14th July, 2025 in Folklore

Leannan Sidhe: The story of the lovesick Irish fairy

An Irish folklore story from the new book The Anthology of Irish Folk Tales Volume II out July 2025. Every county in Ireland has its own tale of the Leannan Sidhe, the fairy lover, and County Derry is no different. The story is told of a young man trying to withstand the romantic wiles of a fairy woman.

The Lovesick Leannan Sidhe

But like a lovesick leannan sidhe

She hath my heart enthralled,

Nor life I own, nor liberty

For love is lord of all.

From My Lagan Love

Hugh was an adventurous young man and wanted to see the world so, despite the pleadings of his parents, he set off. Well, he’d been travelling for about three years when he got word that his father was very ill and he set sail for home. Unfortunately, his father died before he arrived and his mother was beside herself with grief. He knew that he would have to stay at home. She was a good mother and he just couldn’t leave her, so he set about trying to keep the farm going. To be a good farmer you need to have a love of the land, but since he wasn’t a man of the soil at heart the farm began to get a bit run down. Within a year of his father’s death his mother fell deeper into a decline brought on by melancholia, for she never got over the death of her husband.

Hugh took to the drink, and soon the farm suffered; crops weren’t sown, fences went unmended and the house wanted the lick of whitewash. Sure, it broke his mother’s heart to see her big son falling to pieces, and when she was dying she begged him to catch hold of himself, to stop drinking and to find a wife.

Now, Hugh was a man of his word and he took his mother’s dying words to heart. As her body was committed to the grave he made her a promise. He’d never touch another drop of drink, even when the other mourners were drinking after the funeral. When everyone departed to their own farms he walked around the place and took a good freshlook at it.

‘Right enough,’ he said to himself, ‘it’s a mess of the place. I’ll put this to rights and maybe then I’ll be able to find me a nice girl to marry.’ Now, like most places in Ulster, there are seven girls to every man, so you wouldn’t have too much difficulty finding a nice girl. Hugh was a fine, big man and had a grand way with him, though he was unaware of his own good looks. Sure, wasn’t he the finest looking man ever seen in County Derry? He had hair as black as the raven’s wing, and eyes as blue as the sunlit sea. He was tall and broad of shoulder and under his tanned, windblown skin the powerful muscles rippled, having been built up from hauling in the nets filled with fish from the oceans of the world. Even the dissipation of the past year hadn’t softened him up too much. All he need were the right clothes because, as his mother had often said, ‘Clothes maketh the man.’

He began to clear the fields again for the planting and discovered that once he put the sea out of his mind he liked the land work. Still, at the end of the day it was lonely coming back into the house that had forgotten the touch of a woman. After a particularly hard day clearing the far field of rocks and trying his hand at building a stonewall, he resolved to do the final thing that his mother had asked of him, and that was to find himself a wife.

Knowing that there was a big fair on the Monday at the beginning of August he went into Portstewart to buy himself some decent clothes. Coming out of the tailor’s shop he stopped as if struck by lightning, and indeed it was lightning of a kind, for didn’t he spy the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes upon.

Oh, her hair was like a fire glowing in the sun, her skin was white, and on her cheeks were freckles sprinkled like gold dust. Poor Hugh was besotted at first glance, and as he made his way over to her he wondered if this lovely creature had a husband already. When he reached her side he looked down and she, catching his glance, looked up. Sure, wasn’t that the truth of the saying, ‘It was love at first glance?’

Didn’t they chat as if they’d known each other all their lives, and as the sun began to set in the sky and the market emptied, he asked if he could walk her home.

‘You can,’ said she, ‘but only as far as the bridge, because my father will be waiting near there, and he warned me not to have any truck with strangers.’

Hugh would have walked to the ends of the earth with her, but as they neared the bridge she stopped.

‘No further, Hugh, and thank you.’

Hugh stuttered out the words, ‘Can I call on you, Kate?’

They arranged to meet, and as the summer dipped into autumn they were as deeply in love as any young couple could be. When she decked herself out in her best clothes and went out of an evening, her father suspected that there was a man in the offing. Now, an elderly man depending on a daughter to see to him in his old age gets a bit obstreperous and selfish when a young man is in the offing. He determined that he would put off any man courting Kate, but he didn’t let on to his daughter what was in his mind.

‘Will you marry me, Kate?’ Hugh asked her one night, and her smile lit the heavens, for wasn’t she as besotted with him as he was with her?

‘Aye’ she answered, ‘but you’ll have to square it with my Da. Come round tomorrow night and see him.’

As Hugh was walking over the mountain road on the way home that night, a wind whistled up out of nowhere and he knew right away that it was no ordinary wind. His mother had warned him about the Leannan Sidhe, a fairy woman of great beauty wanting to carry off handsome young men who were betrothed to another. It was said that once she got her eye on a man he was going to be tortured by her presence until she finally ensnared him. So Hugh pulled his cap down until it almost covered his eyes and kept his head down too, looking only at the road. Didn’t he know that any man, looking into the fairy lover’s eyes was doomed to follow her forever?

