A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
On the road to Cork fair, Mick meets a small, nearly dwarf-sized man with a wrinkled yellow face, sharp nose, red restless eyes and white hair. A greatcoat hides his body and legs. Mick thinks he moves noiselessly over rough ground without ordinary steps. The stranger knows his name and presses him to exchange the family’s last cow for an apparently empty bottle, promising wealth while threatening poverty if he refuses. Once the exchange is made, both buyer and cow disappear from Mick’s sight.
The first bottle provides meals and precious tableware, but Mick sells it to his landlord in return for the farm and eventually becomes poor again. On a second journey he finds the same stranger, who accepts another cow and supplies another bottle. This one releases cudgel-bearing men rather than gentle servers. Mick uses them to force the landlord to return his first bottle, recovering prosperity. The stranger’s alarming appearance therefore accompanies genuinely useful gifts, although the second gift first harms Mick’s household. He is unnamed; the tale does not identify him as a particular leprechaun, devil or relative of the bottle inhabitants.
Origins & earliest records
Legend of Bottle Hill, VI, printed pp. 34–42, in T. Crofton Croker’s Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, new edition, Philadelphia, Lea and Blanchard, 1844. No individual oral narrator is identified in this tale.
Records & interpretation
The complete tale supplies the encounter, two bottles and their contrasting inhabitants. Its final place-name explanation and family prosperity are narrative claims; the edition provides no independent identification of the supernatural figures.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, Legend of Bottle Hill, VI, pp. 34–42
Complete selected tale through the son’s marriage, parents’ old-age deaths and breaking of both bottles at their wake.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Primary textCroker, Legend of Bottle Hill, VIResearch access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.