This is one of a selection of the best-loved Irish Legends and is enjoyed by children from
generation to generation.  They have been told for hundreds of years and are a part of Irish history.

With stories of great giants, clever warriors, jealous queens, leprechauns & mystical creatures,
there is something for everyone to enjoy.  Read the story on line and then download this book and
others to enjoy with your children.

Drimlin was a dragon. Not a little bitty, ordinary, everyday lizard, mind you...but a real
live honest-to-goodness fire-breathing, smoke-snorting, wing-flapping dragon who
lived all alone in a huge cave set in the loftiest peak of the highest mountain in all the
land.


Drimlin was rather a nice sort of dragon -- as far as dragons go. He hardly ever went
around scaring people, and he very seldom stampeded their cattle. But then Drimlin
wasn't exactly perfect either. You see, Drimlin liked treasures. And unfortunately...
what Drimlin liked, Drimlin took. Yes. Drimlin was a bit of a thief. Drimlin slept all the
day, and flew 'round all night looking for treasures to steal.

Lucy was a leprechaun, born to laugh and dance, play pranks and sing. Lucy,
however, was not quite perfect herself. Lucy, you see, was a bit of a dandy. She loved
fine clothes, and she wore them with just a shade too much pride. She loved nothing
better than to prance around wearing nothing but emerald green and a big bright
smile.

Lucy lived in the hollow trunk of a huge old oak tree in the middle of a quiet valley. She
stood barely taller than a unicorn's knee, and like all leprechauns, Lucy had her very
own pot of gold hidden at the end of her very own rainbow.

Now once upon a brightly moonlit night, as Drimlon soared high over Lucy's valley, he
caught the scent of leprechaun gold. The dragon became excited and he began to
swoop over and around the valley in huge circles. As he swooped, his circles grew
smaller and he flew lower and lower, but still without a rainbow to guide him, he
couldn't find Lucy's cleverly hidden pot of gold. Finally he gave up his search and off
he flew toward his cave near the top of the Emerald Mountain, high above the clouds.

The next morning Lucy awoke to find the world alight with a beautiful bright blue
cloudless day. Dragon's sleep by day, and rainbows come only after a rain and so
Lucy dressed up in a fine emerald green outfit trimmed with a great showy froth of a
green feather and proudly went to visit a friend who lived by the sea. Thus Lucy was
far from home when the harsh northern winds began to blow up a storm and the
clouds gathered over her valley and the rains came pouring down.

Dragons fly only at night, or so Lucy believed, but she believed wrong, for sometimes
dragons fly in the sunlit skies and thus it was on this fateful day. Lucy wasn't home to
see Drimlin swoop down and ride the rainbow path to its glorious end in her valley.
And neither did she see Drimlin dig up the pot of buried gold at the rainbow's end
and fly away with it.
But Leprechauns can read trouble on the air and Lucy sensed that something was
wrong -- ever so terribly wrong. She cut short her visit and hurried home. She wasn't
really certain why she was worried, but worried she was.

When Lucy arrived at her valley, she stopped short and stared at the glorious rainbow
that pointed the way to the empty hole where her gold had been hidden.

"Faith and Begorroa," she yelled. 'Twas that nasty old dragon. For sure and he's
followed the rainbow and stolen me very own pot of gold!"

She felt like sitting down and having a nice long cry, but cry she didn't. Leprechauns
as a rule are quite a clever lot, and Lucy was no different. She immediately began to
plot and plan --- determined to get back her pot of gold and teach that nasty old
dragon a lesson in the bargain."

She knew she couldn't fight the dragon. She wasn't a coward, mind you.
No true leprechaun is. But then dragons are terribly huge, and
leprechauns are rather small. Besides which fighting isn't very nice.
Now leprechauns (as I said before) are clever, but dragons aren't
very smart. So Lucy knew that her best hope of rescuing her pot of gold
lay in outwitting the dragon who'd stolen it.

That very day, she gathered her weapons -- a brand new iron pot and her second-
best bag of gold coins. Then going to see the weather witch, she explained her
dilemma and her chosen solution. The witch (having lost a treasure or two to the
dragon herself) laughed out loud and agreed to help.

The rain clouds gathered quickly. Lucy barely had time to hurry home and grab her
new pot and her second-best treasure before the rain began to fall. The first drop fell
just as Lucy finished hiding and settled back to wait.

