THE DEFINITION AND ORIGIN OF BANSHEES In a country, such as Ireland, that is characterised by an arrestive and wildly beautiful scenery, it is not at all surprising to find something in the nature of a ghost harmonising with the general atmosphere and surroundings, and that something, apparently so natural to Ireland, is the Banshee. The name Banshee seems to be a contraction of the Irish Bean Sidhe, which is interpreted by some writers on the subject "A Woman of the Faire Race," whilst by various other writers it is said to signify "The Lady of Death," "The Woman of Sorrow," "The Spirit of the Air," and "The Woman of the Barrow." It is strictly a family ghost, and most authorities agree that it only haunts families of very ancient Irish lineage. Mr McAnnaly, for instance, remarks (in the chapter on Banshees in his "Irish Wonders"): "The Banshee attends only the old families, and though their descendants, through misfortune, may be brought down from high estate to ranks of peasant farmers, she never leaves nor forgets them till the last member has been gathered to his fathers in the churchyard." A writer in the _Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society_ (Vol. V., No. 44, pp. 227-229) quotes an extract from a work entitled "Kerry Records," in which the following passage, relating to an elegiac poem written by Pierse Ferriter on Maurice Fitzgerald, occurs: "Aina, the Banshee who never wailed for any families who were not of Milesian blood, except the Geraldines, who became 'more Irish than the Irish themselves'; and in a footnote (see p. 229) it is only 'blood' that can have a Banshee. Business men nowadays have something as good as 'blood'--they have 'brains and brass,' by which they can compete with and enter into the oldest families in England and Ireland. Nothing, however, in an Irishman's estimation, can replace 'blue blood.'" Sir Walter Scott, too, emphasises this point, and is even more specific and arbitrary. He confines the Banshee to families of pure Milesian stock, and declares it is never to be found attached to the descendants of the multitudinous English and Scotch settlers who have, from time to time, migrated to Ireland; nor even to the descendants of the Norman adventurers who accompanied Strongbow to the Green Isle in the twelfth century. Lady Wilde[1] goes to the other extreme and allows considerable latitude. She affirms that the Banshee attaches itself not only to certain families of historic lineage, but also to persons gifted with song and music. For my own part I am inclined to adopt a middle course; I do not believe that the Banshee would be deterred from haunting a family of historical fame and Milesian descent--such as the O'Neills or O'Donnells--simply because in that family was an occasional strain of Saxon or Norman blood, but, on the other hand, I do not think the Banshee would ever haunt a family that was not originally at least Celtic Irish--such, for instance, as the Fitz-Williams or Fitz-Warrens--although in that family there might happen to be periodic infusions of Milesian blood. I disagree, _in toto_, with Lady Wilde's theory that, occasionally, the Banshee haunts a person who is extremely poetical and musical, simply because he happens to be thus talented. In my opinion, to be haunted by the Banshee one must belong to an Irish family that is, at least, a thousand years old; were it not so, we should assuredly find the Banshee haunting certain of the musical and poetical geniuses of every race all over the world--black and yellow, perhaps, no less than white--which certainly is not the case. The Banshee, however, as Mr McAnnaly says, does, sometimes, travel; it travels when, and only when, it accompanies abroad one of the most ancient of the Irish families; otherwise it stays in Ireland, where, owing to the fact that there are few of the really old Irish families left, its demonstrations are becoming more and more rare. It may, perhaps, be said that in Dublin, Cork, and other of the Irish towns one may still come across a very fair percentage of O's and Macs. That, undoubtedly, is true, but, at the same time, it must be borne in mind that these prefixes do not invariably denote the true Irishman, since many families yclept Thompson, Walker, and Smith, merely on the strength of having lived in Ireland for two or three generations, have adopted an Irish--and in some cases, even, a Celtic Irish name, relying upon their knowledge of a few Celtic words picked up from books, or from attending some of the numerous classes now being held in nearly all the big towns, and which are presided over by teachers who are also, for the most part, merely pseudo-Irish--to give colour to their claim. Such a pretence, however, does not deceive those who are really Irish, neither does it deceive the Banshee, and the latter, I am quite sure, would never be persuaded to follow the fortunes of any Anglo-Saxon, or Scotch, Dick, Tom, or Harry, no matter how clever and convincing their camouflage might be. Once again, then, the Banshee confines itself solely to families of _bona-fide_ ancient Irish descent. As to its origin, in spite of arbitrary assertions made by certain people, none of whom, by the way, are of Irish extraction--that no one knows. As a matter of fact the Banshee has a number of