Irish and Gaelic Fairy Folk

Irish and Gaelic Fairy Folk gathers the supernatural beings of Irish and wider Gaelic folklore said to dwell alongside, but apart from, the human world. The aos si, literally the folk of the mounds, are described as descendants of the Tuatha De Danann who inhabit the ancient earthen mounds regarded in tradition as portals to an Otherworld. The leprechaun, a solitary figure from the same broad fairy tradition, is remembered chiefly as a mischievous shoemaker guarding a hidden pot of gold. The banshee, a female spirit whose wailing is said to herald a death in the family, completes the class as the tradition's best known omen of death. Folklorists treat these figures as expressions of one shared belief in a hidden fairy realm bordering the human one.