A Warning to the Foolhardy – If a too-tall leprechaun offers you a pint atop Lyon Mountain, decline politely—unless you fancy waking up inside a shamrock that bleeds at dawn.

THE STEAMBOAT DISPATCH

March 17, 1897

THE SHAMROCK SHROUD OF LYON MOUNTAIN

A NIGHT OF MISRULE, A CURSE UNBROKEN

By A Correspondent Now One Pint Too Many Into Oblivion

THE CURSE THAT CAME WITH THE GREEN

Lyon Mountain, that iron-boned bastion of the north, has withstood all manner of storms, specters, and scoundrels, yet none so foul as the Shamrock Shroud—that terrible manifestation of mirth-turned-madness, revelry curdled into ruin, and luck that bleeds like a butchered calf.

The old loggers tell it straight: on nights when the moon sways like a drunkard and the mist coils like a serpent around the hills, one should not drink too deep nor laugh too loud. Not unless he wishes to attract the attention of Culhane the Unfortunate—a leprechaun, aye, but not the sort found in songs or friendly folktales.

He was taller than he ought to be. His coat, too fine. His smile, too full. And his gold—oh, the gold—was never found where one left it, nor in the shape one remembered.

Some say Culhane was not born, but made—a mere man who wagered with the Old Folk and lost more than his fortune. Others claim he was always there, as old as the mountain itself, a trickster too clever by half who played one prank too many and was cast out, doomed to roam until revelry turned to ruin once more.

And so it did.

THE NIGHT OF THE SHROUD

The first sign was the shamrocks.

Broad and green in the morning, but bruised and bleeding by dusk. By midnight, they had curled into tight fists, as if bracing for a blow.

Then came the pints—brought forth at Mose Sangamore’s infamous 500-foot bamboo treestand (an architectural wonder, though structurally suspect). The cream whiskey was poured, toasts were raised, and every man swore he heard a fiddle, though no musician had been hired.

The air thickened. The fire dimmed. And then—

The treestand shook.

Not with wind, nor weight, nor any force the eye could see, but with a dreadful rhythm, as if something unseen was ascending.

Then the lights came.

A spectral parade of thorned glimmerfiends and slithering shadows poured from the treeline—figures neither solid nor mist, flickering between shapes never meant for human sight. They reeled and spun, sang and wailed, their voices thick with something that burned the ears and dulled the mind.

And leading them all—Culhane himself.

His hat cocked at an impossible angle, his gold-buttoned coat swaying without wind, and in his hands—a cup, too deep, too dark, too old.

“Drink,” he said.

And they did.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE WHO TOASTED?

The men who drank fell silent, then stood. One by one. Their eyes flickered with a light that was not their own. Their feet took the first step toward the parade, and then another. And then—

They danced.

Not as men should dance, nor as drunkards do, but as if pulled by strings, their limbs jerking to an invisible tune. They swayed, they reeled, and then—one by one—they vanished into the dark.

By dawn, the treestand still stood, but its beams bore marks of hands that had clutched too hard in the throes of some final struggle. The pints were drained dry, save for a single drop in each, thick and red as old rust.

And the shamrocks?

Gone.

Not trampled. Not withered. Simply…gone.