irebanshee

Ireland

A banshee is an Irish lore, that is quite famous is a supernatural entity in the form of a weeping woman who haunts certain
Irish families (even outside of Ireland), since ancient times. Her terrible wailing cry warns these families of an impending
death within the family or its circle of friends. Some people believe that it is a solitary fairy that follows around a family
warning them. There are also some things that are seen with the banshee who could be a coiste-bodhar, an immense
black coach, mounted by a coffin, and drawn by headless horses driven by a Dullahan. It will go rumbling to your door, and
if you open it, a basin of blood will be thrown in your face. In 1807 two of the sentries stationed outside St. Jame's Park
died of fright. A headless woman the upper part of her body naked, used to pass at night and scale the railings. In some
countries like Norway, the heads of corpses were cut off to make their ghosts feeble.

One of the most recent events that involve a "banshee" happened on November 22, 1963, in Boston. This sighting was
by a businessman named James O'Barry who descended from an Irish family who immigrated in 1848 to the United
States. He allegedly heard the banshee's fearful shriek just after noon on November 22nd. Later that day, O'Barry learnt
that one of his friends had been assassinated, President John F. Kennedy.

Welsh

A Welsh equivalent to the banshee is a disembodied moaning cry known as the cyhyraeth or death sound, which haunts a
number of old Welsh families. Like Ireland's version this "banshee" also warns the families even if they move from their
native country. Also known as Highland Caoineag, the weeper. It is seldom seen, but it is heard moaning before a death,
particularly multiple deaths caused by an epidemic or disaster. The Prophet Jones describes the noise it makes as "a
doleful, dreadful noise in the night, before a burying." Joseph Coslet of Carmarthenshire said its sound was common in
the neighborhood of the river Towy, "a dolefule, disagreeable sound heard before the deaths of many, and most apt to be
heard before foul weather. The voice resembles the groaning of sick persons who are to die; heard at first at a distance,
then comes nearer, and the last near at hand; so that it is a threefold warning of death. It begins strong, and louder than a
sick man can make; the second cry is lower, but not less doleful, but rather more so; the third yet lower, and soft, like the
groaning of a sick man almost spend and dying." On the Glamorganshire coast, cyhraeth passes along the sea before a
wreck, and here it is accompanied by a kind of corpse light, or will-o-whisp. This foretells the path a corpse is to take on
the way to the churchyard.