THE BANSHEE ABROAD
As I have remarked in a previous chapter, the Banshee to-day is heard more
often abroad than in Ireland. It follows the fortunes of the true old
Milesian Irishman--the real O and Mc, none of your adulterated O'Walters
or O'Cassons--everywhere, even to the Poles.
Lady Wilde, in her "Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of
Ireland," quotes the case of a Banshee haunting that was experienced by a
branch of the Clan O'Grady that had settled in Canada.
The spot chosen by this family for their residence was singularly wild and
isolated, and one night at two o'clock, when they were all in bed, they
were aroused by a loud cry, coming, apparently, from just outside the
house. Nothing intelligible was uttered, only a sound indicative of the
greatest bitterness and sorrow, such as one might imagine a woman would
give vent to, but only when in an agony of mind, almost beyond human
understanding.
The effect produced by it was one of sublime terror, and all seemed to
feel instinctively that the source from which it emanated was apart from
this world and belonged wholly and solely to the Unknown. Nevertheless,
from what Lady Wilde says, we are led to infer that an exhaustive search
of the premises was made, resulting, as was expected, in complete failure
to find any physical agency that could in any way account for the cry.
The following day the head of the household and his eldest son went
boating on a lake near the house, and, although it was their intention to
do so, did not return to dinner. Various members of the family were sent
to look for them, but no trace of them was to be seen anywhere, and no
solution to the mystery as to what had happened to them was forthcoming,
till two o'clock that night, when, exactly twenty-four hours after the cry
had been heard, some of the searchers returned, bearing with them the wet,
bedraggled, and lifeless bodies of both father and son. Then, once again,
the weird and ominous sound that had so startled them on the previous
night was heard, and the sorrow-stricken family--that is to say, those who
were left of it--agreeing now that the Banshee had indeed visited them,
remembered that their beloved father, whom they had just lost, had often
spoken of the Banshee, as having haunted their branch of the clan for
countless generations.
Another case of Banshee haunting, that I have in mind, relates to a branch
of the southern O'Neills that settled in Italy a good many years ago. It
was told me in Paris by a Mrs Dempsey, who assured me she had been an
eye-witness of the phenomena, and I now record it in print for the first
time.
Mrs Dempsey, when staying once at an hotel in the north of Italy, noticed
among the guests an elderly man, whose very marked features and intensely
sad expression quickly attracted her attention. She observed that he kept
entirely aloof from his fellow-guests, and that, every evening after
dinner, he retired from the drawing-room, as soon as coffee had been
handed round, and went outside and stood on the veranda overlooking the
shore of the Adriatic.
She made inquiries as to his name and history, and was told that he was
Count Fernando Asioli, a wealthy Florentine citizen, who, having but
recently lost his wife, to whom he was devoted, naturally did not wish to
join in the general conversation. Upon hearing this Mrs Dempsey was more
than ever interested. It was not so very long since she, too, had lost her
partner--a husband to whom she was much attached--and, consequently, it
was in sympathetic mood that, seeing the Count go out, as usual, one
evening, on to the veranda, she resolved to follow him, to try, if
possible, to get into conversation with him.
With this end in view she was about to cross the threshold of the veranda,
when, to her astonishment, she perceived the Count was not there alone.
Standing by his side, with one hand laid caressingly on his shoulder, was
a tall, slim girl, with masses of the most gorgeous red gold hair hanging
loose and reaching to her waist. She was wearing an emerald green dress of
some very filmy substance; but her arms and feet were bare, and stood out
so clearly in the soft radiance of the moonbeams, that Mrs Dempsey, who
was an artist and had studied on the Continent, noticed with a thrill that
they equalled, if, indeed, they did not surpass in beauty, any she had
ever come across either in Greek or Florentine sculpture.
Much perplexed as to who such a queerly attired visitor on such friendly
terms with the Count could be, Mrs Dempsey remained for a second or two
watching, and then, afraid lest she should attract their attention and so
be caught, seemingly, in the act of spying, she withdrew.
The moment she got back again into the drawing-room, however, she made
somewhat indignant inquiries of a lady who generally sat next to her at
meals, as to the identity of the girl she had just seen standing beside
the, said to be, heart-broken Count in an attitude of such close intimacy.
"A woman with the Count!" was the reply. "Surely not! Who can she be, and
what was she like?"
Mrs Dempsey described the stranger in detail, but her friend, shaking her
head, could only suggest that she was some new-comer, some guest who had
arrived at the hotel, and gone on the veranda whilst they were at dinner.
Feeling a little curious, however, Mrs Dempsey's friend walked towards the
veranda, and, in a very short time, returned, looking somewhat puzzled.
"You must have been mistaken," she whispered, "there is no one with Count
Asioli now, and, if anyone had come away, we should have seen them."
"I am quite sure I did see a woman there," Mrs Dempsey replied, "and only
a minute or two ago; she must have got out somehow, although there is,
apparently, no other way than through this room."
At this moment, the Count, entering the room, took a seat beside them; and
the subject, of course, had to be dropped. The next night, however, the
events of the preceding night were repeated. Mrs Dempsey followed the
Count on to the veranda, saw the girl in green standing with her hand on
his shoulder, came back and told her neighbour at meals, and the latter,
on hastening to the veranda to look, once more returned declaring that the
Count was alone. After this, a slight altercation took place between the
two ladies, the one declaring her belief that it was all an optical
illusion on the part of the other, and the other emphatically sticking to
her story that she had actually seen the girl she had described.
