Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:01]

Welcome to get sleepy. The podcast where we listen, we relax and we get sleep. I'm your host, Thomas, and as always, thank you for tuning in. As you may already know, today is St. Patrick's Day, the 17th of March, so in honor of that celebratory spirit this evening, we have a story about a man named Liam and his encounter with a clever leprechaun. It's a relaxing story and one that you might even find a bit of humor in, but don't worry, if you fall asleep before the end, I promise I won't be offended.

[00:00:55]

Abbie will be narrating this week's Get Sleep premium episode will follow the story of a boy's magical trip when his bedroom door mysteriously opens into another world. Alexander finds himself in places he'd only dreamed of visiting. If you'd like to hear that, be sure to sign up for get sleep premium. You'll also have our entire back catalogue at your fingertips, all completely out free. So if you love the show and of course, only if you're in a position where you're able to do so, then we would be incredibly grateful to have your support simply go to get sleepy dot com slash support or just follow the link in the show notes to learn more.

[00:01:50]

And speaking of our premium feed, this coming Friday is World Sleep Day, and we thought it would be a nice and appropriate occasion to say thanks to all of you, our wonderful community of listeners and friends, by giving away some subscriptions to get snippy premium. So if you're interested, make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter and we'll announce the details this Friday on Wild Sleep Day or links to our social media pages can be found in the show notes.

[00:02:30]

And a big thank you goes out to better help for sponsoring tonight's episode. If you feel like there's something interfering with your happiness or holding you back in any way, then please know that help is readily available to you. Your sleep is important and so is your all-round mental health. So take a look at better help dot com slash, get sleep, better help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. The service is available for clients worldwide and covers a broad range of expertise that may not always be locally available.

[00:03:16]

But to help once you to start living a happier life today, visit better help dot com slash get sleepy. That's better. H e l p and join over a million people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. And all of our wonderful get sleepy listeners will receive 10 percent of your first month when you go to better help dot com slash get sleepy. I appreciate you listening to the various announcements that I just wanted to tell you about, but I think it's just about time we settle in and prepare for our story.

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If you need a little help to really relax and to put your mind and body at ease, then became by taking some deep breaths. Inhale for five or six seconds. Hold the breath for a moment. And release it slowly for as long as it feels comfortable. Focus on the breath and the way it restores calm to your body. Feel the flow of air through your nostrils. Into your lungs. And back out through your mouth. No tests, if any sensations arise physically or mentally.

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And with each exhale. Let go of them. Bit by bit. Tension. Discomfit. Busyness within the mind. It can all gently fade away. Eventually leaving you in a luxurious state of tranquility and peace. Continue to breathe slowly and deeply for a little while. And then in your own time. Gradually ease back into your natural breathing pattern. Meanwhile, I'll turn to our story. You can just follow along and rest your attention. On the sound of my voice.

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We begin our tale on a pleasant spring afternoon. In the Irish countryside. Just about everyone knows the stories of the leprechaun's, you may not have heard this tale before, but perhaps you've had some like it. About a person tripped by one of these mischievous creatures. People saying leprechauns are the shoe makers of the fairies when they hold their infamous dances is a fairy spend so much time whirling and checking the soles of their shoes wear out. So they send them to the cobbler just as we do.

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Leprechauns and no more than three feet tall and are set to wear the leather aprons of their trade. If you pass by one who is hard at work, you can hear the tap tap tapping of his tiny hammer as he mentions the Pharisees. Liam had grown up listening to the tales of all of these fantastical creatures. He knew better than to walk into the middle of a fairy ring those strange circles of grass and mushrooms you may spot from time to time in a meadow.

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And he'd never follow the sounds of a lilting tune drifting on the evening breeze from a mound off in the distance. That was how the fairies enticed you to dance with them. You'd twirl and skip and time would pass. When you came out of the mound, worn and weary, you'd find that your friends were long gone. He was also wary of leprechaun's, though they were each rumored to have a pot of gold hidden away, retrieving, it never seemed to work out the way one might hope.

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They were tricky fellows, after all. Liam knew you had to watch out for fairies and other stuff, the like. Sometimes there was good fortune to be had, but more often than not, it was better to keep your distance and leave the fair folk to themselves. Even now, as a man, he had his mother's warnings in his head. Come straight home. She used to say. And so walking on the path between his house and the market square, he always remembered to do just that.

