Banshee (Page 2)

D. R. McAnally, in his book Irish Wonders (1888), also wrote about the legendary being:

	A British print shows a Banshee, a female spirit sait to haunt old and noble Irish families, sometimes to avenge the cruelties that had been meted out to her by an ancient ancestor.

"In Ireland, the hateful ‘Banshee’ is a source of dread to many a family against which she has an enmity. It appears that a noble family, whose name is still familiar in Mayo, is attended by a Banshee of this description — the spirit of a young girl deceived, and afterwards murdered by a former head of the family. With her dying breath she cursed her murderer, and promised she would attend him and his forever. After many years the chieftain reformed his ways, and his youthful crime was almost forgotten even by himself, when one night, as he and his family were seated by the fire, the most terrible shrieks were suddenly heard outside the castle walls. All ran out, but saw nothing. During the night the screams continued as though the castle were besieged by demons, and the unhappy man recognized in the cry of the Banshee the voice of the young girl he had murdered. The next night he was assassinated by one of his followers, when again the wild unearthly screams were heard exulting over his fate. Since that night 'hateful Banshee' has, it is said, never failed to notify the family, with shrill cries of revengeful gladness, when the time of one of their number has arrived.

Among some of the recorded instances of the Banshee’s appearance may be mentioned one related by Miss Lefrau, the niece of [Richard] Sheridan, in the memoirs of her grandmother, Mrs. Frances Sheridan. From this account we gather that Miss Elizabeth Sheridan was a firm believer in the Banshee, and firmly maintained that the one attached to the Sheridan family was distinctly heard lamenting beneath the windows of the family residence before the news arrived from France of Mrs. Frances Sheridan’s death at Blois. She added that a niece of Miss Sheridan made her very angry by observing that as Mrs. Frances Sheridan was by birth a Chamberlaine, a family of English extraction, she had no right to the guardianship of an Irish fairy, and that therefore the Banshee must have made a mistake. Then there is the well-known case related by Lady Fanshawe who tells us how, when on a visit in Ireland, she was awakened at midnight by a loud scream outside her window. On looking out she saw a young and rather handsome woman, with dishevelled hair, who vanished before her eyes with another shriek. On communicating the circumstance in the morning, her host replied, ‘A near relation of mine died last night in the castle, and before such an event happens, the female spectre whom you have seen is always visible."

The Banshee of legend is actually a disembodied soul, either of someone who in life was strongly attached to the family or who hated all its members. So, if she loves those whom she calls, the wail is a soft, tender, soothing chant, intended to either give notice of death's proximity and reassure the one destined to die, or to comfort the survivors. But if instead the Banshee during her life was a enemy of the family, the wail is more like the scream of a fiendish ghost, a demonic howling of delight over the coming fatal agony of one of her foes.

The tradition of Banshee, which goes back to the early 8ht century, is currently alive and well in various parts of Ireland. Many people have described the 'terrible wail' which precedes a death and certain families are traditionally believed to be 'followed' by the Banshee.

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Sources: (1) Dictionary of the Occult, Caxton Publishing; (2) Spence, Lewis, An Encyclopedia of Occultism, Carol Publishing Group.
 

 

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-- Legends of Irish Witches & Fairies.

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-- The Annals of Ireland Translated from the Original Irish of the Four Masters by Owen Connellan.

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