what is a Banshee?

Answer 1

One of Siouxsie Sioux's bandmembers!

Answer 2

The bean-sidhe (woman of the fairy may be an ancestral spirit appointed to forewarn members of certain ancient Irish families of their time of death. According to tradition, the banshee can only cry for five major Irish families: the O'Neills, the O'Briens, the O'Connors, the O'Gradys and the Kavanaghs. Intermarriage has since extended this select list.

Whatever her origins, the banshee chiefly appears in one of three guises: a young woman, a stately matron or a raddled old hag. These represent the triple aspects of the Celtic goddess of war and death, namely Badhbh, Macha and Mor-Rioghain.)

She usually wears either a grey, hooded cloak or the winding sheet or grave robe of the unshriven dead. She may also appear as a washer-woman, and is seen apparently washing the blood stained clothes of those who are about to die. In this guise she is known as the bean-nighe (washing woman).

Although not always seen, her mourning call is heard, usually at night when someone is about to die. In 1437, King James I of Scotland was approached by an Irish seeress or banshee who foretold his murder at the instigation of the Earl of Atholl. This is an example of the banshee in human form. There are records of several human banshees or prophetesses attending the great houses of Ireland and the courts of local Irish kings. In some parts of Leinster, she is referred to as the bean chaointe (keening woman) whose wail can be so piercing that it shatters glass. In Kerry, the keen is experienced as a "low, pleasant singing"; in Tyrone as "the sound of two boards being struck together"; and on Rathlin Island as "a thin, screeching sound somewhere between the wail of a woman and the moan of an owl".

The banshee may also appear in a variety of other forms, such as that of a hooded crow, stoat, hare and weasel - animals associated in Ireland with witchcraft.

Answer 3

A Banshee is an spirit that fortold of death. She would normally be a woman, swathed in white, who's wailing scream would cast fear into the hearts of the strongest man. She is supposed to be the tail end of the nature spirits previously believed in by people of that region.

Answer 4

The Banshee (woman of the síde" or "woman of the fairy mounds) is a female spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Otherworld. Her Scottish counterpart is the Bean Nighe ("washer-woman").
They were also known as "people of the mounds" and "people of peace" and "fallen angels" who were variously believed to be the survivals of pre-Christian Gaelic deities, spirits of nature, or the ancestors. They are commonly referred to in English as "fairies", and the banshee can also be described as a "fairy woman".
According to legend, a banshee wails around a house if someone in the house is about to die. Traditionally, when a citizen of an Irish village died, a woman would sing a lament at their funeral. These women singers are sometimes referred to as "keeners". Legend has it that, for five great Gaelic families: the O'Gradys, the O'Neills, the O'Briens, the O'Connors, and the Kavanaghs, the lament would be sung by a fairy woman; having foresight, she would appear before the death and keen. When several banshees appeared at once, it indicated the death of someone great or holy. The tales sometimes recounted that the woman, though called a fairy, was a ghost, often of a specific murdered woman, or a woman who died in childbirth.
Banshees are frequently described as dressed in white or grey, and often having long, fair hair which they brush with a silver comb. This comb detail is also related to the centuries-old traditional romantic Irish story that, if you ever see a comb lying on the ground in Ireland, you must never pick it up, or the banshees having placed it there to lure unsuspecting humans, will spirit such gullible humans away. Other stories portray banshees as dressed in green, red or black with a grey cloak. Banshees are common in Irish and Scottish folk stories.

Answer 5

In Gaelic folklore, a banshee is a female spirit whose wailing outside a house foretells the death of one of its inhabitants.

Answer 6

half woman half cat
I'm from Ireland and i use to hear these stories about banshees and others .
it is old Irish folklore
a banshee is half woman and half cat she sits on a tree and combs her hair with a silver comb.
if you hear a banshee wail which sounds like a cat crying.
some one in your family is going to die
if you see a banshee and she throws her silver comb at you you will die
it is just old Irish folklore
IE a load of old **** if you ask me.
back in the days when there was no technology or TV people gathered and told stories
this is just one of these old stories.

Answer 7

A wailing Irish spirit of Irish folklore. They were said to wail when someone died, and take the dead person to spirit world.When I was a kid, my dad used to tell us if we didn't go to sleep the banshee's would get us, I was bloody petrified.

Answer 8

a female spirit genrally in a white dress and is floting(no feet)
you either have to hear the banshee scream and you die of fright or she is seen washing bloody rags of clothes of the soon to be dead or she is a mother wailing for her lost baby

Answer 9

The Banshee,from the Irish "bean sí " ("woman of the síde" or "woman of the fairy mounds") is a female spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Otherworld. Her Scottish counterpart is the Bean Nighe ("washer-woman").

Answer 10

It's a spirit or entity that usually attached it's self to a titled family in Ireland and announces to the family, when the angle of death was near, and one of the members was to die.