BANSHEE: The Ghostly Celtic Wailing Woman!

By BILL NEVINS, Contributing Writer

One of my scariest childhood memories was being terrified while watching the otherwise-silly old Disney movie Darby O’Gill and the Little People. It’s the part where The Banshee appears in the Irish night to frighten old Darby and his pals. Cheesy movie special effects aside, the Banshee is a very real, very spooky manifestation of the ever-creative Irish imagination which has haunted we (and wee) Celts down the centuries, both back in the old country and here in America when her tale is re-told, often around Hallowe’en or Samhain time.

What—or Who—is this Banshee? Let’s first look at her name itself. In the Irish or Scottish Gaelic languages, bean (pronounced bann) is a word for woman, while sí (pronounced shee) is a word for the tumuli mounds which dot the Irish countryside and which are believed to be homes to the powerful, ancient fairies, or “little people” who are thought by some to still inhabit a mystic invisible realm just out of sight of human eyes but who can appear to the unwary or misfortunate on occasion. (The fairies may be a manifestation of the magical Tuatha De Danaan people who mythology tells us once inhabited Ireland but who long ago disappeared “underground” and into another dimension.)

So, the Banshee is a female- fairy, but not a happy one! Her keening (wailing, screaming calls perhaps sounding a bit like that of a coyote or of a bull elk in rut) are not a welcome sound. They are said to sometimes shatter glass. To the ears of believers, they herald the death of a family member or loved one, even of one who has died or is about to die far away. When several banshees appear at once, it indicates the death of someone great or holy. Hearing the banshee is said to be a sure sign that one is of ancient Celtic Irish or Scottish stock, perhaps from an aristocratic line!

Some versions of banshee lore claim that the woman, though called a fairy, was really a ghost of a murdered woman, or of a mother who died in childbirth.

The banshee is said to wear a dark cloak and to have long streaming hair and eyes red from weeping. She’s rather similar to La Llorona, the New Mexico “ditch-witch” who also frightens adults and children in many an old fireside story.

Now folks may scoff, “it’s just the wind making those noises”. But hey, I have been caught unawares of a dark, misty west-of-Ireland night by odd sounds and vague shapes on a back road. And while some might say those were only wandering, mooing cows and that I might have that night taken a “wee drop-of-the-pure” at the local pub myself, I am here to tell you it can be a frightening experience! As Shakespeare’s Hamlet tells his pal, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Now, cynical or more scientifically -minded folks may scoff, “it’s just the wind making those noises”. But hey, I have been caught unawares of a dark, misty west-of-Ireland night by odd sounds and vague shapes on a back road. And while some might say those were only wandering, mooing cows and that I might have that night taken a “wee drop-of-the-pure” at the local pub myself, I am here to tell you it can be a frightening experience! As Shakespeare’s Hamlet tells his pal, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

You may scoff, but hey we are all mortal, aren’t we? So, next time you hear a strange wailing sound of a dark moonless night.

“Ask not for whom the Banshee wails.

She may well soon wail for thee!”

Happy Hallowe’en/Samhain,

dear readers!