King Brian

### Personality

Kind, funny, fun-loving, tricky, mischievous, deceiving, conniving, jolly, caring, nice, gentle, generous, and good

### Description

Obese leprechaun with long brown hair, beard, and eyebrows wearing a golden crown, dark green robe cape, dark green jacket, yellow, shirt, dark green pants, light green socks, and black shoes

### Goal

To grant Darby's wishes again and to return home

### Friends

Darby O'Gill, Katie O'Gill, Michael MacBride, Phadrig Oge, and other leprechauns

### Powers

Grant wishes, invisibility, shape-shift, super jump, ghost-like powers when jumping through walls and doors, and magic

### Fate

Saves Darby's life after tricking him to making a fourth wish and continues his life as king of the leprechauns.

### Quote

"Three wishes I'll grant you, great wishes or small, but you'll wish a fourth one, and you'll lose them all!"

**King Brian** is the 5,000 year old king of the leprechauns in the 1959 Disney film, *Darby O'Gill and the Little People*. He was portrayed by the late Jimmy O'Dea.

## Appearances

### *Darby O'Gill and the Little People*

King Brian lives in the Fairy Mountain, under the ruins of Knocknasheega, where he guards all of the greatest treasures of Irish history and myth. He has enjoyed a long-running rivalry/friendship with Rathcullen's local storyteller, Darby O'Gill. The two frequently try to outwit each other as Darby tries to win the crock of gold from Brian. His closest attempt was foiled when Brian tricked him into wishing a fourth wish, which undid the first three. But King Brian has a special fondness for Darby.

When he learned Darby was being forced to retire, Brian brought him to his kingdom to stay. But Darby tricked him by playing a tune on a violin that inspired the Leprechauns to go on a fox hunt so Darby could escape. But Brian angrily came to Darby's house to take him back. Darby tricked him again by playing him with whisky and singing a drinking song, keeping him until morning when his powers were gone. Powerless, he was forced to grant Darby three wishes. Darby's first wish was for Brian to stay by his side until he made the next two. As a further indignity, Brian was forced to be carried in a sack wherever Darby went.

When Darby attempted to show Brian to Michael MacBride, the leprechaun king disguised himself as a rabbit, making it appear that Darby was poaching. When Darby casually told Michael 'I wish you could see him,' Brian called out "Granted!" tricking Darby out of another wish.

When Darby admitted he could not think of another wish, Brian offered to do it for him and make his daughter, Katie fall in love with Michael. Brian visits both of them in their dreams to encourage their love. The next day, before Darby can make his last with, Katie bursts in and causes the sack to fall over. Brian escapes in the form of a rabbit.

That night, after suffering a dangerous fall, Katie was injured to the point of death, and the Banshee summoned the coiste-bodhar, a spiritual coach driven by the dullahan to carry her soul to the Otherworld. Darby summoned King Brian and sacrificed himself for Katie by making his third wish to go in Katie's place and Brian granted it.

As a final gesture of friendship, Brian offers to ride part of the way with his friend. To save Darby, Brian tricks him into making a final fourth wish ("wishing" that his friend could join him in the afterlife). As before, this fourth wish negates all the previous wishes and spares Darby's life. Darby is saved and King Brian has the last laugh in their running battle of wits. Presumably, since Brian is immortal, he can survive the trip to the Otherworld.

### *Walt Disney anthology series*

In the episode; "I Captured the King of the Leprechauns", created to promote the film, Walt Disney goes to Ireland to research the folklore and recruits Darby O'Gill and King Brian to appear as themselves in the movie.

In a segment exploring the various supernatural characters in the story, King Brian and his leprechauns are described as having once been angels that hid away during the war between the Angel Gabriel and Satan. As punishment for their cowardice, they were cast down to Earth and settled in Ireland, which they saw as the most heavenly place on Earth.

## Trivia

* Jimmy O'Dea was uncredited in the film because Walt Disney hoped to create the illusion that he was using real leprechauns. He even filmed a TV spot of himself asking King Brian to appear in the film, and included an insert to the opening credits thanking King Brian and his leprechauns for their 'cooperation.' Disney even went so far as to film the *Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color* (1954) episode, "I Captured the King of the Leprechauns" (#5.26), in which he and "Darby" (Albert Sharpe) manage to corner King Brian and convince him to participate in the film along with his people.
* When Michael doesn't kiss Katie, King Brian (Jimmy O'Dea) exclaims "And him a Dublin man!" O'Dea was born and raised in Dublin.