By Kristi O’Toole

Hollywood would have us believe that the Banshee is an evil spirit that relishes in taking the lives of her innocent victims. Several movies even depict the Banshee as a murderous entity that shreds her victims into bloody pieces with her sharp claws. However, depending on how badly you want a blockbuster movie, that just isn’t the case.

In Irish folklore the Banshee can be quite the beneficial as she warns the more prominent Irish families of imminent deaths of someone close to them. The history of the Banshee is a legendary one and never far from the lips of locals.

The first legend is that she is the ghost of a young woman who was brutally killed and died so horribly that her spirit is left to wander the world. She watches her family and loved ones warning them when a violent death is imminent.

This particular type of Banshee appears as an old woman in rags with dirty gray hair, long fingernails and sharp-pointed rotten teeth. Her eyes are blood-red and filled with so much hatred and sorrow that to look into them will cause instant death. The Banshees mouth is permanently open as she emits a long and painful scream to torture the souls of the living.

While the movies relish in blood and guts, in Ireland there is a much less gory view of the Banshee. She does attach herself to families usually with an O or a Mc in the surname such as O’Brien (dare I brag I’m an O’Toole?) or McNeill etc, and she does indeed foretell a death in the family. The Banshee does not ‘bring’ death but warns that death is near and this gives the family a chance to prepare. It is not necessarily a violent death that may occur and may even be of a family member that has lived to 106 years of age. She is considered as an escort to ensure that the loved one passes safely to the other side.

Stories have been passed down through generations of families of ‘O’s and ‘Mc’s of their personal experiences with their own Banshee. I remember reading a story of a man who was walking home one cold blustery night, more than likely three sheets to wind, and on arriving home told his mother that he had tried to comfort an old woman. She was dressed in black with a veil over her face and was crying and wailing outside the house, but every time he went over to her she moved away and kept pointing at the house.

His mother knew straight away what this old lady represented. She sent her son to bed telling him she would have a look. Needless to say she didn’t dare look herself. Three days later the man’s uncle, his mother’s brother died peacefully in his sleep.

The following story is a first hand account of a Banshee encounter:

This took place 16 years ago. My husband was away in the navy leaving me alone with our four children. One night I was awoke by a strange howling sound, at first I thought it was the neighbor’s cat, but it was so loud it sounded as if it were coming from the other side of my bedroom door. I got out of bed and made my way across the floor, for reasons unknown I wasn’t scared. I stepped into the hallway and continued to follow the sound down the hall and out through the kitchen to the back door. When I opened the back door that’s when I saw her. From mid-torso up floating I the woods was an old woman. Her hair was at least six feet long and floated in the air as if it were in the water, and even from the sort of distance I was away I could see the deep lines in her face and her expression was the saddest I had ever seen. I stood and stared at her for about ten minutes before she disappeared before my eyes. Having no idea what she was, I turned to my little ghostly book for answers. When I discovered I had saw the Banshee I panicked. I kept my children so close over the next few weeks they became sick of me. Then suddenly our perfectly healthy Labrador died of a massive heart attack. A few year went by and I had forgotten all about my encounter with the Banshee when my daughter came to me telling how she had seen a ghost lady. A few days later our cat died.

Okay, hold up. With all due respect I call balls on this story and here’s why. Number one, I don’t care who you are or how hectic your life is, if you’re drawn from your bed in the middle night by a wailing cry and then see some doll floating in the woods for ten minutes, you don’t forget.

Number two, I can’t seem to find any supporting evidence the Banshee foretells of the deaths of pets. While some folks dig their furbabies and treat them like human children they are in fact not human. I don’t expect a visit from the Banshee warning me of our hamster’s trip to the big wheel in the sky.

So after that train wreck, I found this little gem. The story teller in this one has great vision and excellent descriptive writing, I thought he may have unnecessarily embellished it a little for dramatic effect, especially when the Banshee is dramatic enough on it’s own. But otherwise very moving:

I’m seventeen now, but when it happened I was around the age of twelve. It was a normal day for me and my little sister, who shall remain nameless out of respect. We were playing out in the fields one late afternoon. The winds of Ireland swept across the barley created waves across the land which rippled in various shades of gold and yellow. The sun was starting to retreat back into the horizon, illuminating the world in rich shades of purple and orange. As usual me and my sister were playing hide and seek in the fields, and me being the older brother I tended to opt for the seeker, just so I could see her smile when she laughed as I found her. On the verge of the field were the woods. Even when the sun cast celestial vibrancy upon the woods, it still remained dark and foreboding. Anyway, we were playing hide and seek when I noticed something just on the rise of the field before it dipped down again. It was like…like this black bag, that’s the only way I can describe it. Just kind of floating there at the bulge. It dismissed it, assuming it was just farming waste, like something had fallen off a tractor.

