The Banshee

by Elliott O'Donnell

The Bodach au Dun, or Ghost of the Hills, which haunts the family of Grant Rothiemurcus, and the Llam-dearg, or spectre of the Bloody Hand, which pursues the fortunes of the Clan Kinchardine. According to Sir Walter Scott in the Macfarlane MSS. this spirit was chiefly to be seen in the Glenmore, where it took the form of a soldier with one hand perpetually dripping with blood. At one time it invariably signalled its advent in the manner which, I think, has no parallel among ghosts—it challenged members of the Kinchardine Clan to fight a duel with it, and whether they accepted or not they always died soon afterwards. As lately as 1669, says Sir Walter Scott, it fought with three brothers, one after another, who immediately died therefrom.

Then there is the Clan of Gurlinbeg which is haunted by Garlin Bodacher; the Turloch Gorms who, according to Scott, are haunted by Mary Moulach, or the girl with the hairy left hand;[13] and the Airlie family, whose seat at Cortachy is haunted by the famous drummer, whose ghostly tattoos must be taken as a sure sign that a member of the Ogilvie Clan—of which the Earl of Airlie is the recognised head—will die very shortly.

Mr Ingram, in his “Haunted Houses and Family Legends,” quotes several well authenticated instances of manifestations by this apparition, the last occurring, according to him, in the year 1899, though I have heard from other reliable sources that it has been heard at a much more recent date. The origin of this haunting is generally thought to be comparatively modern, and not to date further back than two or three hundred years, if as far, which, of course, puts it on quite a different category from that of the Banshee, though its mission is, without doubt, the same. According to Mr Ingram, a former Lord Airlie, becoming jealous of one of his retainers or emissaries who was a drummer, had him thrust in his drum and hurled from a top window of the castle into the courtyard beneath, where he was dashed to pieces. With his dying breath the drummer cursed not only Lord Airlie, but his descendants, too, and ever since that event his apparition has persistently haunted the family.

Other Highland families that possess special ghosts are a branch of the Macdonnells, that have a phantom piper, whose mournful piping invariably means that some member or other of the clan is shortly doomed to die; and the Stanleys who have a female apparition that signalises her advent by shrieking, weeping, and moaning before the death of any of the family. Perhaps of all Scottish ghosts this last one most closely resembles the Banshee, though there are distinct differences, chiefly with regard to the appearance of the phantoms—the Scottish one differing essentially in her looks and attire from the Irish ghost—and their respective origins, that of the Stanley apparition being, in all probability, of much later date than the Banshee.

Then, again, there is the Bodach Glas, or dark grey man, in reference to which Mr Henderson, in his “Folk-lore of Northern Countries,” p. 344, says: “Its appearance foretold death in the Clan of ——, and I have been informed on the most credible testimony of its appearance in our own day. The Earl of E——, a nobleman alike beloved and respected in Scotland, was playing on the day of his decease on the links of St Andrew’s at golf. Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the game, saying, ‘I can play no longer, there is the Bodach Glas. I have seen it for the third time; something fearful is going to befall me.’ That night he fell down dead as he was giving a lady her candlestick on her way up to bed.”

Another instance, still, of a Scottish family ghost is that of the willow tree at Gordon Castle, which is referred to by Sir Bernard Bourke in his “Anecdotes of the Aristocracy.” Sir Bernard asserts that whenever any accident happens to this tree, if, for example, a branch is blown down in a storm, or any part of it is struck by lightning, then some dire misfortune is sure to happen to some member of the family.

There are other old Scottish family ghosts, all very distinct from the Banshee, though a few bear some slight resemblance to it, but as my space is restricted, I will pass on to family ghosts of a more or less similar type that are to be met with in England.

To begin with, the Oxenhams of Devonshire the heiress of Sir James Oxenham, and the bride that is invariably seen before the death of any member of the family. According to a well-known Devonshire ballad, a bird answering to this description flew over the guests at the wedding of the heiress of Sir James Oxenham, and the bride was killed the following day by a suitor she had unceremoniously jilted.

The Arundels of Wardour have a ghost in the form of two white owls, it being alleged that whenever two birds of this species are seen perched on the house where any of this family are living, some one member of them is doomed to die very shortly.

Equally famous is the ghost of the Cliftons of Nottinghamshire, which takes the shape of a sturgeon that is seen swimming in the river Trent, opposite Clifton Hall, the chief seat of the family, whenever one of the Cliftons is on the eve of dying.