BANSHEE / BEANSIDHE
It is the duty of the banshee or 'woman of the fairies' to foretell the death of an individual, Banshees are attached to particular families and their cry is only heard when a family member is about to die. Banshees are reported either to be young women of mournful aspect, or else to take the form of hags. With eyes red from weeping, she continually combs her hair with a gold or silver comb. The very first being to set up a keening cry was the Irish goddess, Brighid, one of the Tuatha de Danaan; she wailed for the death of her only son, Rúadán, and that was the first keening ever heard in Ireland.
There is an account by Lady Fanshawe who stayed in the family house of the O'Briens during the 17th century. Lady Fanshawe was in bed when late at night she was aware of a woman with red hair and ghastly white face who mysteriously said, ‘A horse', three times in a loud voice. In the early hours of the next morning, the lady of the house came in to see Lady Fanshawe, telling her that she had been attending to one of her O'Brien cousins who had died a few hours earlier, at the time the apparition had appeared. It is not clear what the banshee meant by her utterance, perhaps only that a mount was ready for the deceased to pass with the banshee into the Otherworld.
Text from The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews (HarperElement, 2005)
