So, What is a Flibberty Gibbit? by Belinda Flack

On one cool crisp winter’s morning in Santa’s workshop in the North Pole, Santa spoke to his trusted elves: “My dear elves, it has come to my attention that we are all out of wood to make new toys for the good boys and girls for next Christmas. I need some volunteers to head out into the woods tonight and cut down some willow trees, so we can get to work first thing tomorrow morning”. Upon hearing Santa’s request the little elves muttered to themselves, “Oh I’m too old to venture out into the woods” one said, another mentioned “me Ma never lets me go out after dark, so I can’t go” then Jimmy the silliest and youngest little elf said “I will go! But only if I can wear my nice new red wellies and, oh yes, if Jake comes too”. Jake was a very sensible elf. He always turned up to work not a minute late nor a minute early. He always ate his lunch on time and made sure that his shoe laces were tied neatly together. He had lovely manners and never left crumbs lying on the lunch table after gobbling up his Mother’s delicious gingerbread pie. When Jake heard what Jimmy said he stopped and stared and just gulped with fear. His eyes became very large and very round. It seemed that he was pinned down on the very spot. You see Jake didn’t like going out when it was dark, he’d heard that there were hungry foxes and hares that came out at night looking for little elves to eat…

Jake the Elf didn’t want anyone to know that he was scared of going out at night into the woods because he thought all the other elves would make fun of him. No one knew his deepest darkest fear. Whenever his Ma and Pa would ask him to go out into the night to collect firewood or use the washroom he would instantly feel sick to the stomach, he thought there were at least 100 butterflies flying around in his stomach and that they would fly out at any second. He also thought he might be sick and wanted to run away. His heart would beat so loud and so fast that he thought the neighbours would know as he could hear it booming in his ears. Sometimes all he could do was stare and not say a word and try not to shake his little elf like body. This took a lot of hard work, trying not to let people know that he was so frightened, it was so exhausting.

Nevertheless, it was too late. Santa declared: “Well that’s settled then Jimmy and Jake will head out this evening with Dancer and Blitzen and collect as much wood as my trusted sleigh can carry”…. And with that Santa gave Jimmy and Jake his best cutting tools, a bag of carrots for the reindeers and a thermos of hot chocolate to have on the way.

Upon leaving the workshop Jimmy and Jake hopped into the sleigh and the two reindeers gave a nod and a wink to Santa and flew off into the night sky leaving a trail of half eaten carrots behind them… Jake sat next to Jimmy shivering and shaking trying to keep warm. Mrs Claus had kindly left a lovely multi-coloured crocheted blanket for the elves for their journey. Jimmy seemed plain excited he kept chattering away to Jake about the amazing toys they were going to make for the children when they returned but all Jake could do was make a small humming sound and slowly nodded his head back and forth in response. Jake knew that Jimmy loved using an axe and had been shown many times by his older brother Kenny. This didn’t make Jake feel any better as many a time he had seen Kenny jump up and down trying to scare the little birds that nested atop their roof in their wash house with his pick axe. He never used their wash house once when he went to play with Jimmy.

Without any warning, they suddenly landed with a thud deep in the dark forest green. Jake and Jimmy put on their helmets with their flashlights and stepped out of the sleigh. Immediately Jimmy ran up to a little badger collecting juicy bugs for his tea. He yelled to Jake to come and have a look. Jake replied; “no thanks… I um… think I’ll just stay here”. Jake found a nice little spot on a burnt out old tree stump that was half covered with moss. He got out the thermos that Santa gave him and took a huge drink of cocoa then grabbed his axe and walked behind the sleigh to look for the closest willow tree to cut down. In his nice new wellies, Jake could feel his feet were getting sweaty and his voice quivered as he tried to yell out to Jimmy to come and help… In a most high pitched shaky voice he yelled..”JJJJJ Jimmmmeeee… where are you?”… Jimmy was nowhere in sight. When he didn’t answer him, Jake started to breathe very fast and his eyes got big again… His heart was beating much faster now than it had ever done so before. Jimmy had wandered off into the woods without telling Jake. He had followed the badger down to his den.

Before Jake knew what was happening he suddenly turned around in a start and couldn’t believe his eyes. Standing right in front of him was what he thought was another elf, but it wasn’t Jimmy and upon closer inspection saw that it wasn’t an elf. He walked closer to the figure and then to his surprise he heard a funny noise, a strange voice that he had never heard before coming out of this little person. He said to him “There is no need, like the lack of a friend”… In usual Jake fashion, he just stared dumbfounded, not knowing whether to smile, say hi, laugh or wet his pants…. “Ah, don’t be afraid lad, tis I your friendly woodland leprechaun!.. Me name’s Brian, pleased to meet your acquaintance, and what might yours be me boy?”… Uh, um, I, don’t, you see, ah.. well, me Ma told me never to talk to strangers Sir and Um well I don’t think… Ah stop your chatterin’ if you stand there for too long you’ll catch your death…”

Jake thought to himself, well what kind of name is Brian for a leprechaun, he’d only heard of Windy Rainbow or Kilarney McDoodles… Brian came up to him and said “never fear lad… I’m not here to hurt you, I come into the woods at night to collect a bucket of gold for me boss Barnaby McLobb”. Well finally there was a name that Jake understood. He remembered his Ma telling him bed time stories when he was a wee lad about a tricky leprechaun named Barnaby who stole treasure from Vikings and hid it at the end of the rainbows. He never believed such trite but now he was seeing what he’d never believed was possible. He adjusted his eyes and took a step back to take another look and fell down flat like a pancake.