origins, for there is not one Banshee only--as so many people seem to think--but many; each clan possessing a Banshee of its own. The O'Donnell Banshee, for example, that is to say the Banshee attached to our branch of the clan, and to which I can testify from personal experience, is, I believe, very different in appearance, and in its manner of making itself known, from the Banshee of the O'Reardons, as described by Mr McAnnaly; whilst the Banshee of a certain branch of the O'Flahertys, according to this same authority, differs essentially from that of a branch of the O'Neills. Mr McAnnaly says the Banshee "is really a disembodied soul, that of one who, in life, was strongly attached to the family, or who had good reason to hate all its members." This definition, of course, may apply in some cases, but it certainly does not apply in all, and it is absurd to be dogmatic on a subject, concerning which it is quite impossible to obtain a very great deal of information. At the most, Mr McAnnaly can only speak with certainty of the comparatively few cases of Banshees that have come under his observation; there are, I think, scores of which he has never even heard. I myself know of several Banshee hauntings in which the phantom certainly cannot be that of any member of the human race; its features and proportions absolutely negative such a possibility, and I should have no hesitation in affirming that, in these cases, the phantom is what is commonly known as an elemental, or what I have termed in previous of my works, a neutrarian, that is a spirit that has never inhabited any material body, and which belongs to a species entirely distinct from man. On the other hand, several cases of Banshee hauntings I have come across undoubtedly admit the possibility of the phantom being that of a woman belonging to the human race, albeit to a very ancient and long since obsolete section of it; whilst a few, only, allow of the probability of the phantom being that of a woman, also human, but belonging to a very much later date. Certainly, as Mr McAnnaly stated, Banshees may be divided into two main classes, the Friendly Banshees and the Hateful Banshees; the former exhibiting sorrow on their advent, and the latter, exultation. But these classes are capable of almost endless sub-division; the only feature they possess in common being a vague something that strongly suggests the feminine sex. In most cases the cause of the hauntings can only be a matter of conjecture. Affection or crime may account for some, but, for the origin of others, I believe one must look in a totally different direction. For instance, one might, perhaps, see some solution in sorcery and witchcraft, since there must be many families, who, in bygone days, dabbled in those pursuits, that are now Banshee ridden. Or, again, granted there is some truth in the theory of Atlantis, the theory that a whole continent was submerged owing to the wickedness of its inhabitants, who were all more or less adepts in necromancy--the most ancient of the Irish, the so-called Milesian clans who are known to have practised sorcery, might well be identical with the survivors of that great cataclysm, and have brought with them to the Green Island spirits which have stuck to their descendants ever since. I think one may dismiss Mr C. W. Leadbeater's[2] and other writers' (of the same would-be authoritative order) assertion that family ghosts may be either a thought-form or an unusually vivid impression in the astral light, as absurd. Spiritualists and others, who blindly reverence highfalutin phraseology, however empty it may be, might be satisfied with such an explanation, but not so those who have had actual experience with the ghost in question. Whatever else the Banshee may, or may not be, it is most certainly a denizen of a world quite distinct from ours; it is, besides, a being that has prophetic powers (which would not be the case if it were a mere thought-form or impression), and it is by no means a mere automaton. Some Banshees represent very beautiful women--women with long, luxuriant tresses, either of raven black, or burnished copper, or brilliant gold, and whose star-like eyes, full of tender pity, are either dark and tearful, or of the most exquisite blue or grey; some, again, are haggish, wild, dishevelled-looking creatures, whose appearance suggests the utmost squalor, foulness, and despair; whilst a few, fortunately, I think, only a few, take the form of something that is wholly diabolical, and frightful, and terrifying in the extreme. As a rule, however, the Banshee is not seen, it is only heard, and it announces its advent in a variety of ways; sometimes by groaning, sometimes by wailing, and sometimes by uttering the most blood-curdling of screams, which I can only liken to the screams a woman might make if she were being done to death in a very cruel and violent manner. Occasionally I have heard of Banshees clapping their hands, and tapping and scratching at walls and window-panes, and, not infrequently, I have heard of them signalling their arrival by terrific crashes and thumps. Also, I have met with the Banshee that simply chuckles--a low, short, but terribly expressive chuckle, that makes ten times more impression on the mind of the hearer than any other ghostly sound he