A Curious Tale for the Brave and the Bewildered)
The Bad, Bold, and Mischievous Leprechaun of Ballykillduff
(A Curious Tale for the Brave and the Bewildered)
Long ago—but not too long ago, for odd things still happen on Tuesdays—a most disagreeable Leprechaun made his lair in the middle of Ballykillduff. His name was Lugh O’Lunacy, and he was bad, bold, and mischievous beyond all telling.
Unlike his more respectable cousins (who hoarded gold, guarded rainbows, and polished their boots with mint leaves), Lugh had no time for such nonsense. He wore odd socks—one green and one red—and his beard was tangled with twigs, crumbs, and the occasional lost teaspoon. He didn’t guard treasure. He misplaced it. He didn’t grant wishes. He twisted them. And he didn’t mind being caught—he planned on it.
Chapter One: The Pint that Vanished
It began, as many strange tales do, in O’Malley’s Pub on a misty Thursday evening.
Old Mick Mulrooney had just ordered his usual—one pint of creamy stout and a bag of suspiciously spicy peanuts—when it happened. He raised his glass, tilted it, and POOF!—gone. The pint vanished, mid-air.
A low chuckle filled the pub, like the sound of a cat trying not to laugh. Then the dartboard spun on its own. The jukebox played The Hokey Pokey in Latin. A pair of dancing boots hopped down the road unaided.
The locals knew at once.
“Lugh’s back,” whispered Granny Kilduff, narrowing her eyes. “And he’s bolder than ever.”
Chapter Two: The Cows that Moo’d Backwards
The next morning, things got weirder.
Farmer Declan O’Driscoll burst into town, red-faced and wild-eyed.
“The cows!” he shouted. “They’re mooing backwards!”
Sure enough, every cow on the Ballykillduff hillside now said, “Oom!” in a hauntingly reverse tone. Not only that, but they’d begun walking tail-first, chewing cud from the wrong end, and spontaneously rearranging themselves into alphabetical order (though nobody was quite sure by what alphabet).
Meanwhile, Lugh O’Lunacy was seen skipping through the fields wearing a crown made of broccoli and shouting, “I DECLARE THIS A STATE OF UTTER NONSENSE!”
Chapter Three: The Battle of the Balancing Act
You see, Ballykillduff had long prided itself on its equilibrium. The sheep never trespassed into cow territory, the rain politely stopped before weddings, and even the ghosts took Tuesdays off. But Lugh had no respect for balance.
He swapped street signs so that “Welcome to Ballykillduff” now pointed to the recycling bins.
He turned the mayor’s speech into interpretive dance.
He convinced the postman that all letters were edible (which led to an unfortunate attempt at eating a gas bill).
The people had had enough.
They formed a Committee. A proper one. With chairs and a flipchart and passive-aggressive biscuits. They called it the Ballykillduff Bureau of Balance, Order, and Bad Leprechaun Management—or B-BOBLBM for short, which no one could pronounce.
Chapter Four: The Great Trapping Plan
The plan was simple. Too simple, in fact—Lugh saw through it immediately.
Step 1: Place a golden shoe in the village square.
Step 2: Wait for Lugh to steal it.
Step 3: Spring a net made of old violin strings and goose feathers.
Instead, Lugh replaced the golden shoe with a banana and tricked the mayor into launching himself into the net. He then declared himself Mayor of Ballykillduff for the afternoon and introduced a new law: “Every third potato must wear a hat.”
Chapter Five: When the Wind Changed
It wasn’t until little Nora O’Toole—aged seven, stubborn as an oak stump—confronted Lugh with a wooden spoon and a pocket full of rhubarb that things began to shift.
“You’re just lonely,” she said, poking him squarely in the shin.
“I am not!” Lugh huffed.
“You are too.”
“Am not!”
“You’re a troublemaker ‘cos you haven’t got a single friend.”
Lugh blinked. His red sock drooped. A tear—not a real tear, mind you, but a glittery one shaped like a teaspoon—fell from his eye.
“Would… would you be my friend if I stopped turning milk into mayonnaise?”
Nora thought about it. “Only if you make the cows moo forwards again.”
Chapter Six: The Equilibrium Returns (Mostly)
From that day forth, things improved. Slightly.
The cows returned to mooing in a conventional manner (though they sometimes sang opera on Sundays). Pints stopped vanishing, though they occasionally reappeared in people’s wellies. And Lugh—well, Lugh behaved. Mostly.
He was made Official Minister of Mild Mischief, and once a week, the people of Ballykillduff let him swap around all the socks in the village, just to keep things interesting.
Epilogue: The Hat Parade
Every year now, on the third Thursday of September, Ballykillduff holds a grand parade where every third potato proudly wears a hat. There are speeches, bagpipes, and dancing turnips. Lugh rides at the front on a unicycle made of spoons, beaming from ear to bearded ear.
Balance, after all, doesn’t mean the absence of madness.
It means knowing just the right amount.
And in Ballykillduff, that amount is exactly one bad, bold, mischievous leprechaun.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 