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Walk straight home and keep his eyes on the road. There was no sense in catching a glimpse of something strange and feeling the urge to explore it. Liam lived in a small cottage at the far end of his village. It had white walls, a thatched roof and a carved wooden door painted forest green. The front garden was peppered with the sweetest wildflowers and plants you could imagine. That was wild cherry in the hedgerow, a little yellow blossoms of cowslip.

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Pale blue flowers dotted the kelly green grass that grew lush and thick by his front path. Liam considered himself quite lucky to have such a beautiful and cozy home. He delighted in returning to his familiar rooms after a day of errands or meeting with friends. Behind the cottage, there was a wooden bench. It was built years ago by a great uncle who had come to visit when he was young. Now, one of Liam's favorite ways to spend an afternoon was sitting upon the bench with a cup of tea and hand reading a book or watching the sheep grazing in a nearby field.

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This is what Liem planned to do today. He stood in his kitchen gazing out the window at the hills in the distance. He followed the soft ups and downs of the grassy landscape with his eyes. It reminded him of waves rolling in toward the seashore if the pallette were green and sunny instead of blue and gray. He was boiling water for tea, the heavy black kettle sat over the fire, growing warmer and warmer by the minute. Soon, a jet of steam escaped the spout, letting him know it was ready to pull.

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Carefully, he prepared a pot of tea. While it brewed on the countertop, he pushed a small broom across the floor. Liam like to keep a tidy house and thought it was best to do his chores when he had a free moment, as he did now. When he finished with the broom, he wiped an old cloth across the countertop until it was nice and clean. By this time, the tea had waited long enough. He poured himself a cup and took a biscuit from the tin and placed it on the saucer.

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Liam carried his drink outside and set it gently on the bench. He'd finished all the tasks that needed to be done today. And now was his time to relax. He sat down and felt the familiar anguish of the wound beneath him. It was a sturdy bench, well constructed and comfortable to rest on for quite a while. In the field just past the edge of his garden, a few sheep munched on the thick grass. He watched their heads up up and down as they took Hathi Bite's.

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It wasn't quite time for them to be shown, say that wool was still fluffy and shaggy. Liam, they looked like tiny clouds drifting across the meadow. It was just the popping of their heads that kept them tethered to the ground instead of floating off into the sky. He smiled to himself at the silly idea. There was a well-worn track that followed the edge of the pasture to the hill was beyond. It walked that path many times before. Liam enjoying a leisurely stroll across the land.

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He found it the perfect way to clear his head or work through any thoughts that lingered from the day. Sometimes he whistled an old tune as he wandered. He imagined that the breeze carried it over the nose and valleys. Perhaps someone in a far off place would hear the distant strains and it would bring a smile to their face. The thought made him happy. These were the daydreams that meandered through his mind as he sipped his tea. It was warm and soothing and the biscuit was tasty.

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He was thoroughly enjoying his afternoon. All of a sudden, a strange sound drifted toward him from the direction of the pasture. It was rhythmic, like the ticking of a clock or the bouncing of a ball. Liam sat down his tea and cupped the palm of his hand behind his ear so he could hear better. Perhaps it was a woodpecker, he thought. After all, there was a grove of trees not too far away, if the bird was positioned just right, the sound could carry over the nearest hill to where he was sitting.

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Now. He was rather fond of bird watching and thought it might be nice to take a short walk. So he stood up and ambled through the garden gate to the pasture, Liam skirted along the edge of the field of sheep until he reached the well-worn track. As luck would have it, the ground was dry. It hadn't rained for a few days, so there were no puddles or muddy patches to avoid. The path started out level and then gently sloped upward to the top of the nearest hill.

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When he reached the summit, he paused for a moment to listen. Liam was right, the sound was coming from a cluster of trees a little further down the way. Continuing on, he reached the grave just a few minutes later. It was a lovely place where the afternoon sunlight filtered through the green leaves and danced across the beds of spring wildflowers. The sound was louder here than it had been at the cottage. Liam looked around for signs of a woodpecker.

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But so none. It was just him, the trees and a few butterflies that fluttered near the blooms. He turned slowly from side to side to see if he could better make out where the sound was coming from. It wasn't from the Hill on the way to his cottage, and it certainly wasn't the sheep in the pasture. He turned a little further and the sound grew clearer, it seemed to be emanating from a solitary Hawthorne standing just beyond the edge of the grove.

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Slowly, he made his way over to the large tree. The rhythmic tapping echoed through its branches, which were thick with tiny white blossoms and dark green leaves. And they're perched on a wooden stool resting against the sturdy trunk. Once a little man. To Liam's dismay, it was clear he was a leprechaun. He wore a leather apron and a loose green cap. And his hand was a hammer and he was busy tap, tap, tapping away at the soul of a very small shoe.

