburg County) Rainbow?
Yes. Good things happen to me!
I think I get a mix of bad luck and good luck.
There’s no such thing as luck.
No, I’m very unlucky.
“Oh, I probably won’t win. But thank you.”
“Thanks so much! If I win, I’m going to Hawaii!”
“Why would you waste your money on this? You could’ve gotten me a fifty-dollar gift card to Sobeys. Are you aware that we’re in a cost-of-living crisis, Uncle Jim?”
“You should keep it and check the number yourself; I’ll just contaminate it with my bad luck.”
Ask him for three perfectly reasonable wishes that aren’t too greedy or outlandish.
Request only one wish: that CAA shows up in a timely manner.
Clarify what the terms of this agreement are in case he’s trying to trick you.
Mistake him for a frighteningly humanoid deer and attempt to scare him off with the ice scraper from your backseat.
You would not acknowledge it as a luck charm, due to being staunchly non-superstitious, but you would nurture a sentimental attachment to a cassette Walkman that has Cold Fact by Rodriguez stuck in it.
A shiny pebble that a long-lost childhood friend plucked from a river for you.
A Tamagotchi. The Tamagotchi creature inside it is long dead.
A gold locket containing a faded image of a dead relative and a tiny, dried flower.
Yes Man. (A man challenges himself to say "yes" to everything.)
Just My Luck. (Manhattanite Ashley is known to many as the luckiest woman around. After a chance encounter with a down-and-out young man, however, she realizes that she's swapped her fortune for his.)
The Luck of the Irish. (A teenager must battle for a gold charm to keep his family from being controlled by an evil leprechaun.)
Holes. (A wrongfully convicted boy is sent to a brutal desert detention camp where he joins the job of digging holes for some mysterious reason.)
