Banshee

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• Ireland · Irish

  Banshee

  bean sí, bean sídhe (Irish) · Bean Shide

  Death omens

  

  The banshee is a female supernatural death-messenger whose cry foretells a death, traditionally in particular old families. A contribution to the Schools' Collection from Creggs, Co. Galway, says that "when a member of a very old family is about to die" the fairy woman cries, sometimes sings hymns, and that the person who is going to die never hears her. In memoirs written in 1676, Ann, Lady Fanshawe recalled seeing a pale, red-haired woman in white at the window of Lady Honor O'Brien's house the night a cousin of the family died, and being told that "when any of the family are dying, the shape of a woman appears in the window"; she does not use the word banshee.

  A living Irish belief and part of family tradition: Patricia Lysaght's fieldwork shows it persisting "into the third millennium" (her publisher's description). In the sources the banshee foretells and cries for a death; she does not cause it, and is not presented here as a killer.

  Earliest written source not verified

  National Folklore Collection, UCD, The Schools' Collection, vol. 0015, p. 113, "The Bean Sí" (dúchas.ie) (archived)

  Tradition · not evidence