Thursday 8 June 2017

To the Editor of the Weekly Irish Times, 5th August 1893

Sir. - I had ceased sending you my notes on the banshee superstition, but inasmuch as I observe the interesting subject revived in your columns, just a few more notes on the matter. A recent correspondent, in discussing the origin of the mourning visitant, says there's a theory extant that the banshee is some young female member of a family that had been spirited away by the fairies. I am not familiar with that belief, but I have heard it, time-out-of -mind, laid down that she is (or was) a maiden member of the remote ancestors of the family she follows, who met her death, I think, by some violent means, or at least, dies in maidenhood. I was reminded of this belief by perusing your interesting articles about the banshee of the Fitzpatricks, some issues past of the Weekly Irish Times.

There is one remarkable fact, and it is, that in the four provinces of Ireland the belief in the Banshee is universal, and the accounts of her corporeal "counterfeit presentment" the same - a young female with streaming hair, antique raiment sometimes, and at others, more recent which may go to form a surmise that she is not, in every case, the product of remote times in the history of the family she belongs to. But the probability is, that insasmuch as before the Anglo-Norman invasion, and subsequently, the Milesian septs and tribes were immersed continually in internecine strife and tribal wars. A large quota of the old native population were continually meeting violent deaths - the maiden nor the matron being excepted. We must conclude that most of the banshees of Irish families have had their origin in ancient Ireland. And, remember, it is the [?] families of the Milesian stock that have their banshee. Numerous, no doubt, [?] but not all, which might go to support the theory of the "maiden dying in some peculiar condition" becoming a banshee. I had often a surmise that she might have some connection with the Tuatha de Danaans, who are supposed, according to our Irish fairy lore, to be the fairies themselves, and inhabiting the ubiquitous raths and duns of Ireland. Those mysterious people were conquered by the Milesians, but after their subjugation they became amalgamated with their conquerors.

Be this as it may, I believe in the bona fides of the existence of the banshee, because I stood within two feet of the ground of her blood-curdling voice, and heard her ominous, incoherent mutterings -
"Strange sounds of death and prophesying with accents terrible" -
and duly received the notifications of the death of the relative of whose demise she was the dread harbinger.

I have a relative who asserts that our banshee actually entered his apartment at the "witching time of night" when he was a thoughtless boy. A relative was passing away and our ghostly attendant was heard lamenting and was seen seated on a high wall nights previously. He awoke suddenly and saw a strange young girl enter the apartment weeping. Her dress was strange and her hair flowing and unkempt. She fixed her strange gaze mournfully on the boy and walked about as if in great distress for a few minutes and then left the room. He was paralysed with an unaccountable terror, and slept [?] after on that night, [??].

This [???] may have surrounded the banshee's traditional appearances with exaggeration and fanciful things. That she is invariably in possession of a haircomb with which she is combing her flowing tresses may have arisen from the loose condition of her hair; and that an adventurous person lay in wait for her and snapped the comb from her I believe to be the creation of people who, like "wonder-working Lewis,"
Wouldst fain make Parnassus a churchyard,
with the banshees as haunting nymphs.

There is one thing must be noted - that she is indigenous to Irish soil, and would appear to be continued within the radius of the shores of the island. She has not yet been recorded to have followed her relatives beyond the seas. Can it be that, like Tam O'Shanter's "ghostly pursuers" a running stream she dare na cross? Tom Moor believed in her like a true M[?] of the Clan Roderjok, were he opens one of his beautiful melodies thus:-
How oft has the banshee cried?
How oft has death untied
Bright links that glory wove?
Sweet bonds entwin'd by love?
Yours &c., Laputan.

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