SOME HISTORICAL BANSHEES
Amongst the most popular cases of Banshee haunting both published and
unpublished is that related by Ann, Lady Fanshawe, in her Memoirs. It
seems that Lady Fanshawe experienced this haunting when on a visit to Lady
Honora O'Brien, daughter of Henry, fifth Earl of Thomond,[4] who was then,
in all probability, residing at the ancient castle of Lemaneagh, near Lake
Inchiquin, about thirty miles north-west of Limerick. Retiring to rest
somewhat early the first night of her sojourn there, she was awakened at
about one o'clock by the sound of a voice, and, drawing aside the hangings
of the bed, she perceived, looking in through the window at her, the face
of a woman. The moonlight being very strong and fully focussed on it, she
could see every feature with startling distinctness; but at the same time
her attention was apparently riveted on the extraordinary pallor of the
cheeks and the intense redness of the hair. Then, to quote her own words,
the apparition "spake loud, and in a tone I never heard, thrice 'Ahone,'
and then with a sigh, more like wind than breath, she vanished, and to me
her body looked more like a thick cloud than substance.
"I was so much affrighted that my hair stood on end, and my night clothes
fell off. I pulled and pinched your father, who never awaked during this
disorder I was in, but at last was much surprised to find me in this
fright, and more when I related the story and showed him the window
opened; but he entertained me with telling how much more these apparitions
were usual in that country than in England."
The following morning Lady Honora, who did not appear to have been to bed,
informed Lady Fanshawe that a cousin of hers had died in the house at
about two o'clock in the morning; and expressed a hope that Lady Fanshawe
had not been subjected to any disturbances.
"When any die of this family," she said by way of explanation, "there is
the shape of a woman appears in this window every night until they be
dead."
She went on to add that the apparition was believed to be that of a woman
who, centuries before, had been seduced by the owner of the castle and
murdered, her body being buried under the window of the room in which Lady
Fanshawe had slept.
"But truly," she remarked, by way of apology, "I thought not of it when I
lodged you here."
Another well-known case of the Banshee is that relating to the O'Flahertys
of Galway, reference being made to the case by Mr McAnnaly in his work
entitled "Irish Wonders." In the days of much inter-clan fighting in
Ireland, when the O'Neills frequently embarked on crusades against their
alternate friends and enemies the O'Donnells, and the O'Rourks[5] embarked
on similar crusades against the O'Donovans, it so happened that one night
the chief of the O'Flahertys, arrayed in all the brilliance of a new suit
of armour, and feeling more than usually cheerful and fit, marched out of
his castle at the head of a numerous body of his retainers, who were all,
like their chief, in good spirits, and talking and singing gaily. They had
not proceeded far, however, when a sudden and quite inexplicable silence
ensued--a silence that was abruptly broken by a series of agonising
screams, that seemed to come from just over their heads. Instantly
everyone was sobered, and naturally looked up, expecting to see something
that would explain the extraordinary and terrifying disturbance; nothing,
however, was to be seen, nothing but a vast expanse of cloudless sky,
innumerable scintillating stars, and the moon which was shining forth in
all the serene majesty of its zenith. Yet, despite the fact that nothing
was visible, everyone felt a presence that was at once sorrowful and
weird, and which one and all instinctively knew was the Banshee, the
attendant spirit of the O'Flahertys, come to warn them of some approaching
catastrophe.
The next night, when the chieftain and his followers were again sallying
forth, the same thing happened, but, after that, nothing of a similar
nature occurred for about a month. Then the wife of the O'Flaherty, during
the absence of her husband on one of these foraging expeditions, had an
experience. She had gone to bed one night and was restlessly tossing
about, for, try how she would, she could not sleep, when she was suddenly
terrified by a succession of the most awful shrieks, coming, apparently,
from just beneath her window, and which sounded like the cries of some
woman in the direst trouble or pain. She looked, but as she instinctively
felt would be the case, she could see no one. She then knew that she had
heard the Banshee; and on the morrow her forebodings were only too fully
realised. With a fearful knowledge of its meaning, she saw a cavalcade,
bearing in its midst a bier, slowly and sorrowfully wending its way
towards the castle; and, needless to say, she did not require to be told
that the foraging party had returned, and that the surviving warriors had
brought back with them the lifeless and mutilated body of her husband.
The Kenealy Banshee furnishes yet another instance of this extremely
fascinating and, up to the present, wholly enigmatical type of haunting.
