Stories, Leprechauns, and the Things Modern People Have Forgotten
Conducted for The Lantern & Reed Review beside a peat fire somewhere west of reasonable directions
Rain tapped softly against the cottage windows while a peat fire cracked and sighed in the hearth. Sean O’Cleary leaned back in his chair, folded his hands across his vest, and looked at the interviewer with the expression of a man deciding whether to answer honestly or entertainingly.
One suspected the distinction mattered less to him than to everyone else.
Interviewer:
Mr. O’Cleary, thank you for inviting us into your home.
Sean O’Cleary:
Ah now, “home” is a generous word for a place held together mostly by stories and stubbornness.
Though to be fair, that describes most Irish cottages and at least three governments I’ve lived through.
Tea?
Interviewer:
Gladly.
Your stories have become strongly associated with folklore, enchantment, and Irish myth. Yet they feel emotionally grounded rather than purely fantastical. Why?
Sean:
Because folklore was never meant to escape reality.
It was meant to survive it.
People nowadays treat myths like decorative antiques.
But old stories carried:
- warnings,
- humor,
- memory,
- survival,
- and community wisdom.
A fairy tale wasn’t merely entertainment.
It was often a village trying to explain:
“Here’s how to remain human when life becomes difficult.”
That’s sacred work if you think about it carefully enough.
Interviewer:
Do you personally believe in leprechauns?
Sean:
I believe modern people ask the wrong question.
The question isn’t:
“Do leprechauns exist?”
The question is:
“Why are humans so determined to stop believing in wonder the moment adulthood arrives?”
That’s the real tragedy.
Interviewer:
So you think adults secretly miss enchantment?
Sean:
Secretly?
My dear friend, adults are practically starving for it.
Look around:
- exhausted people scrolling endlessly,
- working constantly,
- optimizing themselves into emotional dehydration,
- speaking in calendar invitations,
- forgetting how to sit quietly beside a fire.
Then they hear a strange old story about hidden gold or dancing spirits and suddenly something ancient inside them sits upright again.
Not because they literally expect magic.
Because they miss mystery.
There’s a difference.
Interviewer:
Your books often emphasize laughter and friendship over treasure itself.
Sean:
Well of course.
Gold’s useful, certainly.
But have you ever noticed how many miserable people possess plenty of it?
Meanwhile:
a shared story,
a warm table,
good tea,
someone laughing so hard they nearly choke on a biscuit—
those things tend to linger longer in memory.
That’s why I’ve always believed:
the real treasure in folklore was never the coins.
It was the gathering.
Interviewer:
Your humor feels affectionate rather than cruel. Even your trickster characters rarely become malicious.
Sean:
Cruel humor ages poorly.
A joke should leave people lighter, not smaller.
The old Irish storytelling tradition understood this beautifully.
You teased:
- arrogance,
- greed,
- vanity,
- foolishness—
but you still left room for dignity afterward.
A good storyteller embarrasses the ego while protecting the soul.
That balance matters.
Interviewer:
Your stories repeatedly suggest that modern life leaves very little room for wonder.
Sean:
Because modern life fears stillness.
Wonder usually arrives quietly.
Not through notifications.
Not through productivity systems.
Not through “personal optimization frameworks.”
It arrives when:
- someone pauses,
- listens,
- notices,
- wanders,
- or allows uncertainty to remain unresolved for a little while.
Modern systems dislike unresolved things.
Folklore thrives inside them.
Interviewer:
There’s a recurring sense in your books that stories themselves are alive.
Sean:
Well naturally they are.
Stories migrate.
Adapt.
Hide.
Survive.
Change shape.
A good story behaves almost like weather:
moving through generations carrying emotional climate with it.
That’s why some tales survive centuries while entire empires disappear.
Stories travel lighter.
Interviewer:
Many readers describe your work as comforting. How do you feel about that?
Sean:
Honored, honestly.
