Episode 5 - The Banshee

Home.

Home is the place with which you are most familiar.

Where you know every hill, every nook and corner, every mound of the Aos Si (Ees She).

Home. Where your family has lived for generations. Able to trace your lineage straight back to the Milesians.

Your blood may as well flow through the hills and fields of this place.

In this place, in your home, you are comfortable. You are safe.

Perhaps because of this connection, because of this comfort, your family is haunted and served by a faery woman.

A child or servant of The Morrigan, if old tales are to be believed… A portent of death…

Your family is possessed of a banshee.

Banshees are a classic fairy spirit. Banshee, or bean-sidhe means woman of the fairy mound.

They are spirits that herald death. And their shriek heard across Ireland would convey a message of mourning.

If someone heard a banshee, their family had suffered a death, or would soon enough.

They would appear sometimes, to members of a family, sitting atop a fairy mound calling into the night sky.

If such a vision presented itself, it could only evoke grief.

For a banshee’s knowledge was not limited by geography or time.

If the family had not heard of the death yet, they would.

There are few fairy stories as dark to their heart as the stories of the Banshee.

Little could bring more dread, more grief, than the sound of the banshee’s wail wafting over the hills and fields.

The keening of this fairy woman was a portent of only one thing… Death.

I am Andrew Eagle. And if you dare, I invite you to follow me Through the Veil.

You have heard stories of the banshee all your life.

Your grandmother tells them. Your father tells them.

You have heard every variation of the tale, from every member of your family.

But you never believed them. Not really.

Then one day, on your long walks across the hills and fields, you see her.

A woman in a long gray cloak, a green dress. Her eyes red with streaming tears.

Something blooms in your chest. A thick sadness… Impossible to swallow.

Someone is dead. Someone in your family.

She keens for them.

Keening is a mourning tradition in Ireland and parts of Scotland.

It is a vocal lament for the dead, coming from the Irish and Scottish Gaelic term meaning to cry or to weep.

References to the tradition of keening begin in the sixteenth century.

Per the tradition, a woman or group of women was hired to be the keening woman. It was a highly respected position.

Generally, during the process, the keen itself, consisted of particular poetic elements.

It included praise for the deceased, a chronicle of their family, and an emphasis on the grief left in their wake.

The act usually involved physical movements guided by the keening women and ended only with the burial.

You rush home. They must be told.

You run across the hills. They must be told.

You do not pause at the banks of your favorite brook before leaping it. They must be told.

They must be told of the death.

But you do not beat the news home.

This time, it happened at home.

The first keener, the banshee, will not be the last.

There will be mourning, for your family has suffered a great lost.

Cliodhna is a Queen of the Banshees.

She is considered a powerful banshee, with many supernatural gifts.

And she serves as queen over South Munster.

She was once a goddess of love and beauty, who left her otherworldly paradise island of Tir Tairngire to be with a mortal who she had taken as a lover.

She is then washed out to sea by a wave, in a region where now the tide itself is known as Cliodhna’s Wave.

In some versions, she drowns. In others, she survives for a while longer.

But in either case, she makes her palace in the heart of a pile of rocks by the name of Carrig-Cleena.

She is a rival to Aibell, ruler of the fairies of North Munster.

Aibell kept her dwelling in Craig Liath, a large hill.

In many myths, she carried a magic harp and often enchanted mortal men.

The banshees come in many forms. And they have been adapted over time.

Occasionally they are beautiful. Terrible and dark, but beautiful. In others, they are ancient.

In some stories, they are as tall or taller than a person. Lean and lanky, bony and strange.

Others tell of diminutive forms, a foot or shorter.

It is believed banshees will only wail for the descendants of pure and true Milesian stock.

However, some stories extend that to other groups that settled in Ireland over time.

Rarely, very rarely, stories speak of appearances of many banshees.

These few stories rarely demonstrate groups of five or six banshees appearing together, and only for the deaths of people who were mystical, holy, or someone truly great.

But in some instances, the most extreme, to mourn the death of someone truly influential - as many as 26 banshees, in particular Aibell and her 25 servitors, have appeared together.

After the mourning is done, after the wake and the keening is done, the banshee’s voice fades from the hills.

You hope never to see nor hear the banshee again.

Though you expect, in time, you will.

Your family has always been haunted by such a spirit.

Served by this spirit, depending on who you ask.

Eventually, she will keen even for you.

As she will keen for everyone.

It is a common misconception that the banshee brings death.

They do not. And in most stories, they do not foretell it.

In truth, they only mourn. They only grieve.

They got the reputation of foretelling because they would often mourn deaths that had not yet been discovered.

There are variants on the banshee across Ireland and Scotland, depicting a variety of features.

And they have inspired popular culture across the western world for years.

Making appearances in movies, television shows, and comic books.

But across all the stories, all the years, the banshee’s wail has never been forgotten.

Death is often not the subject we think of when we hear a fairy tale.

Instead, they are normally about teaching.

Many were written to offer some lesson. Morality, safety, something that will help those hearing the story to make better choices.

But there are exceptions. And the truth is that many stories are far darker than we give them credit for.

The banshee is an odd story in many regards.

Its central theme is death, but in the end, the banshee is not evil.

There is no obvious moral to be learned. No lesson about making good choices or finding your way home.

And while it is a sad story, the tone can be uplifting.

A banshee signifies a certain importance, it shows that whoever has passed will be missed.

Not only by their family and those they knew in this world.

But also, they will be mourned by the spirits in the Otherworld.

It has a message of remembering and honoring the dead.

Isn’t that all we can ask for in the end, to be remembered?

I hope that you have enjoyed this episode of Through the Veil.

If you found your time well spent, I hope you will subscribe to get new episodes weekly wherever you listen as we continue our journey through folk lore, legend, myth, and magic.

If you are enjoying the show, and you have topics you would like to hear covered: Do not hesitate to email me at throughtheveilpodcast@gmail.com or find me on  Twitter @ThroughVeil

Thank you, for listening.