You've been lied to by Lucky Charms. The leprechaun you know — jolly, green, guarding gold at the end of a rainbow — is about 150 years old. The leprechaun from Irish folklore is about 1,300 years old, and they are not the same creature.

This week we're tracing how the original lucharpán went from a fearsome red-coated water sprite who'd drag a sleeping king into the sea, to the cereal-box mascot Americans invented in the 1840s. We get into the medieval Celtic oral tradition, the professional storytellers who kept it alive, the pot of gold as a lesson about human greed, and how Irish immigration during the potato blight turned a misunderstood trickster into a symbol of Irish pride.

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Academic & Institutional Sources:

• EBSCO Research Starter: "Leprechauns."
• Oí Giolláin, Diarmuid. "The Leipreachán and Fairies, Dwarfs and the Household Familiar: A Comparative Study." Béaloideas 52 (1984): 75–150. https://doi.org/10.2307/20522237
• Winberry, John J. "The Elusive Elf: Some Thoughts on the Nature and Origin of the Irish Leprechaun." 1976.
• Mulligan, William H., Jr. "Review: Alive and Well: New Perspectives on Irish America." 2012.
• National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin (UNESCO Memory of the World Register). Primary source accounts. https://www.duchas.ie

Primary Sources Referenced:

• "The Adventure of Fergus Son of Léti" (8th century). Earliest known reference to the luchorpán.
• "The Death of Fergus" (13th–14th century). Lupracan civilization account.
• Lover, Samuel. Legends and Stories of Ireland. 1831.
• Croker, Thomas Crofton. Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland. 1825.
• Hardy, Philip Dixon. 1837 description. Referenced via Oí Giolláin (1984).
• Mr and Mrs Hall. 1843 account. Referenced via Oí Giolláin (1984).
• O’Donnell, Edward T. 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History.
• Yeats, W.B. Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. [Referenced for solitary vs trooping fairy color distinction]

General Reference:

• "The Jolly Leprechaun’s Sinister Origins." History.com.
• "Leprechaun: From Gold-Loving Cobbler to Cultural Icon." PBS.
• The Pale Horse Substack: "In Red Caps and Green Coats" and "The Leprechaun: From Trickster to Icon." Note: not peer-reviewed. Used for thematic framing only, not factual claims.
• Wikipedia: "Slieve Foy" entry. Used to verify EU protection date (2009).

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She was eleven years old when the English arrived. Disney made her twenty-something with a love story. History gave her a name that wasn't hers. This week we're spilling the real story of Pocahontas — or Amonute, as she was actually named — and it's nothing like what you were taught.

We're breaking down the Powhatan Confederacy (one of the most powerful empires on the eastern seaboard), what John Smith actually wrote versus what he claimed seventeen years later, and the kidnapping, forced conversion, and suspected poisoning that the Disney movie conveniently left out.

Spoiler: she didn't save him. She was sent there. And the love story was invented by men who needed a myth more than they needed the truth.

If you've ever wanted to understand Native American history, Indigenous women, or colonization in the Americas beyond what you learned in school — this one's for you.

Want more? Check our our book reccomendations: https://bookshop.org/shop/SPILLED

Sources:

• Aron, Paul. "Pocahontas & John Smith: The Love Story Was Fiction...But Loved." Trend & Tradition Magazine (Colonial Williamsburg), July 2, 2025. https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/discover/resource-hub/trend-tradition-magazine/trend-tradition-summer-2025/pocahontas-and-john-smith/
• Historic Jamestowne. "Meeting the English." Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation. https://historicjamestowne.org/history/pocahontas/meeting-the-english/
• Mansky, Jackie. "The True Story of Pocahontas Is More Complicated Than You Might Think." Smithsonian Magazine, updated February 20, 2024. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-pocahontas-more-complicated-than-you-might-think-180962649/
• National Park Service. "Pocahontas: Her Life and Legend." Jamestown National Historic Site, last updated September 4, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htm
• Paul, Heike. "Pocahontas and the Myth of Transatlantic Love." In The Myths That Made America. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1wxsdq.6
• Silverman, David. "John Smith’s Bold Endeavor." Interview by Lisa Q. Wolfinger. NOVA: Pocahontas Revealed, PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pocahontas/silverman.html
• Smith, John. Excerpts from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624). Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/john-smith-and-pocahontas-in-england-an-excerpt-from-the-generall-historie-of-virginia-new-england-and-the-summer-isles-by-john-smith-1624
• Wood, Karenne. "Prisoners of History: Pocahontas, Mary Jemison, and the Poetics of an American Myth." Studies in American Indian Literatures 28, no. 1 (2016): 73–82. https://doi.org/10.5250/studamerindilite.28.1.0073
• van der Straet, Jan (Stradanus). Allegory of America, ca. 1587–89. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/343845

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You loved our first WWII episode, so we're back with MORE! This week we're covering stories that your history teacher definitely skipped: women in codebreaking, queer resistance, and psychological warfare. Think cracking Nazi spy rings from behind a desk, two lesbian stepsister artists using "paper bullets" to take down an occupying army, and a 21-year-old Jewish refugee who had German soldiers writing her love letters.

No dry lectures. Just the drama, the gossip, and the stories that actually deserved the spotlight.

Haven't listened to Part 1 yet? Start there — that's where we lay the context on the origin of and players in WWII.

Obsessed? Want more? Check our fiction & nonfiction book recommendations here: https://bookshop.org/shop/SPILLED

Research Documents:

• BBC Future. “The Female Code Breakers Who Were Left Out of History Books.” bbc.com/future, October 9, 2017. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171009-the-female-code-breakers-who-were-left-out-of-history-books
• BBC. “The Bletchley Girls: Cracking Women.” bbc.co.uk. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/Q3lFn2vTv9JMgxX98bRhL/the-bletchley-girls-cracking-women
• The Art Newspaper. “How Artist Couple Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore Resisted the Nazis with Their Paper Bullets.” November 4, 2020. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2020/11/04/extract-or-how-artist-couple-claude-cahun-and-marcel-moore-resisted-the-nazis-with-their-paper-bullets
• History Extra. “On the Same Side: Homosexuals During the Second World War.” https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/on-the-same-side-homosexuals-during-the-second-world-war/
• Putnam, Jennifer, PhD. “V for Victory: A Sign of Resistance.” The National WWII Museum, February 1, 2024. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/v-victory-sign-resistance
• White, April. “One of the Allies’ Secret Weapons Against the Nazis Was a 21-Year-Old Woman Armed With a Microphone and a Script of Lies.” Smithsonian Magazine, March 2026. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/allies-secret-weapons-against-nazis-woman-armed-microphone-script-lies-180988094/

Context Sources:

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Introduction to the Holocaust.” https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust
• National WWII Museum. “WWII by the Numbers.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-worldwide-deaths-world-war
• History.com Editors. “World War II.” https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history

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