Dr Kenealy, the well-known Irish poet and author, resided in his earlier
years in a wildly romantic and picturesque part of Ireland. Among his
brothers was one, a mere child, whose sweet and gentle nature rendered him
beloved by all, and it was a matter of the most excessive grief to the
entire household, and, indeed, the whole neighbourhood, when this boy fell
into a decline and his life was despaired of by the physicians. As time
went on he grew weaker and weaker, until the moment at length arrived,
when it was obvious that he could not possibly survive another twenty-four
hours. At about noon, the room in which the patient lay was flooded with a
stream of sunlight, which came pouring through the windows from the
cloudless expanse of sky overhead. The weather, indeed, was so gorgeous
that it seemed almost incredible that death could be hovering quite so
near the house. One by one, members of the family stole into the chamber
to take what each one felt might be a last look at the sick boy, whilst he
was still alive. Presently the doctor arrived, and, as they were all
discussing in hushed tones the condition of the poor wasted and doomed
child, they one and all heard someone singing, apparently in the grounds,
immediately beneath the window. The voice seemed to be that of a woman,
but not a woman of this world. It was divinely soft and sweet, and charged
with a pity and sorrow that no earthly being could ever have portrayed;
and now loud, and now hushed, it continued for some minutes, and then
seemed to die away gradually, like the ripple of a wavelet on some golden,
sun-kissed strand, or the whispering of the wind, as it gently rustles its
way through field after field of yellow, nodding corn.
"What a glorious voice!" one of the listeners exclaimed. "I've never heard
anything to equal it."
"Very likely not," someone else whispered, "it's the Banshee!"
And so enthralled were they all by the singing, that it was only when the
final note of the plaintive ditty had quite ceased, that they became aware
that their beloved patient, unnoticed by them, had passed out. Indeed, it
seemed as if the boy's soul, with the last whispering notes of the dirge,
had joined the beautiful, pitying Banshee, to be escorted by it into the
realms of the all-fearful, all-impatient Unknown. Dr Kenealy has
commemorated this event in one of his poems.
The story of another haunting by the friendly Banshee is told in Kerry, in
connection with a certain family that used to live there. According to my
source of information the family consisted of a man (a gentleman farmer),
his wife, their son, Terence, and a daughter, Norah.
Norah, an Irish beauty of the dark type, had black hair and blue eyes; and
possessing numerous admirers, favoured none of them so much as a certain
Michael O'Lernahan. Now Michael did not stand very well in the graces of
either of Norah's parents, but Terence liked him, and he was reputed to be
rich--that is to say rich for that part of Ireland. Accordingly, he was
invited pretty freely to the farm, and no obstacles were placed in his
way. On the contrary, he was given more than a fair amount of
encouragement.
At last, as had been long anticipated, he proposed and Norah accepted him;
but no sooner was her troth plighted than they both heard, just over
their heads, a low, despairing wail, as of a woman in the very greatest
distress and anguish.
Though they were much alarmed at the time, being positive that the sounds
proceeded from no human being, neither of them seems to have regarded the
phenomenon in the shape of a warning, and both continued their love-making
as if the incident had never occurred. A few weeks later, however, Norah
noticed a sudden change in her lover; he was colder and more distant, and,
whilst he was with her, she invariably found him preoccupied. At last the
blow fell. He failed to present himself at the house one evening, though
he was expected as usual, and, as no explanation was forthcoming the
following morning, nor on any of the succeeding days, inquiries were made
by the parents, which elicited the fact that he had become engaged to
another girl, and that the girl's home was but a few minutes' walk from
the farm.
This proved too much for Norah; although, apparently, neither unusually
sensitive nor particularly highly strung, she fell ill, and shortly
afterwards died of a broken heart. It was not until the night before she
died, however, that the Banshee paid her a second visit. She was lying on
a couch in the parlour of the farmhouse, with her mother sitting beside
her, when a noise was heard that sounded like leaves beating gently
against the window-frames, and, almost directly afterwards, came the sound
of singing, loud, and full of intense sorrow and compassion; and,
obviously, that of a woman.
"'Tis the Banshee," the mother whispered, immediately crossing herself,
and, at the same time, bursting into tears.
"The Banshee," Norah repeated. "Sure I hear nothing but that tapping at
the window and the wind which seems all of a sudden to have risen."
But the mother made no response. She only sat with her face buried in her
hands, sobbing bitterly and muttering to herself, "Banshee! Banshee!"
Presently, the singing having ceased, the old woman got up and dried her
tears. Her anxiety, however, was not allayed; all through the night she
could still be heard, every now and again, crying quietly and whispering
to herself "'Twas the Banshee! Banshee!"; and in the morning Norah,
suddenly growing alarmingly ill, passed away before medical assistance
could be summoned.
A case of Banshee haunting that is somewhat unusually pathetic was once
related to me in connection with a Dublin branch of the once powerful
clan of McGrath.
It took place in the fifties, and the family, consisting of a young widow
and two children, Isa and David, at that time occupied an old, rambling
house, not five minutes' walk from Stephen's Green. Isa seems to have been
the mother's favourite--she was undoubtedly a very pretty and attractive
child--and David, possibly on account of his pronounced likeness to his
father, with whom it was an open secret that Mrs McGrath had never got on
at all well, to have received rather more than his fair share of scolding.