The world contains enough noise already.
I’m not terribly interested in adding more panic to it.
If someone finishes one of my books feeling:
- warmer,
- calmer,
- more connected,
- or slightly more open to mystery—
then the story has done its job.
Interviewer:
Do you see folklore as a form of cultural memory?
Sean:
Absolutely.
Folklore preserves emotional truth even when factual details drift.
People sometimes mock old tales because:
“Surely no one believes tiny magical cobblers hid gold in the hills.”
Perhaps not literally.
But the deeper story survives:
- greed isolates,
- kindness matters,
- cleverness helps,
- arrogance backfires,
- community protects,
- wonder nourishes.
The symbols change.
The truths endure.
Interviewer:
Your stories frequently blur the line between the ordinary and the magical.
Sean:
Because that line has always been thinner than modern people admit.
Especially in Ireland.
A proper Irish storyteller understands:
magic doesn’t interrupt reality.
It leaks through it occasionally.
Usually when:
- the rain’s falling properly,
- someone’s slightly tired,
- and the firelight becomes just uncertain enough for memory to loosen its tie.
Interviewer:
That sounds suspiciously rehearsed.
Sean:
Of course it’s rehearsed.
The Irish have been refining atmospheric conversation for centuries.
We treat storytelling the way Italians treat pasta.
Nobody trusts a rushed version.
Interviewer:
You often describe stories as communal experiences rather than products.
Sean:
Because stories were communal long before they became commercial.
People gathered.
Listened.
Shared memory.
Passed wisdom sideways through humor.
Now stories increasingly arrive:
- fragmented,
- optimized,
- monetized,
- accelerated.
But I think people still hunger for:
“Sit down. Stay awhile. Let me tell you something.”
That rhythm feels ancient because it is.
And humans still respond to it instinctively.
Interviewer:
Do you worry folklore may disappear in the modern age?
Sean:
No.
Transform, certainly.
But disappear? No.
Humans require myth the way gardens require rain.
If old folklore fades, new folklore emerges:
- internet legends,
- urban myths,
- shared symbols,
- collective anxieties,
- digital campfires.
The forms evolve.
The need remains constant.
Interviewer:
What role does humor play in survival?
Sean:
An enormous one.
Humor allows humans to:
- survive fear,
- soften grief,
- endure hardship,
- and maintain perspective without collapsing under seriousness.
The Irish learned this generations ago.
Sometimes laughter isn’t denial.
Sometimes it’s resilience wearing a grin.
Interviewer:
You speak often about memory, continuity, and storytelling. You sound strangely aligned with some of the other Pen Odyssey voices.
Sean:
Ah now, every village has:
- the archivist,
- the philosopher,
- the satirist,
- the weary builder,
- the wandering poet.
Different voices.
Same fire.
Interviewer:
That may be the clearest explanation of the entire Pen Odyssey ecosystem anyone has given.
Sean:
Well, naturally.
The Irish occasionally stumble into wisdom by accident while attempting metaphor.
Interviewer:
One final question.
What do you think modern people need most right now?
Sean stared quietly into the fire for a long moment before answering.
Sean:
Permission.
Permission to:
- slow down,
- gather again,
- laugh properly,
- tell stories without branding them,
- remember where they came from,
- and believe the world still contains mysteries worth protecting.
People are terribly frightened of appearing foolish nowadays.
But wonder always requires a little foolishness first.
That’s the bargain.
Interviewer:
And the leprechauns?
Sean:
Oh, they’re real enough.
Though they’ve mostly gone into consulting.
Terrible loss for folklore.
Closing Note from The Lantern & Reed Review
As the fire burned low and rain softened against the cottage roof, Sean O’Cleary quietly refilled the tea cups and began telling an entirely unrelated story about:
- a priest,
- a goat,
- and a wheelbarrow no one should have borrowed.
The interview officially ended sometime before midnight.
The storytelling did not.