Dia daoibh ar maidin
In French culture there is a frightening creature that children fear called Croque-mitaine, though there are others such as le Père Fouettard. The Irish equivalent they give is the 'Alpoochra', of whom I've never heard before. It sounds like a word taken from Irish Gaelic - would it have anything to do with the Púca by any chance? and are there any stories about it in Irish?

Dia 's Muire dhuit.

I'm pretty sure that they are referring to an Alp Luachra, which is a small newt that crawls into a person's mouth if they fall asleep near water. It goes into the person's stomach and eats all of the food that they eat; so no matter how much the person eats, they stay skinny and start to waste away.

The traditional cure for getting rid of an Alp luachra is to eat lots of salty, dry meat without drinking any water, and then lie down near water (usually a stream). The Alp luachra will get very thirsty and crawl out of the person's mouth and jump into the water – it works every time!

Of course, this has nothing to do with a púca or with the word púca. In fact, there's really nothing supernatural about it at all, according to folklore.

There is an old traditional story about an Alp Luachra in "Beside the Fire" by Douglas Hyde

Here's a link for ya:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/btf/btf07.htm

Happy reading!

Go raibh maith agat a chara.
I do know the Sacred Texts website, though I didn't realise that it included this creature. The only problem I have with all these books of folktales that they have there, is that they've been collected and published in English and the original Irish versions no longer seem to be available and not only that, they no longer seem, as far as I can make out, to still be part of oral tradition in Irish. Am I right in thinking that the stories collected by Douglas Hyde were published in Irish as well, though they're probably as cló ?

And where are these for sale?

_________________

The oral tradition is fading fast

Most people now get their information and entertainment from books, television and computers, so what's left of the art of storytelling, is usually relegated to small children. In fact, there are so few people left who are able to hand down the traditional stories of the ancestors, that these storytellers usually don't even know the stories themselves and are reduced to merely reading them out of books.

Here's a link where you can hear from one of the last traditional storytellers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP4nXlKJx_4

Beside the Fire is a dual language book, with the Irish part printed in the seana-chló in the old spelling. It's out of print but used copies and facsimile reprints aren't too hard to find. If you decide to go with a facsimile, make sure that it includes the Irish version, too.

heh, heh


p.s. You don't want an Alp Luachra in your stomach – trust me on this one.

There was a fellow a while back who was selling miracle diet pills which turned out to contain tape worm eggs...sounds like it might work the same way (though getting rid of tapeworm is a bit more involved than eating salty meat and lying down to sleep near water).

I'm sure the ladies here are all suitably slim, but apart from that, yes I have seen that video on YouTube before and I see that now they've posted up the translation of what he's saying, in spite of what the eminent professor thinks - whether it's accurate or not is not for me to say - but it wasn't on there before. There again, are his stories going to be published in written form with the recording or are they going to gather dust on a library shelf somewhere ? I've already mentioned this before but there's a wealth of authentic written material lying about in the archives from for example the 1937 School Project - there's the RTÉ programme on YouTube Ó Bhéal Go Béal about it as well as the series 'The Storytelling tradition in Ireland' thanks to Oidhreachta. Why RTÉ doesn't sell them on DVD format with the text and annotations beggars belief.
And I forgot to mention again Jeremiah Curtin who collected stories in Donegal in the Irish but published them only in English - when I've asked about Fair, Brown and Trembling as Gaeilge, nobody knows what I'm on about.

I know exactly what you mean! There are so many great programs that are not available at all.

Here's a link to one of the Bibeanna shows, in case you haven't heard of that particular series before:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrZqtDxIX7A

Tá Gaolainn sár-mhaith acu, mhuise! And of course, they are also not available on DVD.

Ah yes, Jeremiah Curtain – I'm sure that I've got every collection of stories that he has ever published! Fair, Brown and Trembling is a GREAT story, indeed! Jeremiah Curtain collected some of the best folklore that I have ever run across; I wish that he would have also bothered to publish them in Irish.