Other writers, too, would seem more or less to encourage the idea that all malignant Banshees are cast in one mould and all beautiful Banshees in another, whereas from my own personal experiences I should say that Banshees, whether good or bad, are just as individual as any member of the family they haunt.
It is related of a certain ancient Mayo family that a chief of the race once made love to a very beautiful girl whom he betrayed and subsequently murdered. With her dying breath the girl cursed her murderer and swore she would haunt him and his for ever. Years rolled by; the cruel deceiver married, and, with the passing away of all who knew him in his youth, he came to be regarded as a model of absolute propriety and rectitude. Hence it was in these circumstances that he was sitting one night before a big blazing fire in the hall of his castle, outwardly happy enough and surrounded by his sons and daughters, when loud shrieks of exultation were heard coming, it seemed, from someone who was standing on the path close to the castle walls. All rushed out to see who it was, but no one was there, and the grounds, as far as the eye could reach, were absolutely deserted.
Later on, however, some little time after the household had retired to rest, the same demoniacal disturbances took place; peal after peal of wild, malicious laughter rang out, followed by a discordant moaning and screaming. This time the aged chieftain did not accompany the rest of the household in their search for the originator of the disturbances. Possibly, in that discordant moaning and screaming he fancied he could detect the voice of the murdered girl; and, possibly, accepting the manifestation as a death-warning, he was not surprised on the following day, when he was waylaid out of doors and brutally done to death by one of his followers.
Needless to say, perhaps, the haunting of this Banshee still continues, the same phenomena occurring at least once to every generation of the family, before the death of one of its members. Happily, however, the haunting now does not necessarily precede a violent death, and in this respect, though in this respect only, differs from the original.
Another haunting by this same species of Banshee was brought to my notice the last time I was in Ireland. I happened to be visiting a certain relative of mine, at that date residing in Black Rock, and from her I learned the following, which now appears in print for the first time.
About the middle of the last century, when my relative was in her teens, some friends of hers, the O’D.’s, were living in a big old-fashioned country house, somewhere between Ballinanty and Hospital in the County of Limerick. The family consisted of Mr O’D., who had been something in India in his youth and was now very much of a recluse, though much esteemed locally on account of his extreme piety and good-heartedness; Mrs O’D., who, despite her grey hair and wrinkled countenance, still retained traces of more than ordinary good looks; Wilfred, a handsome but decidedly headstrong young man of between twenty-five and thirty; and Ellen, a blue-eyed, golden-haired girl of the true Milesian type of Irish beauty.
My relative was on terms of the greatest intimacy with the whole family, but especially with the two younger folk, and it was generally expected that she and Wilfred would make what is vulgarly termed a “match of it.” Indeed, the first of the ghostly happenings that she experienced in connection with the O’D.’s actually occurred the very day Wilfred took the long-anticipated step and proposed to her.
It seems that my relative was out for a walk one afternoon with Ellen and Wilfred, when the latter, taking advantage of his sister’s sudden fancy for going on ahead to look for dog-roses, passionately declared his love, and, apparently, did not declare it in vain. The trio, then, in more or less exalted spirits—for my relative had of course let Ellen into the secret—walked home together, and as they were passing through a big wooden gateway into the garden at the rear of the O’D.’s house, they perceived a tall, spare woman, with her back towards them, digging away furiously.
“Hullo,” Wilfred exclaimed, “who’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Ellen replied. “It’s certainly not Mary” (Mary was the old cook who, like many of the servants of that period, did not confine her labour to the culinary art, but performed all kinds of odd jobs as well), “nor anyone from the farm. But what on earth does she think she’s doing? Hey, there!” and Ellen, raising her naturally sweet and musical voice, gave a little shout.