The witch provided a grand show of a storm with enough lightning flash and thunder
claps to awaken any dragon around.  And when the dragon was surely awake the
sun came out and with the sun came a radiant rainbow that pointed the way to Lucy's
brand new very own pot of gold.  Drimlin spotted the rainbow and rode it to its end. He
found the pot of gold and he stole it quick as a wink.

The dragon flew high, soaring above the clouds until he reached the loftiest peak of
the highest mountain in all the land. He landed and waddled into dark mouth of a
huge cave, where lo and behold treasure of every kind and description glimmered
and glittered in every nook, cranny and corner -- silver, gold, gems, jewels, crowns,
scepters, more treasure than the world has even seen or will ever again all piled and
strewn about to make a dragon's bed.... 'Twas there the dragon lay his weary head
and slept peace filled rest of a blatant thief.

But when Drimlin's breathing turned to the noisy snorting snores of a restless dragon
an odd thing happened. His newest treasure began to quiver and shiver and shake.
Golden coins began to spill over the pot's sides and like a volcanic spew of green
fire, Lucy popped from her hiding place beneath the gold.

She looked around at all the dragonly hoard and she tsk tsked a bit at the dragon's
great greed. She smiled and placed a finger to the side of her nose, put one hand on
top of her head, lifted one foot in the air and began to recite a magic spell.

•        Treasures you are
•        and treasures you'll be,
•        but treasures heed well,
•        and listen to me.
•        Here you now are,
•        but there you'll soon be
•        for when the thief steals
•        twice what is stolen
•        will turn into trees.
•        Ash and elm, cedar and oak
•        filling the valleys
•        forests and glades
•        giving life to the land
•        and death to the haze.
•        Treasures you are
•        and treasures you'll be.
•        but treasures heed well
•        and listen to me.

Then, at just about the same time that Lucy finished reciting her spell, the dragon
awoke from his nap. It didn't take him more than a second to realize that something
was wrong. The smell of magic hung heavy in the air, and Drimlin was quick to see
the cause sitting just as brave and cocky as could be atop a pot of gold.

"HO HO!" he said in his rumbly, roary voice. "WHAT HAVE WE HERE -- AN ITSY,
BITSY TINY LITTLE SPROUT OF A LEPRECHAUN?"

"Tiny, I may well be, but never-the-less I've come to rescue my very own pot of gold,
and for all your great dragonly size, you'll not be stopping me" said Lucy, patting the
pot of gold upon which she sat, "for the deed is already done."

Drimlor laughed, "ALREADY DONE, LITTLE SPROUT. I THINK NOT, FOR YOU'RE
STILL HERE AND YOUR TREASURE IS HERE, AND I'VE NO MIND TO SEE EITHER
OF YOU GO."

"Then I'd not be watching, if I were you," said Lucy, as she magically winked her left
eye and then her right, and then both together as she blinked herself home to her
valley taking both her pots of gold with her and leaving behind only a whispy puff of
bright green smoke, and one very angry dragon.

Drimlin gave out with a dragonly roar that shook the mountain, and he hit the air
running and spread his great wings as he leapt from the mouth of the cave. "I'LL
STEAL IT RIGHT BACK AGAIN!" he roared as he swooped down through the clouds
and over the valley where Lucy waited. She didn't even bother to hide the pots of gold,
they were sitting out in the open waiting for him...and Dragon's being rather stupid,
Drimlin didn't even stop to wonder why. He just swept up the pots and kept on going
straight back to his cave.


Lucy cried for sheer joy when the beautiful trees began to appear, and she laughed
out loud when Drimlin's mighty roar of pure rage swept down from the mountain. "I
wonder how long it will take him to catch on," she said with a smile as she gazed at
the beautiful trees "maybe, just maybe, we'll be lucky and he never will." she said with
a good-natured smile as she blinked first one eye and then the other, and then both
together.
The End?

Teresa Thomas Bohannon,© 1974
T'lerin & Grimlor is another version of this tale, slanted toward the tastes of a slightly
older audience.
Treasures & Trees, Dragons &
Dreams
Read the Story and Download the Book
Click on the links to download the following Folk Stories - Books in .PDF
format - Enjoy!

1.  The Boyhood Deeds of Cu Chullain

2.  The Fenian Cycle

3.  The Ulster Cycle

4.  Conlan & The Fairly Maiden PDF
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