They parted that night, both a little ruffled, though neither would admit
it, and the following night, Mrs Dempsey, as soon as she saw the Count go
on to the veranda, fetched her friend.
"Now," she said, "come with me and see for yourself."
The two ladies, accordingly, went to the veranda and, opening the door
gently, peeped in.
"There she is," Mrs Dempsey whispered, "standing in just the same
position."
The sound of her voice, though so low as to be scarcely heard even by the
lady standing beside her, seemingly attracted the attention of both the
girl and the Count, for they turned round simultaneously. Then Mrs
Dempsey, whose gaze was solely concentrated on the girl, saw a face of
almost indescribable beauty--possessing neatly chiselled, but by no means
coldly classical features, long eyes of a marvellous blue, a smooth broad
brow, and delicately and subtly moulded mouth; it was the face of a young
girl, barely out of her teens, and it was filled with an expression of
infinite sorrow and affection.
Mrs Dempsey was so enraptured that, to quote her own words, she "stood
gazing at it in speechless awe and amazement," and might, perhaps, have
been gazing at it still, had not the voice of the Count called her back to
earth.
"I hope, ladies," he was saying, "that you do not see anything unusually
disturbing in my appearance to-night, for I undoubtedly seem to be the
object of your solicitude. May I ask why?"
Though he spoke quite politely, even the dullest could have seen that he
was more than a little annoyed. Mrs Dempsey therefore hastened to reply.
"It is not you," she stammered out, "it is the lady--the lady you have
with you. I--I fancied I knew her."
"The lady I have with me," the Count exclaimed, in accents of cold
surprise. "Kindly explain what you mean?"
"Why the lady----" Mrs Dempsey began, and then she glanced round.
The Count was standing in front of her--but he was quite alone. There was
no vestige of a girl in green, nor of any other person on the veranda
saving themselves, and immediately beneath it, at a distance of at least
thirty feet, glimmered the white shingles of the silent and
deserted--utterly deserted--seashore.
"She's gone," Mrs Dempsey cried, "but I'm positive I saw her--a lady in
green standing beside you." Then, for the first time, she felt afraid, and
trembled.
The Count, who had been observing her very closely, now advanced a step or
two towards her, and in a very different tone said:
"Will you please describe the lady? Was she old or young, dark or fair?"
"Young and fair, very fair," Mrs Dempsey exclaimed. "But please come
inside, for I've received something of a shock, and can, perhaps, talk to
you better in the gaslight, with people near at hand whom I know are human
beings."
He did as she requested, and became more and more interested as she
proceeded with her description, interrupting her every now and again with
questions. Was she sure the girl had blue eyes, he asked, and how could
she tell what colour the eyes were by the light of the moon only; Mrs
Dempsey's reply to which being that the girl's whole body seemed to be
illuminated from within, in such a manner that every detail could be seen,
almost, if not quite, as clearly as if she had been standing in the full
glare of an electric light. At the conclusion of her narrative Mrs Dempsey
was further questioned by the Count.
"Had she," he inquired, "ever been told that he was partly Irish,
because," he added, on receiving a negative reply, "I am, and my real name
is O'Neill, my great-great-grandfather having assumed the name of Asioli
in order to come into some property when the family, which came from the
south of Ireland, settled in Italy, many, many years ago. But what will, I
am sure, be of considerable interest to you is the fact that this branch
of the O'Neills, the branch to which I belong, is haunted by a Banshee,
and that that Banshee has, I believe--since the description of it given me
by various members of my family tallies with the description you have
given me of the girl you saw standing by me--appeared to you. I would add
that it never reveals itself, excepting when an O'Neill is about to die,
and as I am quite the last of my line, I cannot conceive any reason for
its having thus appeared three nights in succession, unless, of course, it
is to predict my own end."
Mrs Dempsey was not long left in doubt. On the morrow the Count was
summoned to Venice on urgent business, and on his way to the railway
depot he suddenly dropped down dead, the excitement and exertion having,
so it was supposed, proved too much for his heart, which was known to be
weak.
Said to be descended from the younger of the two sons of King Milesius, it
certainly is not surprising that the O'Neills[7] should possess a
Banshee--indeed, it would be surprising if they did not--but I have found
it somewhat difficult to trace. However, according to Lady Wilde in her
"Irish Wonders," p. 112, there is a room at Shane Castle which is strictly
set aside for it.
The Banshee, Lady Wilde says, is very often seen in this apartment,
sometimes appearing shrouded in a dark, mist-like mantle; and at other
times as a very lovely young girl with long, red-gold hair, clad in a
scarlet cloak and green kirtle, adorned with gold. Lady Wilde goes on to
tell us no harm ever comes of the Banshee's visit, unless she is seen in
the act of crying, when her wails may be taken as a certain sign that some
member of the family will shortly die. Mr McAnnaly corroborates this by
stating that on one occasion one of the O'Neills of Shane Castle heard the
Banshee crying, just as he was about to set out on a journey, and perished
soon afterwards, which is somewhat unusual, because in the majority of
cases I have come across the Banshee does not manifest itself at all to
the person whose death it predicts. A very old, probably the oldest,
branch of the O'Neills now resides in Portugal, but up to the present I
have not succeeded in obtaining any evidence to warrant the assumption
that the Banshee haunting has been experienced in that country.
Indeed, the Banshee seems to be just as erratic and wayward as any
daughter of Eve, for there is no consistency whatever in her movements.
The very families one thinks she would haunt, she often studiously avoids,
and not infrequently she concentrates her attention on those who are
utterly obscure, albeit, always of _bona fide_ Irish extraction.