As I continued searching for my little sister (she was an excellent hider, and some days I wouldn’t even find her at all. Causing my mother to panic rather frequently) through the barley this black bag thing managed to keep itself fixed in my peripheral vision. Again I dismissed this, thinking it was that cause of the wind fluttering the ‘bag’ around. I noticed some movement in the barley about 20 meters from me, so I crouched down and silently waded through hoping to find my sister, and hoping that the sound of the wind would mask me. As I hoped for the sound of the wind I heard something quite different. Like, a sort of wailing, a very faint and distant wailing far in the distance. I stopped and listened intently and made a ‘cup’ over my ears. The sound of the wailing merged with the whistling of the wind coming through the woods, almost like the sound of a kettle boiling. I crouched there listening for X amount of time, thirty…maybe forty seconds. My sister jumped up from hiding and ran to different location, which made me jump out of my skin.

That bag blew nearer to me and was now in my sight, just floating there. I began to be creeped out. It seemed like it was following me. I shouted to my sister that the game was over and that we were heading back inside. My gaze was fixed upon this black bag which seemed so ominous. My sister appeared at my side, she looked up at me and I down to her. She knew that look, I wasn’t joking around. I told her to go back to the house which was just over the wall and a hundred yards down the road. She obeyed, as she knew that tone I gave her. I made sure she got over the wall safely, and then I turned to where the bag was…or at least where it used to be. It seemed to move across the field in a zigzag pattern…towards me. I froze with shock as I didn’t know what to do, and all I could do was watch this bag come closer and closer. The wailing became louder and louder, like the sound of shellshock.

After what seemed like an eternity the bag was in range of being able to distinguish what it was. It wasn’t a bag. It was…some sort of black robe (Much like the Witch King Form Lord of the Rings). Tattered and torn, the bottom of it stained. I stood there, mouth open. In terror, I watched this thing come towards me, this bundle of rags float across the field. The wailing became louder and my heart began to pound, trying to escape my chest. Sweat flooded off of me. All I could do was watch this thing come closer and closer and closer…

The bundle of rags stopped several meters in front of me and the wailing stopped. All I could hear now was my heartbeat in my ears, like some ancient primal drums of war thumping away. The bundle of rags rose from the ground and emitted a blood-curdling shriek. A piercing scream which deafened me briefly. I held my ears and felt the blood trickle out of them. A hooded entity filled the robes. It stood tall and thin, long white hair flowing out of the hood. It then turned to me, and looked right into my soul. I felt this sharp pain in my chest. I clutched my chest in agony and writhed on the ground. It let out the same deafening scream and I noticed through fighting back tears that it was a woman. Pale and hollow she looked. It pointed at me with her long, skeletal fingers and then it pointed in the direction of my house. It then looked directly back into my eyes, and as quickly as it attacked me it disappeared into a bundle of rags on the ground.

I lay there in the earth, panting, sweating and looking at the bloodstains on my hands. I lay there, in pain and in fear. It was then I realized what I had just seen. The Omen on bad news and death. The Banshee. It wasn’t coming for me; it came as a warning! I had to get back to the house. I stumbled up from the earth and eventually ended up in the house. I found my sister standing in the kitchen, silent, in shock. She didn’t hear me crash through the door. I startled her when I touched her on the shoulder. She looked at me in horror, tears streaking her face. Speechless. She looked at me then looked to the floor, where my mother lay. Dead.

Authorities report she died of a heart attack.

The stories and firsthand accounts of the Banshee are as plentiful as the taxes Uncle Sam takes from your wages, the internet is literally flooded with them. I have to believe there’s something to it.

So in conclusion should you be out of an evening in Ireland and see a gray haired lady with a veil over her face, I say it best not to invite her to tea.

Next time I’ll discuss our furry friend the werewolf.

Until then, keep the night light burning.

When Kristi isn’t writing for NewzBreaker, she writes supernatural suspense novels having three currently published. If you would like to check out any of her books they can be found online and at other major retailers like Books a Million and Amazon. Never one to rest, she also paints/designs shoes and items for the home. Check out her eBay store, Watered Down Vodka and her FB page.

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