What exactly are Banshees?

of all the mythilogical spirits out there this is the one im afraid of the most

The Wailing Spirit

"There is a story told in the Emerald Isle about a faithful farmer, whilst on a journey of mercy in the night hours, who heard a faint wailing cry. The cry, faint at first, flared louder with ever step he took.

"At first it sounded to him like a poor wee lass a-weeping and whimpering for smitten love; then he thought the sound might be the whine of a lost

whelp. It was neither a pitiable maiden weeping nor a tiny animal pup whining, but the spirit of a wailing woman in plaintive lamentation."

*

Of all the stories, legends and myth about ghosts and faries, the Banshee is best known to the general public. Banshee or Bean-sidhe' is Irish for fairy woman or; her sharp cries and piercing wails are also called keening' (Caoineadh' lament, Irish).

Take no fear as there is no harm or evil in her mere presence during the dark of night, unless she is seen in the act of wailing, but this is a fatal sign. The wail of banshee pierces gloom of the nightly hours, her notes rising and falling like the waves of the sea' it also announces a mortal's demise.

Whatever her origins, the banshee chiefly appears in one of three guises: Sometimes she is young and beautiful or sometime in the appearance of a wicked looking old hag. One writer described her as a tall, thin woman with long tangled hair that floated round her shoulders and uttering piercing cries of lament'. The banshee may also appear in a variety of forms, such as a hooded crow or other animals associated with witchcraft in Irish lore.

Throughout the Emerald Isle she could be heard in different sounds when she is mourning the coming death when it was just so dark, that forms of things were indistinct but not wholly lost. In some parts of Leinster, the banshee is referred to as the bean chaointe' (keening woman) whose whose wailing cry can be so piercing that it shatters glass. Through the county of Kerry, the keen is heard as low, pleasant singing'. But through Tyrone, her cries can be heard as two boards being struck together; and on Rathin Isle as a thin, screeching sound between the wail of a woman and the screech of an owl'.

She usually wears a grey, hooded cloak or the winding sheet or grave robe of the unshriven dead. She may also appear in the guise of a washer-woman, and seen apparently washing the blood-stained clothes of those who are about to die. In this form she is known as the bean-nighe' (washing woman

A Banshee is a woman spirit in Irish mythology, generally seen as an omen of dying and a messenger from the Otherworld. Her Scottish counterpart is the Bean Nighe ("washer-lady"). The sídhe are variously believed to be the survivals of pre-Christian Gaelic deities, spirits of nature, or the ancestors. some Theosophists and Celtic Christians have additionally noted the sídhe as "fallen angels". they're oftentimes noted in English as "fairies", and the banshee is additionally defined as a "fairy lady". traditionally, whilst a citizen of an Irish village died, a woman could sing a lament at their funeral. those women persons singers are from time to time noted as "keeners". Legend has it that, for 5 large Gaelic households: the O'Gradys, the O'Neills, the O'Briens, the O'Connors, and the Kavanaghs, the lament could be sung with the aid of a fairy lady; having foresight, she could look in the previous the dying and prepared. whilst a number of banshees looked at as quickly as, it indicated the dying of somebody large or holy. The thoughts from time to time suggested that the female, nevertheless called a fairy, became a ghost, generally of a particular murdered lady, or a woman who died in childbirth. Banshees are often defined as wearing white or gray, and generally having long, honest hair which they brush with a silver comb, a factor pupil Patricia Lysaght attributes to confusion with interior of reach mermaid myths. This comb factor is likewise bearing directly to the centuries-previous classic romantic Irish tale that, in case you ever see a comb mendacity on the floor in eire, you ought to by no potential %. it up, or the banshees (or mermaids - thoughts selection), having placed it there to seize unsuspecting human beings, will spirit such gullible human beings away. different thoughts portray banshees as wearing green, purple or black with a grey cloak. Banshees are user-friendly in Irish and Scottish persons thoughts alongside with those recorded with the aid of Herminie T. Kavanagh. They take excitement in a similar mythical status in eire as fairies and leprechauns. The banshee wails around a house if somebody is approximately to die.

Mythical creatures mentioned in many old folk tales across cultures as a waif like shadowy creature often depicted as female that has a scream is so loud and terrifying that it can cause your blood to freeze.

banshee is gaelic, it means "old woman" - the banshee was suposed to sit on the roof of a house in which someone was going to die

Creatures from Greek mythology that scream when someone is about to die.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/bean_sidhe.html

screaming ghost