The next thing Jake knew Brian was sitting down next to him saying “I think I scared ye lad”. “’ere have a glass of me ‘Ol Pa’s Courage Juice, you’ll soon be feelin’ yourself in no time!.. It’s only warm milk, lemon and honey, it’ll help you relax” Jake took a big gulp and then smiled at the leprechaun. Suddenly he could feel himself relax. Brian told him that he always takes some with him to stay warm on the cold nights.

After a while Jake found himself talking to Brian and told him about why he was in the woods that night. Brian asked him what was wrong and why he looked so scared. Jake told him that he thought there were hungry foxes and hares that liked to eat elves for dinner and that he didn’t want to become their next meal. Brian just smiled up at him and said he didn’t think Jake would be very tasty then they both laughed. Brian then said to Jake… “Ya know what lad?, I too, used to be scared to come out into the woods at night but I’m not anymore”. Jake’s eyes began to light up and he asked how it was that Brian was not scared anymore. Brian replied “Well lad, it’s like this…. Before I had to head off into the woods I used to sometimes cry and wring my hands together and me dear ol’ Ma used to try and sing to me and tell me to take some deep breaths and I tried, oh how I tried. It helped a little. Then one day as I was gathering up me buckets I heard a faint little sound coming from over in field next door and it went; ‘twit twoo, twit twoo’…. As I started walking towards the sound it became clear that it was coming from a big old owl sitting in a very large tree. He was sitting just looking out at me as if beckoning me to come closer, so I did. I stood looking up at him at the base of that tree that night and I felt a warm feeling all over, it’s like me body knew that this creature meant me no harm.

Jake was curious to hear what Brian had to say about the Owl. He waited patiently but Brian just shook his head and laughed.. Then as he poured himself a cup of courage juice said ‘ya know what me boy’ of all the people that tried to help me and all the things I tried what the Owl taught me I still use today and it works like a charm’. Jake was confused and asked Brian what he meant. Then in true leprechaun style Brian jumped up and started doing what Jake thought was a jig and then all of a sudden he sang to Jake… ‘I don’t feel scared anymore and I do this jiggity jiggit because all I feel is flibberty gibbit…’ Jake could not believe his ears, he had not heard these words before and doubted if they were even real words. He’d heard about tales of fantasy lands with people saying funny words but never thought he would hear someone mutter these words for real… Jake decided that he must be dreaming and rubbed his eyes and tried to pop his ears…

Brian then stopped dancing and asked; ‘Did you hear me lad?’. Jake, feeling quite confused, quietly replied, ‘ah, yeeeesss, I think I did but, I can’t really say for sure, I don’t really know to be exact... I’ Brian cut him off and then said, ‘Just repeat after me, these words…’ ‘I feel ‘flibberty gibbit’ when I come into the woods at night…’ Jake did what he was told and repeated everything the Leprechaun asked him to. Brian then questioned how he was feeling and Jake replied, ‘well, nothing actually, I feel fine, but..’ then he took a deep breath and said ‘So, what, is a flibberty gibbit?’… Brian laughed and replied ‘it’s not anything at all lad but a nonsense made up word, like riddle me dee, fiddle dee dee, clopity clop or flipperty flop, they don’t mean anything but hopefully they’ll make you forget about your fears and maybe make you laugh and relax’. Further he said ‘it’s not about the word lad, you can make up any word you like just replace your words like worried, scared or terrified with a nonsense word and see what happens, hopefully with any luck you won’t feel as scared. Now you try it. What’s a word you like?’ Jake thought for moment quite bewildered and said ‘higgletypiggeltypoo’ and then Brian added ‘Now you’ve got the idea, now pop that into your sentence’. Jake did what he was told and said ‘I feel all higgletypiggeltypoo when I come into the woods at night!’ and he took one look at Brian and they both just laughed and laughed. They sat for a while longer and each came up with more nonsense words like middlemuddlemoo, kiddlecuddlefoo and hopoffaloo.

Suddenly Jake remembered that he hadn’t seen Jimmy for a while and was wondering where he had got to. He stood up to tell Brian that he needed to go but noticed that he was gone, bucket of gold and all. Jake then started to feel upset and worried because he didn’t see him go and didn’t get to say goodbye to him. Just then, he remembered what Brian told him to do. He then said to himself, I feel penalingaloo that I didn’t see Brian leave’ and all at once he felt better, smiled to himself, took a deep breath and started running towards the woods, laughing and singing out to Jimmy.

Jake then noticed something moving in the trees and stopped. All of a sudden his eyes went wide again and his heart started to beat fast. So he closed his eyes and said ‘I’m not kookymackysoo’ and opened his eyes to see Jimmy with a blackened face and a torn shirt shouting at Jake. ‘This has been the best night ever! I talked to a badger named Roger and he showed me where all the best trees are in the woods for making great toys and then we just kept cutting, we now have seven huge trees’ Jake was shocked he felt sure something bad must’ve happened to Jimmy and just smiled and said ‘I feel so fiddlediddlydee we can now go home and have a cup of tea!’

With that they both laughed, collected up the trees and hoped back into the sleigh. Jake told Jimmy all about his meeting with Brian the Leprechaun and said he is looking forward to the next time and is no longer too scared or ‘flibbertygibbit’ to come into the woods at night again.

THE END