Fetch

How can you go through the Otherworld without bumping into Pooka? No, seriously, how? Fetch would like to know.

Pooka (or Puca, or Pookha, or whatever spelling you want it seems) is a well established figure in Irish folklore. Depending on who’s talking, “pooka” can refer to a single shapeshifting being who often assumes the form of a rabbit, a horse, a goat, an old man, or whatever else it wants to be; or “pooka” refers to a category of Fae goblins, each individual occupying a special place in the counties of Ireland. Some scholarship finds a linguistic link with Puck, the trickster faun of English folklore made famous by Shakespeare’s “On A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.”

You can find out more from a wide variety of online sources. Wikipedia, of course. There were two YouTube videos I liked on the subject: “Pooka The Irish Prankster” and “The Pooka — With Guest Steve Lalley”. And if you have access to JStor, this scholarly article, “The Púca: A Multi-Functional Irish Supernatural Entity” is a nice dive down a rabbit hole. No pun intended.