Banshee

The encyclopedia says that: The Banshee (IPA: /ˈbænʃiː/), from the Irish bean sí ("woman of the síde" or "woman of the fairy mounds") is a female spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Otherworld. Her Scottish counterpart is the bean shìth (also spelled bean-shìdh).

The aos sí ("people of the mounds", "people of peace") are variously believed to be the survivals of pre-Christian Gaelic deities, spirits of nature, or the ancestors. Some Theosophists and Celtic Christians have also referred to the aos sí as "fallen angels". They are commonly referred to in English as "fairies", and the banshee can also be described as a "fairy woman".

In Irish legend, a banshee wails around a house if someone in the house is about to die. There are people who believe to have banshees attached to them and their families, and whose cries tell of the death of a member of that family. When someone of an Irish village dies, a woman would sing a lament (in Irish: caoineadh, "caoin" meaning "to weep, to wail") at their funeral. These women singers are sometimes referred to as "keeners". Legend says that, for five great Gaelic families: the O'Gradys, the O'Neills, the O'Briens, the O'Connors, and the Kavanaghs, the lament would be sung by a fairy woman; having foresight, even if the person had died far away and news of their death had not been told yet, so the wailing of the banshee was the first warning the household had of the death.

The banshee may appear before the death and warn the family by wailing. When several banshees appeared at once, it indicated the death of someone great or holy. The tales sometimes told that the woman, though called a fairy, was a ghost of a murdered woman, or a woman who died in childbirth.

Banshees are sometimes described as dressed in white or grey and having long fair hair which they brush with a silver comb. This comb detail is also related to the centuries-old traditional romantic Irish story that, if you ever see a comb lying on the ground in Ireland, you must never pick it up, or the banshees, having placed it there to lure unsuspecting humans, will spirit such gullible humans away. Other stories portray banshees as dressed in green, red or black with a grey cloak.

Whatever her origin, the banshee chiefly appears in one of three ways: a young woman, a stately matron or a raddled old hag. These represent the triple aspects of the Celtic goddess of war and death, namely Badhbh, Macha and Mor-Rioghain. She usually wears either a gray, hooded cloak or the winding sheet or grave robe of the dead. She may also appear as a washerwoman, and is seen apparently washing the blood stained clothes of those who are about to die. In this guise she is known as the bean-nighe (washing woman).

Although not always seen, her mourning call is heard, usually at night when someone is about to die. In 1437, an Irish seeress or banshee who foretold his murder at the instigation of the Earl of Atholl approached King James I of Scotland. This is an example of the banshee in human form. There are records of several human banshees or prophetesses attending the great houses of Ireland and the courts of local Irish kings. In some parts of Leinster, she is referred to as the bean chaointe (keening woman) whose wail can be so piercing that it shatters glass. In Kerry, the keen is experienced as "low, pleasant singing"; in Tyrone as "the sound of two boards being struck together"; and on Rathlin Island as "a thin, screeching sound somewhere between the wail of a woman and the moan of an owl".

The banshee may also appear in a variety of other forms, such as that of a hooded crow, hare and weasel - animals associated in Ireland with witchcraft.

For obvious reasons she is feared, but in a strange sort of way also welcomed. Sometimes it is better to know that death is coming so the family can be prepared. In this picture she has the accoutrements of the dark side. Poison ivy grows around the symbolic portal between life and death where she stands. On the right-hand column there is a hag-stone, a stone through which nature has made a hole. If a person looked through that hole they could see the fairy world. At her feet, at the base of the left-hand column are a collection of pills and tablets (symbolic of modern death- through drugs overdose or medical assistance.) Both sides are reflected, as she herself is a dual-natured character.

An omen that sometimes accompanies the banshee is the coach-a-bower (coiste-bodhar), an immense black coach, mounted by a coffin, and drawn by headless horses driven by a Dullahan (an unseelie faerie). It will go rumbling to your door and if you open it, according to Croker, a basin of blood will be thrown in your face. These headless phantoms are found elsewhere than in Ireland. In 1807 two of the sentries stationed outside St. James's Park died of fright. A headless woman the upper part of her body naked, used to pass at midnight and scale the railings. After a time the sentries were stationed no longer at the haunted spot. In Norway the heads of corpses were cut off to make their ghosts feeble. ("A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore", Ed. W.B. Yeats)