All 'bout Banshees

“You sure you don’t want to do something about pookas?” my leprechaun friend, Declan, asked me. We were having one of our regular Zoom chats. I swear I still can’t get over how great his WiFi connection is, seeing as how he lives somewhere beneath the Coolidge Mountains in County Meath, Ireland. “After all, you’ve got one in The Fifth Cycle, and you’re getting ready for a big PR blitz on that book, with Saint Paddy’s Day coming up and everything.”

 

 I told him I’d thought about it, but I really did go into quite a bit about pookas in the books. It felt redundant. I told Declan I’d been thinking a lot about banshees lately.

 

“Ah, been ‘haunted’ by banshees, have you?” Declan laughed at his own bad joke, before going into more detail about the legendary wailing spirit, who was also known as the White Lady and the Little Washerwoman.

 Stories about banshees dated back to the 8th century AD. They were associated with battles and battlefields back then. While they moaned and wailed, they would wash the bloody clothes of someone who was destined to die in the upcoming battle. In some stories, she washed the heads and limbs of the soon-to-be dead as well. 

 “The banshees were connected to The Morrigan, you know her,” said Declan. Yes, she died feature prominently in The Fifth Cycle. “As the goddess of battles, she had knowledge of who was going to survive and who wasn’t. Often times, seeing the banshee and knowing they were destined to die was a great test for warriors. Knowing they were going to die, would they try to defy fate as flee, or would they head fast into battle and look for an honorable death.” Declan gave me a sly grin. “Of course no one escapes fate. Those who did flee still ended up dying and usually in some demeaning way.”

 I shared with Declan how I’d read that the banshees later became tied to the finest families in Ireland. 

 “Tis true,” he confirmed. “Pretty much, any family whose name started with an O, Mc, or Mac had their own banshee, which was usually the ghost of an honored ancestor and always a woman. Believe it or not, it was quite a blessing. The banshee appearing, knowing who was set to die, it allowed the family time to prepare, get their affairs in order and all. It also allowed the soon-to-be departed to settle any debts they might have as well.”

 That was a far cry from the banshees of pop culture with their hideous features and piercing wails. 

 “That’s not that all off base, I must say,” Declan added. “Banshees took care of their families. They were guardian spirits, and when the situation called for it became spirits of vengeance. If someone in the family was wronged, they’d haunt the guilty party, appearing like a monster and wailing and shrieking, tormenting them until they took their own lives.”

 Wow, was all I could say to that. I asked Declan if he could share anything else about banshees with me.

 “I told you how banshees belonged to certain Irish families,” he started. “That family’s banshee would continue to serve that family for as long as a trace of their ancestral home remained. Once that was gone, so was the banshee.”

 Interesting. I thanked Declan for the information, and we continued our chat, sipping tea and chatting about day-to-day things. All the while though, my imagination started forming a character. A banshee. I knew that once this character was complete, a story would soon follow.