Of all
Irish ghost, fairies, the Banshees
is the best known to the general public; indeed cross-channel visitors-
including myself- would expect her to make manifest her presence so them as
being one of the sights 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, Aibhill, who haunted the rock
of Craglea above Killaloe, near the old palace of Kincora. The Banshee´s
method of foretelling death in olden times differed from that adopted by her at
the present time; now she wails and wrings her hand, as a general rule, but in
the old Irish tales she is to be fond washing human heads and limbs or blood
stained clothes.
One of the
oldest and best-known Banshee stories is that related in the Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe. In 1642, 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 by 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
beautiful woman, but pale, and the hair, which was reddish, was loose and disheveled.
The dress, which Lady Fanshawe`s terror
did not prevent her 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 Fanshawe´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 the
family, he said, 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 the family or castle,
the female ghost 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.
It goes
without saying that this woman can´t be termed as a banshee because the motive
for the haunting is akin to that in the tale of the Scotch Drummer of Cotarchy, where the spirit of the murdered man
haunt the family out of revenge, and appears before a death. Anyway, God bless
Ireland and her folklore.
Sergio
Calle Llorens
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