Speaker 1: Section six of the Best Ghost Stories. This is a
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Read by NYE. Swanson The Best Ghost Stories Bansheese. Of
all Irish ghosts, fairies or boguls, the banshee, sometimes called
locally the Bohita or Baquinita, is the best known to
the general public. Indeed, Cross Channel visitors would class her
with pigs, potatoes and other fauna and flora of Ireland,
and would expect her to make manifest her presence to
them as being one of the sites of the country.
She is a spirit with a lengthy pedigree. How lengthy
no man can say, as its roots go back into
the dim mysterious past. The most famous banshee of ancient
times was that attached to the kingly house of O'Brien Abel,
who haunted the rock of Cragley above Killaloo, near the
old Palace of Cancora. In a d ten fourteen, was
fought the Battle of Clintarfe, from which the aged king
Brian bu knew that he would never come away alive.
For the previous night Abel had appeared to him to
tell him of his impending fate. The Banshee's method of
foretelling death in olden times differed from that adopted by
her at the present day. Now she wails and wrings
her hands as a general rule. But in the old
Irish tales she is to be found washing human heads
and limbs, or blood stained clothes till the water is
all dyed with human blood. This would take place before
a battle, so it would seem that in the course
of centuries her attributes and characteristics have changed somewhat. Very
different descriptions are given of her personal appearance. Sometimes she
is young and beautiful, sometimes old and of a fearsome appearance.
One writer describes her as a tall, thin woman with
uncovered head and long hair that floated round her shoulders,
attired in something which seemed either a loose white cloak
or a sheet thrown hastily around her, uttering piercing cries.
Another person, a coachman, saw her one evening sitting on
a style in the yard. She seemed to be a
very small woman, with blue eyes, long light hair, and
wearing a red cloak. Other descriptions will be found in
this chapter by the way, it does not seem to
be true that the banshee exclusively follows families of Irish descent,
for the last incident had reference to the death of
a member of a County Galway family, English by name
and origin. One of the oldest and best known banshee
stories is that related in the memoirs of Lady fanshaw.
In sixteen forty two, her husband Sir Richard, and she
chanced to visit a friend, the head of an Irish sept,
who resided in his ancient baronial castle surrounded with a moat.
At midnight. She was awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and,
looking out of bed, beheld in the moonlight a female
face and part of the form hovering at the window.
The distance from the ground, as well as the circumstance
of the moat, excluded the possibility that what she beheld
was of this world. The face was that of a
young and rather handsome woman, but pale, and the hair,
which was reddish, was loose and disheveled. The dress, which
Lady Fanshawe's terror did not prevent her from remarking accurately,
was that of the ancient irish. This apparition continued to
exhibit itself for some time, and then vanished with two
shrieks similar to that which had first excited Lady Fanshaw's attention.
In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated to her
host what she had witnessed, and found him prepared not
only to credit but to account for the superstition. A
near relation of my family said, he expired last night
in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the
event from you, lest it should throw a cloud over
the cheerful reception which was your due. Now before such
an event happens in this family or castle, the female
specter whom you have seen is always visible. She is
believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior rank,
whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom, afterwards,
to expiate the dishonor done to his family, he caused
to be drowned in the moat. In strictness, this woman
could hardly be termed banshee. The motive for the haunting
is akin to that in the tale of the Scotch
Drummer of Cordici, where the spirit of the murdered man
haunts the family out of revenge and appears before death.
Mister T. J. Westrop m A. Has furnished the following story.
My maternal grandmother heard the following tradition from her mother,
one of the miss ross Lewins who witnessed the occurrence.
Their father, mister Harrison ross Lewin, was away in Dublin
on law business, and in his absence, the young people
went off to spend the evening with a friend who
lived some miles away. The night was fine and lightsome
as they were returning, save at one point where the
road ran between trees or high hedges, not far to
the west of the old Church of Kilchrist. The latter,
like many similar ruins, was a simple oblong building with
long side walls and high gables, and at that time
it and its graveyard were unenclosed and lay in the
open fields. As the party passed down the long, dark lane,
they suddenly heard in the distance loud keening and clapping
of hands, as the country people were accustomed to do
when lamenting the dead. The ross Lewins hurried on and
came in sight of the church, on the side wall
of which a little gray haired old woman clad in
a dark cloak, was running to and fro chanting and
wailing and throwing up her arms. The girls were very frightened,
but the young men ran forward and surrounded the ruin,
and two of them went into the church, the apparition
vanishing from the wall as they did so. They searched
every nook and found no one, nor did anyone pass out.
All were now well scared and got home as fast
as possible. On reaching their home, their mother opened the
door and at once told them that she was in
terror about their father, for as she sat looking out
the window in the moonlight, a huge raven with fiery
eyes lit on the sill and tapped three times on
the glass. They told her their story, which only added
to their anxiety, And as they stood talking, taps came
to the nearest window, and they saw the bird again.
