November brings winter to the northern Celtic lands, the time of long, dark nights, and a wind that screams through the trees and stones, evoking the banshee's wails.
In Irish legend, the banshee is a dark fairy woman, a messenger from the underworld, whose wails are an omen of death. To hear her shriek is to be well warned. In Wales, she's called Hag of the Mist. In Scotland, she's called the Bansidhe, and is seen washing the blood-stained clothes of those about to die.
The great Gaelic families like the O'Neills, O'Gradys, or O'Briens were believed to have their very own banshees, whose cries heralded the death of a member of that family. Now traditionally, when someone died in Ireland, a woman would sing a lament called a keen at the funeral. These women were called keeners, and the best keeners would be in very high demand. Legend has it that for the great Gaelic clans, that keen would be sung by a fairy woman, and having fairy foresight, she would wail her lament when a family member died, even if they had died far away and news of the death had not yet come, so that the wailing of the fairy banshee was the first warning the household had of the death.
There were stories of the banshee actually appearing before the death to warn the family with its keening and its wailing, and if many banshees appeared at once, it meant that someone great or holy had died. Some tales had it that the banshee was actually the ghost of a murdered woman or a mother died in childbirth.
The banshee could appear in many guises, sometimes as a beautiful woman. Most often, though, a ugly, misshapen hag in tattered rags with long fingernails and eyes red from weeping. They're said to have long, pale hair, which they brush with a silver comb. This is why if you see a beautiful comb on the ground in Ireland, to this day you must never, ever pick it up, or the banshees will spirit you away.
The banshee may even appear in forms other than human: a hooded crow, a hare, a weasel, animals long associated by the Celts with witchcraft.
Still, though folklore would come to lump her with witches, even a banshee had a role to play in the great circle of life and death for the Celts. When that announcement of the banshee was heard, friends from far and near would know it was time to come and say their last goodbyes to the dying. The community would gather round the warrior or chieftain's family, preparing to share the mourning process with them. In her own way, the banshee honored the coming death, the great passing from one realm into the other.
For Celtic Cultural Alliance, this is Kate Scuffle. Sláinte.
