Laura Wright 
Few supernatural figures possess a voice as recognizable as the banshee.
She comes in the night.
Sometimes she weeps.
Sometimes she sings.
Sometimes her cry becomes a terrible shriek.
And somewhere nearby, according to centuries of folklore, someone is about to die.
Modern popular culture has transformed the banshee into an almost exclusively Irish monster whose scream itself can be deadly. Traditional folklore is considerably more complicated.
The banshee was not always malevolent.
She did not always scream.
She did not necessarily cause death.
And Ireland was hardly the only country where families believed themselves accompanied by supernatural beings that appeared when death or disaster approached.
Some families had women in white.
Others had black dogs.
Some saw phantom heads, mysterious lights, or spectral animals.
Whatever form they assumed, their purpose was often the same.
They came to warn the living.
What Is a Banshee?
The traditional banshee is usually represented as a woman.
She may be tall, with long flowing hair and white clothing. In some stories, she sits alone while combing her hair and weeping.
She has accumulated numerous names and titles:
The Lady of Death.
The White Lady of Sorrow.
The Spirit of the Air.
The White Lady of Ireland.
But reducing her to a terrifying ghost who screams before someone dies misses much of the older tradition.
In some stories, the banshee was practically a member of the family.
The Family Banshee
Sir Walter Scott wrote that banshees belonged to families of ancient Milesian ancestry and were not traditionally associated with Norman or Saxon families.
The spirit could become attached to a bloodline and remain with it for generations.
Sometimes her relationship with the family was benevolent.
She might sing softly rather than scream.
Her presence could reassure the dying person and the relatives gathered around them.
In some traditions, she even appeared before joyous occasions, rather than death.
But not every family received such a gentle visitor.
Some banshees had reasons to hate the people they followed.
When the Banshee Wanted Revenge
One Irish family from County Mayo supposedly possessed a particularly terrifying banshee.
According to the legend, she had once been a living woman who fell in love with one of the family’s ancient lords.
He seduced her.
Then he deceived her.
When she refused simply to disappear from his life, he murdered her.
As she died, the woman cursed him and his descendants.
The lord later reformed his ways.
The dead woman did not forgive him.
When his own death approached, she returned with terrible screams and shrieks.
Afterward, she continued appearing to his descendants.
Death had transformed the murdered woman into the family’s banshee.
The Banshee of the O’Briens
A similar tradition became attached to the O’Brien family of Tuamhain.
According to the story, one of the ancient family chiefs seduced a young woman.
Whatever occurred between them eventually resulted in her death.
She returned.
From that point forward, the dead woman became the family’s supernatural companion, appearing as their banshee.
The pattern is striking.
The banshee isn’t merely a random spirit.
Sometimes she is the consequence of an old family crime.
An ancestor committed the offense.
Generations of descendants inherited the ghost.
Pearlin’ Jean
Scotland had a similar legend involving a spirit known as Pearlin’ Jean.
According to the story, Jean became the lover of an ancestor of the Stuart family and lived with him for a time on one of the family’s estates.
Eventually, Stuart tired of her.
He wanted to return to his family.
So he killed Jean.
When he arrived back at the estate, however, someone was already waiting for him.
Jean sat upon the arch above the entrance gate.
She had returned from the dead.
From that time forward, Pearlin’ Jean supposedly followed the family.
Again, the haunting became hereditary.
The descendants inherited the consequences of an ancestor’s actions.
Families With Their Own Death Omens
Not every family banshee appeared as a woman.
Some families possessed supernatural warnings that barely resembled the familiar Irish figure at all.
The Stanley family was warned of approaching death by inhuman screaming.
The Campbell family supposedly experienced a spiritual presence.
The Forbes family had an apparition who might appropriately be called Greensleeves. She appeared wearing a white dress with green sleeves whenever death approached.
Once the tradition is viewed this broadly, the banshee becomes part of something much larger.
A family doesn’t necessarily need a screaming woman.
It simply needs an omen.
Banshees and Death Omens in England
English families developed their own supernatural warnings.
One noble family supposedly possessed two.
Before someone died, either a spectral hand appeared or a black dog manifested.
The Middleton family of Yorkshire was warned by the apparition of a Benedictine nun.
Another noble family in eastern England encountered a ghostly black dog.
Still another saw a spectral head, particularly when the head of the family was approaching death.
The form changed.
The message did not.
Something terrible was coming.
The Phantom Owls of Wardour Castle
The Arundel family received a particularly dramatic supernatural warning.
Their omen wasn’t necessarily associated with death.
Instead, it warned of approaching enemies.
Two enormous phantom owls appeared upon the battlements of Wardour Castle.
Their arrival meant danger was approaching.
The supernatural guardian therefore served much the same purpose as a benevolent banshee.
It warned the family before disaster struck.
The Fiery Chain of Treville
One of the stranger English traditions belonged to the Vingoe family and their estate at Treville in Cornwall.
Near Treville Cliff stood a cairn.
When a death in the family approached, something extraordinary supposedly appeared above it.
A chain of fire formed in the air.
