banshee

banshee, badh [east Munster], banshie, beansí, bean sídhe, ben síde; Scottish forms: bansìth, bean-shìth, bean sìth; Manx: ben shee [Ir., fairy woman, woman of the fairy mound]. A female wraith of Irish and Scottish Gaelic tradition thought to be able to foretell but not necessarily cause death in a household. Although Fedelm in the Táin Bó Cuailnge [Cattle Raid of Cooley] seems to be an anticipation of the figure, observations and portrayals of the banshee in literature were not common before the 17th century. Since that time, the banshee has been depicted so often and so variously that generalizations about her appearance and role are difficult to make without many qualifications. She may be seen as a beautiful maiden weeping for the coming death of a loved one, or she may be a gruesome hag foretelling it. Lady Jane Wilde (1888) seems to be the first to opine that the beautiful banshee is more common in Ireland and the ugly more common in Scotland. In Scotland the figure is known as ban-sìth, bean-shìth, or bean sìth; closely related to it is the baobhan sìth, which may embody elements of the succubus or vampire. The Manx ben shee seems closer to the Irish banshee. Both the beautiful and the ugly figures often wear white; in Meath she wears a white gown with red shoes. As oral tradition was continued by English speakers, the banshee tended to become confused with the White Lady of other folklores, as bean, ‘woman’, sounds like bán, ‘white, fair-haired’. The banshee may also wear a grey cloak over a green dress. Her eyes are usually fiery red from continual weeping. The beautiful banshee has long hair which she strokes with a gold or silver comb. The wail of the banshee is most often compared with the keening of Irish mourners, and thus she is often known as an bhean chaointe, ‘the keening woman’. Less flattering commentators have compared her sound to that of a dog baying at the moon. The banshee is most often a solitary person, although an assembly might wail at the passing of an especially noble or holy person.

The banshee appears to draw from the characterizations of Áine and Badb in earlier Irish literature, and like Badb she has associations with the hooded crow. In folk etiology the banshee was thought to be the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth, or of a murdered pregnant woman. Despite these sombre associations, a banshee's attentions to a family were thought to be a mark of high station, especially in Ireland, and several hundred families boasted of their own banshee. A Welsh counterpart is the cyhyraeth. See also AÍBELL; ANGAU; ANKOU; CLÍDNA; DEATH COACH; GLAISTIG; WASHER AT THE FORD.

Bibliography

Patricia Lysaght , ‘Irish Banshee Traditions’, Béaloideas, 42–4 (1974–6);
‘An Bhean Chaointe: The Supernatural Woman in Irish Folklore’, Éire-Ireland, 14 (4) (Winter 1979), 7–29;
The Banshee: The Supernatural Death-Messenger (Dublin, 1986).