What is a Banshee? Why do Banshees wail? And does hearing this wail foreshadow your own death?

Hi everybody, I’m Nick and this is Beasts of the Olde World, a channel that explores ancient folklore, myths and legends, and mythical creatures from across the globe. If you’re fascinated by the mysterious and the unseen, then make sure to subscribe and ring the bell.

What do you think of when you think of a banshee? Today, we commonly imagine a malevolent skeletal hag with an ear-piercing fatal scream. We might think of any one of the many popular culture namesakes such as the Banshee from X-Men, or from Charmed, or from video games like World of Warcraft and Mass Effect.

But does this picture of a dangerous and terrifying evil spirit bear any resemblance to the Banshee traditional Irish folklore? And how has she changed from the fairy woman of ancient Ireland over the centuries?

We will examine her reputation in Celtic folklore as the Angel of Death, as well as the sister myth of Bean Nighe, the washerwoman of Scottish legend. We will look at how these disfigured old crones link strongly to family and tradition, their true associations with death as protective spirits, and how they would mourn for specific ancient Irish families upon their loss of a loved one. We will learn about how the Ross-Lewin family encountered a banshee in the 1700s, and how this supernatural event affected their family.

We examine the origins of the Banshee myth, taking a close look at the Morrigan, the Irish Goddess of Battles, Sovereignty, and Strife. We’ll look at the folkloric kinship she shares with the Valkyrie of germanic and Norse folklore, and discuss the shared attributes that the Morrigan and the Banshee share, such as foresight and prophecy, and their shared reputation as shapeshifters, especially when it comes to birds. We’ll look at their shared associations with death and fate, with war and mortality - and look briefly at the ancient Irish hero Cu Chulainn for his visions of the Morrigan before his final battle. We will also look at the Morrigan’s place among the Tuatha de Danann - the ancient Irish god pantheon, as well as that of the goddess Brigid, from whom the banshee’s wail - also known as keening - almost certainly originates.

We look at the huge difference between the modern expectation of the banshee’s wail and the hauntingly beautiful keening of Irish funeral tradition, and how this is emblematic of the shift from the banshee myth of old as a symbol of mourning and remembrance in Celtic culture expounding the complex legacy of Brigid's profound grief, into the modern representation of a terrifying, merciless harbinger of death with a piercing, harrowing scream.

We will discuss what the evolution of our collective imagination of the banshee over the ages has to say about our modern culture, asking whether this shift has something to say about the way in which we think about death, and how that has changed over the years and generations.
As we draw our conclusions about the banshee myth, we will look at our shared cultural fear of death, and measure it against the cultural weight of sorrow and grief in times of personal tragedy, asking how the balance of these has shifted over time.

I hope you enjoy this deep dive into the dark corners of Ireland's mythic past, examining its mysteries and these Beasts of the Olde World. I hope you’ll return for future mythical creature features and folk horror stories.

00:24 INTRO - The modern banshee myth
01:19 PART ONE - The Banshee of the Olde Worlde
03:01 STORY SECTION - The Banshee of Kilchrist Church
06:50 PART TWO - Echoes of the Olde Gods
12:00 PART THREE - The Shifting Shadow of Death

#mythicalcreatures #spooky #harrypotter #mythsandlegends #ancientfolklore #banshees #horrorstories #mythology #lotr #thewitcher #asoiaf #fantasy #death #grief #sorrow #keening #funeral #culturalhistory #Ireland #dublin #tradition #irishheritage #celticmythology #folkhorror