It rose and descended over the formation while loud, unearthly sounds accompanied the display.
According to the legend, the phenomenon announced the death of every head of the family until the line eventually became extinct.
No ghostly woman was necessary.
The landscape itself became the banshee.
The White Lady of Talks-hill
In Gloucestershire, the White Lady of Talks-hill served a different purpose.
Her screams warned miners when danger approached.
This is another important variation on the familiar banshee tradition.
The scream did not announce an unavoidable death.
It provided a warning that might actually save someone’s life.
The Banshees of Scotland
Scottish folklore contains numerous beings resembling the family banshee.
One tradition claimed the extinction of a clan would be announced by a somber man dressed in dark gray.
Another family encountered a woman dressed in brown before a death.
The Hag of the Mist announced death through her screams.
Then there was the Bodach Glas, a spirit associated with someone murdered by a family ancestor. It appeared on the eve of family calamity.
Once again, an old crime could create a supernatural debt inherited by later generations.
The White Lady of Avenel
Not every Scottish apparition announced death through screaming.
The White Lady of Avenel had a much stranger method.
She appeared wearing a golden girdle.
The family’s future could supposedly be determined by the size of her figure.
If the White Lady appeared portly, prosperity and success were coming.
If she appeared thin, the family could expect misfortune or death.
She was less a banshee than a supernatural barometer of family fortune.
The Weeping Lady of Kincardine
At Kincardine Castle near Auchterarder, a woman in green supposedly appeared beneath a particular tree on the estate.
She wept.
And her sorrow had a reason.
Someone in the Graham family was about to die.
Another Scottish spirit, Bodac au Dun, similarly warned the Rothmurchas family when death approached.
The White Ladies of Germany
Germany had supernatural women of its own.
The Lady of Waldeck was described as a water nymph.
Seeing her was a terrible omen.
If she appeared to someone, that person’s life was supposedly approaching its end.
At the Castle of Orlamunde in Thuringia, another White Lady announced approaching death or misfortune in an unusual way.
At night, residents heard sounds resembling small birds chirping.
The strange noises meant something terrible was approaching.
German royalty also possessed a White Lady whose appearance supposedly foretold death within the family.
France and the Little Red Man
Not every supernatural warning came from a woman in white.
France had a figure dressed in red.
Napoleon was said to have encountered a mysterious spirit that warned him of approaching misfortune.
The apparition became known as the Little Red Man of the Tuileries.
According to the tradition, his appearances were associated not merely with individual deaths but with great national disasters in France.
The family banshee had become something larger.
A banshee for a nation.
Death Omens in Wales
Welsh tradition included supernatural water beings capable of foretelling calamity.
These spirits appeared upon the surfaces of lakes.
They played harps.
Their music was beautiful but mournful.
And the songs warned people living around the lake that disaster was approaching.
Another Welsh omen involved mysterious “fetch lights.”
Seeing them meant death was near.
The supernatural warning had been reduced to its simplest possible form.
Not a ghost.
Not a scream.
Just a light.
Other Banshees and Family Omens
Similar traditions appeared elsewhere.
The Donati family of Venice supposedly encountered the phantom head of a man whenever death approached.
A legend associated with Pontius Pilate claimed that his apparition appeared annually upon Mount Pilate. Anyone unfortunate enough to see him would die within the year.
In Madagascar, the term Antama was associated with a banshee-like figure.
The names and appearances changed enormously from one culture to another.
The underlying fear remained remarkably familiar.
Sometimes death announced itself before arriving.
Alastor and the Family Curse
Greek and Roman traditions also contained the idea of a supernatural being attached to a family.
One such entity was called Alastor.
Rather than simply warning of approaching death, this house demon supposedly tormented the family, particularly its patriarch.
This moves the tradition away from the benevolent warning spirit and toward something much darker.
The supernatural presence wasn’t there to protect the family.
It was part of the family’s curse.
What Does a Banshee Really Do?
The popular image of the banshee is simple.
A ghostly Irish woman screams.
Someone dies.
The older folklore is far more interesting.
Some banshees weep.
Some sing.
Some warn.
Some protect.
Others seek revenge for terrible things done to them while they were alive.
And many supernatural family omens aren’t women at all.
They may appear as dogs, owls, severed heads, lights, fiery chains, water spirits, monks, gray men, or mysterious figures dressed in red.
What connects them isn’t their appearance.
It is their relationship with the people they follow.
The Horrors of the Banshee
Perhaps that is what makes the oldest banshee traditions so unsettling.
The banshee isn’t necessarily wandering randomly through the night searching for victims.
She knows the family.
Sometimes she has followed them for centuries.
She may have known their ancestors.
She may even have been murdered by one of them.
Generation after generation can pass, yet the spirit remains.
Then, one night, someone hears weeping outside the house.
A woman appears beneath a tree.
A black dog crosses the road.
An impossible light moves through the darkness.
Or a terrible scream carries across the countryside.
The apparition does not necessarily kill anyone.
It doesn’t have to.
Its message is enough.
Death is already on its way.
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