Sometimes they were combined with folktale elements, as was the case with the very old saga of Fergus mac Léti, which was rewritten, perhaps in the 14th century, to include a story of a people of tiny stature the leprechauns.
Ireland is also renowned for its wealth of folklore, from tales of tiny leprechauns with hidden pots of gold to that of the patron saint, Patrick, with his legendary ridding the island of snakes and his reputed use of the three-leaved shamrock as a symbol for the Christian Trinity.
Those in fancy dress included a banana, tiger, lion, fireman, beer bottle, giraffe and several leprechauns.
I walked up and I said, 'Feel free to steal my image without permission, go ahead, but I want you to know that I didn't do anything wrong.' And she said, 'Oh yeah, and I believe in leprechauns.' " Blagojevich said that after he is vindicated he is "not ruling myself out or writing myself off as getting back in the business of serving the public".
Imagine my surprise when I lamped the triple threat I speak of and registered neither a brooding cult genius nor a matinée idol but a wormy little cipher, myopic behind black-framed glasses and groomed loutishly in his idea of rural chic: all tweedy and woodsy, with cap and muffler, ready for the leprechauns.
"Did Lilliputian hallucinations (which are not uncommon) give rise to the elves, imps, leprechauns and fairies in our folklore?
They would have this beautiful desert land, and they would put these ceramic leprechauns everywhere".
Leprechauns are, of course, mythical Irish creatures that don't exist.
"There were a lot of leprechauns working that day," said Isler, a veteran American navigator from San Diego.
As Nick flirts with an executive, Dana (Rose Byrne), and Billy trades barbs with a bully, Graham Max Minghellaa), the movie's product placement leprechauns stay busy: Miller Lite, Apple, the Harry Potter franchise.
If Notre Dame wasn't the land of leprechauns, Win-One-For-the-Gipper mythology, Rudy and Touchdown Jesus, I might be more inclined to believe Te'o.