Well, that Leannan Sidhe came to his side and wrapped the wind around him like a blanket, and he had to battle against it to move an inch along the way. She pulled and she hauled, but he would not raise his eyes, and eventually she tired of the struggle and let go of him. When the sound of the wind disappeared he looked around and didn’t he catch sight of her on the hill, and she was burying something under a galla rock (a standing stone). He took note of the spot and hurried on home,determined that the next day he would see what she had buried.

The dawn broke and Hugh rose, pulled on his clothes and went to the hillside, knowing that the fairy lover would not come out in daylight. He pushed the rock aside, for it was powerful heavy and there, underneath it, was a bag made of the softest leather. He looked around, lifted the bag, and it was heavy. When he undid the string he couldn’t believe his eyes for the bag was chock-full of gold coins, bright as the leaves of the buttercups growing in his field. All sorts of thoughts were going through his mind, but the main one was not to tell anyone about his find. He would provide Kate with any treasure she asked for when she was his wife.

That night he dressed in the fine suit the tailor in Portstewart had made for him and went to ask Kate’s father for her hand in marriage. He noted that this farm was as neat as a new pin, that the cows were well fed and content, and the outside of the house was newly white washed, unlike his own. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘with my gold I can fix up my farm and Kate will never want for anything.’

Kate was waiting for him at the door. ‘Me Da’s in a right ‘aul mood and he’ll try to make you lose your temper. Now I’m warning you, hold onto it, for it will do us no good for you to lose it.’

He nodded and she brought him in. Her father was sitting in front of the turf fire and he neither rose nor took Hugh under his notice at all. Hugh went forward with his hand out in greeting.

‘Hello Mr Logan, I’m pleased to meet you. Here,’ he said, ‘Kate told me that you smoke the pipe, I brought you a couple.’

He held out the clay pipes and Kate’s father took them, looked at them then threw them on the hearth, where they smashed. Hugh stood with his mouth open and Kate’s eyes beseeched him not to retaliate. He stepped back and squared his shoulders.

‘I’ve come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage, sir,’ he said, his voice was strong with passion.

‘What! If you think that I’d let my daughter marry a ne’er-do-well like you, you have another think coming. You, with not a halfpenny to your name, your run-down farm and dirty house and no cattle. You, who drank like a fish of the sea that you sailed on and drove your poor mother into her grave. How dare you think that you would make a suitable husband for my Kate? Get out of my sight and don’t come back!’

Before he could stop himself, and forgetting what Kate had said about not losing his temper, Hugh retorted.

‘I’ve got plans sir, and gold aplenty, more than every man in this parish put together, and I can tell you that Kate would never want if she marries me!’

‘You! Where would you get gold when you’re scarcely scraping a living out of that dung heap of a place you call a farm?’

By this time, Kate’s father was on his feet and pointing to the door.

‘Come back here when you can prove it. Until then, get out!’

Kate took Hugh’s arm and he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes. Outside Hugh held her in his arms.

‘I’ll be back and I’ll show him. Don’t worry. We’ll be married by Advent, I promise you.’

Hugh went on his way home, all the while debating in his mind about showing the gold to Kate’s father, but sure, wasn’t the love of his life worth it? He was so deep in thought that the cloying wind was on him before he had a minute to compose himself. But just in time he remembered, and when the Leannan Sidhe started her pulling and hauling again he was able to resist her. Aw, but he knew she was angry and that it wasn’t the end of her trying out her wiles on him. He was fair exhausted by the time he arrived at his own wee house.

That night he stayed up and scrubbed the place from end to end. He blackened the pots and painted the crook over the fireplace and even whitewashed the side of the chimney. Once he started he couldn’t stop, for if Kate’s father agreed to let her marry him he was going to bring her back to the cottage the day after to have a look at her future home. In the morning he took every bowl, cup and plate from the dresser and painted the wood a lovely bright blue. He rummaged in the big cedar chest at the back of the room, where he knew his mother had stored her linens, and there he found the nicest curtains and tablecloth.

By the time he had finished he was ready to go to Kate’s house, and he set off with the bag of gold in his pocket. The old man refused him entry and Hugh went to the wall outside the cottage door and spread the gold coins along it. With three steps that were almost jumps Mr Logan was at the wall, fingering the gold.

‘I won’t ask where you got it young man, but,’ and at this point he slapped Hugh on the back, ‘you can marry my daughter when the house is fixed up and the farm running well.’

Hugh blinked, ‘that’s too long a time.’ He reached out and took Kate’s hand. Her father stared greedily at the gold and thought.

‘I’ll tell you what, young fellow, I can have your farm fixed up in no time because I have strong workers. I can start you off with a herd too but I’d need to hold onto this gold for safekeeping. Would you trust your future father-in-law to do that, hmm?’

Hugh was so overjoyed that he and Kate could marry soon that he agreed, and true to his word her father did everything he said, although between you and me, he didn’t have to spend but a fraction of the money. Every time Hugh enquired, Mr Logan had another wee job to do with the money, and the wedding was a grand excuse. When the couple married, the people came from miles around to celebrate the union, because country folk love nothing better than a wedding to get them all together. And what a wedding that was, with not a penny spared…

Discover more legends and lore from across Ireland in The Anthology of Irish Folk Tales Volume II out now!