A few days later, news reached them that mister ross
Lewin had died suddenly in Dublin. This occurred about seventeen
seventy six. Mister Westrup also writes that the sister of
a former Roman Catholic bishop told his sisters that when
she was a little girl, she went out one evening
with some other children for a walk. Going down the road,
they passed the gate of the Principal near the town.
There was a rock or large stone beside the road
on which they saw something going nearer. They perceived it
to be a little, dark old woman who began crying
and clapping her hands. Some of them attempted to speak
to her, but got frightened, and all finally ran home
as quickly as they could. Next day the news came
that the gentleman near whose gate the banshee had cried
was dead, and it was found on inquiry that he
had died at the very hour at which the children
had seen the specter. A lady who was a relation
of one of the compilers and a member of a
County Cork family of English descent, sends the two following
experiences of a banshee in her family. My mother, when
a young girl was standing looking out of the window
in their house at Black Rock, near Cork, she suddenly
saw a white figure standing on a bridge which was
easily visible from the house. The figure waved her arms
towards the house, and my mother heard the bitter wailing
of the banshee. It lasted some seconds, and then the
figure disappeared. Next morning, my grandfather was walking as usual
into the city of Cork. He accidentally fell, hid his
head against the curbstone and never recovered consciousness. In March
nineteen hundred, my mother was very ill, and one evening,
the nurse and I were with her arranging her bed.
We suddenly heard the most extraordinary wailing, which seemed to
come in waves round and under her bed. We naturally
looked everywhere to try and find the cause, but in
vain The nurse and I looked at one another, but
made no remark, as my mother did not seem to
hear it. My sister was downstairs sitting with my father.
She heard it and thought some terrible thing had happened
to her little boy, who was in bed upstairs. She
rushed up and found him sleeping quietly. My father did
not hear it. In the house next door, they heard
it and ran downstairs, thinking something had happened to the servant.
But the latter at once said to them, did you
hear the banshee? Missus p must be dying. A few
years ago I e. Before eighteen ninety four, a curious
incident occurred in a public school in connection with the
belief in the Banshee. One of the boys happening to
become ill, was at once placed in a room by himself,
where he used to sit all day. On one occasion,
as he was being visited by the doctor, he suddenly
started up from his seat and affirmed that he heard
somebody crying. The doctor, of course, who could hear or
see nothing, came to the conclusion that the illness had
slightly affected his brain. However, the boy, who appeared quite sensible,
still persisted that he heard some one crying, and furthermore said,
it is the Bansheet, as I have heard it before.
The following morning, the head master received a telegram saying
that the boy's brother had been accidentally shot dead. That
the Banshee is not confined within the geographical limits of Ireland,
but that she can follow the fortunes of a family
abroad and there foretell their death is clearly shown by
the following story. A party of visitors were gathered together
on the deck of a private yacht on one of
the Italian lakes, and during a lull in the conversation,
one of them, a colonel said to the owner, count,
who's that queer looking woman you have on. The Count
replied that there was nobody except the ladies present and
the stewardess. But the speaker protested that he was correct,
and suddenly, with a scream of horror, he placed his
hands before his eyes and exclaimed, oh my God, what
a face. For some time he was overcome with terror,
and at length reluctantly looked up and cried, Thank Heavens,
it's gone. What was it, asked the Count. Nothing human,
replied the colonel. Nothing belonging to this world. It was
a woman of no earthly type, with a queer shaped,
gleaming face, a mass of red hair, and eyes that
would have been beautiful but for their expression, which was hellish.
She had on a green hood after the fashion of
an Irish peasant. An American lady present suggested that the
description tallied with that of the Banshee, upon which the
Count said, I am an O'Neill. At least I am
descended from one. My family name is, as you know, Nilsinni,
which little more than a century ago was O'Neill. My
great grandfather served in the Irish Brigade, and on its
dissolution at the time of the French Revolution, had the
good fortune to escape the general massacre of officers, and,
in company with an O'Brien and a McGuire, fled across
the frontier and settled in Italy. On his death, his son,
who had been born in Italy and was far more
Italian than Irish, changed his name to Nilsini, by which
name the family has been known ever since. But for
all that we are Irish, the banshee was yours, then,
ejaculated the colonel. What exactly does it mean? It means,
the count replied, solemnly, the death of some one very
nearly associated with me. Pray heaven, it is not my
wife or daughter. On that score, however, his anxiety was
speedily removed, for within two hours he was seized with
a violent attack of angina pectoris and died before morning.
Mister Elliot O'Donnell, to whose article on banshee's we are
indebted for the above, adds, the banshee never manifests itself
to the person whose death it is prognosticating. Other people
may see or hear it, but the fated one never,
so that when every one present is aware of it,
but one the fate of that one may be regarded
as pretty well certain end of Section six at