This, of course, may or may not have been true. It is certain that he was
left very much to himself, and, all alone, in a big, empty room at the top
of the house, was forced to amuse himself as he best could. Occasionally
one of the servants, inspired by a fellow-feeling--for the lot of servants
in those days, especially when serving under such severe and exacting
mistresses as Mrs McGrath, was none too rosy--used to look in to see how
he was getting on and bring him a toy, bought out of her own meagre
savings; and, once now and again, Isa, clad in some costly new frock, just
popped her head in at the door, either to bring him some message from her
mother, or merely to call out "Hullo!" Otherwise he saw no one; at least
no one belonging to this earth; he only saw, he affirmed, at times,
strange-looking people who simply stood and stared at him without
speaking, people who the servants--girls from Limerick and the west
country--assured him were either fairies or ghosts.
One day Isa, who had been sent upstairs to tell David to go to his bedroom
to tidy himself, as he was wanted immediately in the drawing-room, found
him in a great state of excitement.
"I've seen such a beautiful lady,"[6] he exclaimed, "and she wasn't a bit
cross. She came and stood by the window and looked as if she wanted to
play with me, only I daren't ask her. Do you think she will come again?"
"How can I tell? I expect you've been dreaming as usual," Isa laughed.
"What was she like?"
"Oh, tall, much taller than mother," David replied, "with very, very blue
eyes and kind of reddish-gold hair that wasn't all screwed up on her head,
but was hanging in curls on her shoulders. She had very white hands which
were clasped in front of her, and a bright green dress. I didn't see her
come or go, but she was here for a long time, quite ten minutes."
"It's another of your fancies, David," Isa laughed again. "But come along,
make haste, or mother will be angry."
A few minutes later, David, looking very shy and awkward, was in the
drawing-room being introduced to a gentleman who, he was informed, was his
future papa.
David seems to have taken a strong dislike to him from the very first, and
to have foreseen in the coming alliance nothing but trouble and misery for
himself. Nor were his apprehensions without foundation, for, directly
after the marriage took place, he became subjected to the very strictest
discipline. Morning and afternoon alike he was kept hard at his books, and
any slowness or inability to master a lesson was treated as idleness and
punished accordingly. The moments he had to himself in his beloved nursery
now became few and far between, for, directly he had finished his evening
preparation, he was given his supper and packed off to bed.
The one or two servants who had befriended him, unable to tolerate the new
regime, gave notice and left, and there was soon no one in the house who
showed any compassion whatever for the poor lonely boy.
Things went on in this fashion for some weeks, and then a day came, when
he really felt it impossible to go on living any longer.
He had been generally run down for some weeks, and this, coupled with the
fact that he was utterly broken in spirit, rendered his task of learning a
wellnigh impossibility. It was in vain he pleaded, however; his entreaties
were only taken for excuses; and, when, in an unguarded moment, he let
slip some sort of reference to unkind treatment, he was at once accused of
rudeness by his mother and, at her request, summarily castigated.
The limit of his tribulation had been reached. That night he was sent to
bed, as usual, immediately after supper, and Isa, who happened to pass by
his room an hour or so afterwards, was greatly astonished at hearing him
seemingly engaged in conversation. Peeping slyly in at the door, in order
to find out with whom he was talking, she saw him sitting up in bed,
apparently addressing space, or the moonbeams, which, pouring in at the
window, fell directly on him.
"What are you doing?" she asked, "and why aren't you asleep?"
The moment she spoke he looked round and, in tones of the greatest
disappointment, said:
"Oh, dear, she's gone. You've frightened her away."
"Frightened her away! Why, what rubbish!" Isa exclaimed. "Lie down at
once or I'll go and fetch mamma."
"It was my green lady," David went on, breathlessly, far too excited to
pay any serious heed to Isa's threat. "My green lady, and she told me I
should be no more lonely, that she was coming to fetch me some time
to-night."
Isa laughed, and, telling him not to be so silly, but to go to sleep at
once, she speedily withdrew and went downstairs to join her parents in the
drawing-room.
That night, at about twelve, Isa was awakened by singing, loud and
plaintive singing, in a woman's voice, apparently proceeding from the
hall. Greatly alarmed she got up, and, on opening her door, perceived her
parents and the servants, all in their night attire, huddled together on
the landing, listening.
"Sure 'tis the Banshee," the cook at length whispered. "I heard my father
spake about it when I was a child. She sings, says he, more beautifully
than any grand lady, but sorrowful like, and only before a death."
"Before a death," Isa's mother stammered. "But who's going to die here?
Why, we are all of us perfectly sound and well." As she spoke the singing
ceased, there was an abrupt silence, and all slowly retired to their
rooms.
Nothing further was heard during the night, but in the morning, when
breakfast time came, there was no David; and a hue and cry being raised
and a thorough search made, he was eventually discovered, drowned in a
cistern in the roof.