The Púca: The Shapeshifting Creature of Ancient Celtic Folklore
The púca, or pooka, is often described as Ireland’s shapeshifting creature: a horse on a dark road, a goat in the trees, a bird, a household spirit, or something that carries a traveler beyond the ordinary world. But the surviving record does not describe one stable animal, one consistent appearance, or one documented encounter.
This episode follows the púca through the texts that helped define it. It begins with Patrick Kennedy’s nineteenth-century account of a man near Murroe who reportedly saw a goat-shaped presence moving above him in the branches before collapsing. The story is dramatic…
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