This can occur even when the death happens far away, and news has not yet reached the family. According to Irish folklore, the banshee is said to be heard wailing mournfully or singing a lament (referred to as “keening”) when someone in the family is either about to die or has already died. The banshee acts as a warning of death in a family. And while that would generally describe any females among the fairy folk, the banshee occupies a much more specific role which sets them apart. Thus, they became the aes sídhe – the people of the mounds – and these female spirits became the bean sídhe, or the women of the mounds. Legend says that the Tuatha Dé Danann – who had long been considered magical beings – retreated underground, and the sídhe were among the remaining gateways to their hidden kingdom. These sídhe were associated with the fairy folk – the mythicized Tuatha Dé Danann, who had been supplanted by the wave of immigrants known as the Milesians (the ancestors of the Gaels who occupy Ireland today) in about 1000 B.C.E.
These earthen mounds were barrows – grave sites – some of which date as far back as the Neolithic Age.
The Irish countryside is dotted with tumuli, or earthen mounds which in Old Irish were called sídhe (pronounced “she”). Let’s take a look at the ghostly, wailing woman who the Irish believe gives warning of impending death – the Irish banshee. The most famous of these would undoubtedly be the leprechaun, but the fairy folk also include creatures like the mysterious Pooka, the headless horseman known as the Dullahan, and the changelings which take the place of human infants.īut aside from these, there is another famous fairy creature, one whose name is recognized around the world.
Banshee creature full#
The rich mythological history of Ireland is full of unique creatures of the fairy realm.
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