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So focused once he on his task that he didn't notice Liam approaching. That was until Liam stepped on a twig, which made a loud crack. Startled, the leprechaun, dropped his hammer and hopped up onto his stool. Even with the added height, he stood no taller than Liam's waist. It's not very nice creeping up on a fellow like that, the leprechaun said. Liam apologized. If he'd known a leprechaun lived in this Hawthorn, he certainly wouldn't have come so near.

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He heard his mother's words in his head come straight home. She used to say. He turned as if to leave, but then thought about the opportunity that had presented itself. It wasn't every day one had the chance to meet a leprechaun, Liam thought. And if the stories were true, he could leave this grave a very wealthy person, if he had the wits to do so. For a practical man who did his chores on time and always followed the rules, Liam found himself having very impractical thoughts.

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He didn't need the money, of course, but finding a pot of gold would make a very good story to tell his friends. In fact, it would be the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. He turned back to the leprechaun and opened his mouth to speak. But before he could say a word, the leprechaun laughed and nodded his head. You want to know if you can have my gold, he said to Laham, he felt his cheeks begin to flush.

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He didn't want to be rude to the leprechaun. But that was indeed what he had been wondering. It certainly is your lucky day that the leprechaun. You may have my gold if you've got a piece of string and a shovel. Liam wondered why he needed a shovel. The leprechaun explained his gold was hidden deep beneath a bush in the sunlit grove. So Liam would have to dig it up. Liam said he had a shovel back at his cottage, it wouldn't take too long to retrieve it.

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The leprechaun smiled from ear to ear. And how about the string, Liam asked. That would be to tie around the branch of the bush, the leprechaun said. After all, there were many bushes that looked alike in the grove. So he had to be sure he was digging up the right one. That made sense to him. He fumbled around in his pockets and found a balled up piece of red string. Follow me, a leprechaun said and led the way to a bush squeezed in among several of its kind.

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Liam was happy the leprechaun had so helpfully pointed it out, the bush was surrounded by others that looked exactly the same, and he thought he'd never have found it by himself.

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Carefully, he tied the string around a thin branch. He was lucky it was a bright color, which was easy to spot from far away. Now, all he had to do was get the shovel and come right back. The pot of gold would be his. But Liam knew that leprechauns could be tricky. You won't go on tying that string while I'm away, will you? He asked. The leprechaun assured him the string would stay right where it was.

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And so with a spring in his step, Liam walked up the hill and along the edge of the pasture back home. He kept his shovel in a long wooden box filled with tools for his garden. He pulled it out and dusted it off. Holding the handle of the shovel with his fingertips, he rested it upside down against his shoulder and whistle a merry tune as he made his way back to the grove. He skipped through the gate and happily marched up the well-worn path.

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At the top of the hill, he paused to take in the beautiful sight of the countryside around him. It really was a wonderful afternoon, Liam thought to himself. Coming down the hill, he could clearly see the grove up ahead. Being late afternoon, the sunlight glimmered orange against the shining leaves of the trees. Beams of gold cascaded through the branches and illuminated the grass and flowers below. It was almost as though nature itself knew what was in store for them on this lucky day.

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As he walked, he tried to think of what he might do with all the gold. How much did a leprechaun keep in his pants? Anyway, he wanted it, but he didn't dwell on these questions for long. Soon he'd have all the answers after a little bit of digging. When he reached the grove, he let the shovel down off his shoulder and began to search for his piece of red string. He thought he remembered tying it to a bush that was slightly hidden behind others of its kind.

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But has he pared down the first group of bashes he encountered, Liam realized something strange had happened while he was gone. Now, all the Bushes had little pieces of red string tied to them. Bush's to his left and to his right. The ones beneath the trees and at the very edge of the grove. Each and every one now held a piece of string. There was no way of telling which Bush hid the pot of gold. The leprechaun had promised a piece of string would stay right where Liam had tied it.

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He kept his word, but he'd also played a trick. And now he was nowhere to be found. In that moment, standing in the grave, surrounded by string covid bushes. Liam realized his mother was right after all. He should have gone straight home and left the fair folk to themselves. And so he picked up his shovel. And with a final glance at the Hawthorne tree. He walked back to his cottage at the edge of the pasture.

[00:31:26]

He hadn't found any gold. But he had learned a valuable lesson. From that day on, whenever Liam had the sound of a faint tap, tap tapping carried by the breeze. He kept his eyes on the road and walked in the opposite direction.