The Woman of the Fairy Mound
The Banshee (Modern Irish: Bean Sí) is a woman of the Sí (older Sidhe) — one of the divine people who went underground into the fairy mounds after the Tuatha Dé Danann lost Ireland to the Milesians. She comes from the same world as Brigid and Manannán mac Lir. She did not disappear when the Tuatha Dé retreated from the surface of the world. She stayed bound to Ireland’s noble families, and when one of them was about to die, she mourned.
Her roots go deep into the Irish divine world. Badb and Nemain — the battle-goddesses of the Tuatha Dé — screamed above the dying at the great battles of the mythological age. The Morrígan appeared to Cú Chulainn before his death, washing his clothes at a ford. These divine women knew when death was coming and they made that knowledge heard. The Bean Sídhe is the same tradition extended into the lives of the great noble families of Ireland — the divine woman bound to your bloodline, mourning every death in your family going back to the beginning.
She was not attached to just anyone. She belonged to specific Gaelic families — the great dynasties, those with Irish noble blood. The Uí Néill, the Uí Briain, the MacCárthaigh. Each had their own Bean Sídhe, who had mourned for them since their ancestor first rose to power. When the last of a great family died, she was said to mourn most bitterly of all.
Her cry — the caoine — was somewhere between wailing and singing, coming from outside in the dark. Those who knew what it was did not mistake it for anything else. She was sometimes seen as well as heard — crouched at a stream, washing the shirt of the person about to die, just as the Morrígan washed Cú Chulainn’s at the ford. Other accounts describe her as a beautiful young woman. Her form varied. Her function did not. She already knew. She was telling you.
Key facts about Bean Sídhe
- Name: Bean Sídhe (“woman of the fairy mound”); anglicised Banshee
- Origin: The síde — the Otherworld of the Tuatha Dé Danann
- Type: Divine woman; supernatural mourner
- Function: Foretells the death of a member of a specific noble Gaelic family
- Form: Old woman washing clothes at a stream; or young woman; or heard but not seen
- Sound: The caoine — a keening cry heard outside at night
- Related to: Badb, Nemain, Morrígan — divine women who know when death is coming
- Attached to: Specific noble Gaelic families — not a general omen
- Division: Ancient — she is known in Ireland for over a thousand years, rooted in the Tuatha Dé Danann world
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