BAN-shee
A spirit woman whose keening cry is said to foretell a death in certain old Irish families.
The banshee ("woman of the sídhe") is said to attach herself to particular Gaelic family lines — the O'Neills, O'Briens, O'Connors, and O'Gradys among the families traditionally named — appearing or being heard keening (a mourning wail) before a death in the family. Unlike the Mythological or Ulster Cycle material, banshee lore comes down mainly through oral tradition and later folklore collections rather than a single medieval manuscript, so there is no one canonical source text for her — only a wide, fairly consistent body of regional testimony.
Her appearance is less fixed than her cry: some accounts describe a young woman in white or grey, others an old woman wrapped in a grey cloak, and in some regions she takes the form of a "washer at the ford," glimpsed washing bloodstained clothing by a river or stream — itself an ill omen. What ties the different versions together is not a single look but the keening cry itself, the same word (caoineadh) used for the ritual mourning wail performed by human mourners at an Irish wake.
The figure of the washer at the ford, an old woman seen washing the bloody clothes of those about to die, is related but not identical. In Irish it is linked with the Badb and the Morrígan, and in Scottish Gaelic tradition it is the bean nighe. Folklorists such as Patricia Lysaght, in The Banshee, have shown how regional the beliefs were: the banshee was a family spirit in Munster and Leinster, and often only a cry in the night elsewhere. The older medieval source for a fairy woman who mourns a family is the figure of Aoibheall of Craig Liath, said to appear to the Dál gCais before the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.
| Cycle | Entries here | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| The Mythological Cycle | 21 | The oldest of the four cycles, telling of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the successive invasions of Ireland. |
| The Fenian Cycle | 7 | Tales of Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band of warriors, the Fianna, set generations after the Ulster Cycle in a world of hunting, romance, and roaming adventure. |
| The Ulster Cycle | 12 | The heroic tales of Conchobar mac Nessa's court at Emain Macha, centered on Cú Chulainn and the great cattle raid of the Táin Bó Cúailnge. |
| The Historical Cycle | 1 | Also the Cycle of the Kings — legendary and semi-legendary tales of Ireland's High Kings, treated by medieval scribes as genuine national history. |
The banshee is a folklore figure, not a documented historical being — but belief in her was widespread and sincerely held in parts of Ireland well into the 20th century, passed down through oral tradition rather than any single written source.
Accounts vary by region: sometimes a young woman in white or grey, sometimes an old woman in a grey cloak, and sometimes a "washer at the ford" seen washing bloodstained clothing — the one constant is her keening cry rather than a fixed appearance.
The cry is called keening (from the Irish caoineadh, "to cry" or "to lament"), the same word used for the traditional Irish mourning wail performed by human mourners at a wake or funeral.