has heard, and which no lapse of time is ever able to efface from his memory. I, for one, have heard the sound, and as I sit here penning these lines, I fancy I can hear it again--a Satanic chuckle, a chuckle full of mockery, as if made by one who was in the full knowledge of coming events, of events that would present an extremely unpleasant surprise. And, in my case, the unpleasant surprise came. I have always been a believer in a spirit world--in the unknown--but had I been ever so sceptical previously, after hearing that chuckle, I am quite sure I should have been converted. In concluding this chapter I must refer once again to Mr McAnnaly, who, in his "Irish Wonders," records a very remarkable instance of a number of Banshees manifesting themselves simultaneously. He says that the demonstrations occurred before the death of a member of the Galway O'Flahertys "some years ago."[3] The doomed one, he states, was a lady of the most unusual piety, who, though ill at the time, was not thought to be seriously ill. Indeed, she got so much better that several of her acquaintances came to her room to enliven her convalescence, and it was when they were there, all talking together merrily, that singing was suddenly heard, apparently outside the window. They listened, and could distinctly hear a choir of very sweet voices singing some extraordinarily plaintive air, which made them turn pale and look at one another apprehensively, for they all felt intuitively it was a chorus of Banshees. Nor were their surmises incorrect, for the patient unexpectedly developed pleurisy, and died within a few days, the same choir of spirit voices being again heard at the moment of physical dissolution. But as Mr McAnnaly states, the ill-fated lady was of singular purity, which doubtless explains the reason why, in my researches, I have never come across a parallel case. CHAPTER II SOME HISTORICAL BANSHEES Amongst the most popular cases of Banshee haunting both published and unpublished is that related by Ann, Lady Fanshawe, in her Memoirs. It seems that Lady Fanshawe experienced this haunting when on a visit to Lady Honora O'Brien, daughter of Henry, fifth Earl of Thomond,[4] who was then, in all probability, residing at the ancient castle of Lemaneagh, near Lake Inchiquin, about thirty miles north-west of Limerick. Retiring to rest somewhat early the first night of her sojourn there, she was awakened at about one o'clock by the sound of a voice, and, drawing aside the hangings of the bed, she perceived, looking in through the window at her, the face of a woman. The moonlight being very strong and fully focussed on it, she could see every feature with startling distinctness; but at the same time her attention was apparently riveted on the extraordinary pallor of the cheeks and the intense redness of the hair. Then, to quote her own words, the apparition "spake loud, and in a tone I never heard, thrice 'Ahone,' and then with a sigh, more like wind than breath, she vanished, and to me her body looked more like a thick cloud than substance. "I was so much affrighted that my hair stood on end, and my night clothes fell off. I pulled and pinched your father, who never awaked during this disorder I was in, but at last was much surprised to find me in this fright, and more when I related the story and showed him the window opened; but he entertained me with telling how much more these apparitions were usual in that country than in England." The following morning Lady Honora, who did not appear to have been to bed, informed Lady Fanshawe that a cousin of hers had died in the house at about two o'clock in the morning; and expressed a hope that Lady Fanshawe had not been subjected to any disturbances. "When any die of this family," she said by way of explanation, "there is the shape of a woman appears in this window every night until they be dead." She went on to add that the apparition was believed to be that of a woman who, centuries before, had been seduced by the owner of the castle and murdered, her body being buried under the window of the room in which Lady Fanshawe had slept. "But truly," she remarked, by way of apology, "I thought not of it when I lodged you here." Another well-known case of the Banshee is that relating to the O'Flahertys of Galway, reference being made to the case by Mr McAnnaly in his work entitled "Irish Wonders." In the days of much inter-clan fighting in Ireland, when the O'Neills frequently embarked on crusades against their alternate friends and enemies the O'Donnells, and the O'Rourks[5] embarked on similar crusades against the O'Donovans, it so happened that one night the chief of the O'Flahertys, arrayed in all the brilliance of a new suit of armour, and feeling more than usually cheerful and fit, marched out of his castle at the head of a numerous body of his retainers, who were all, like their chief, in good spirits, and talking and singing gaily. They had not proceeded far, however, when a sudden and quite inexplicable silence ensued--a silence that was abruptly broken by a series of agonising screams, that seemed to come from just over their heads. Instantly everyone was sobered, and naturally looked up, expecting to see something that would explain the extraordinary and terrifying disturbance; nothing, however, was to be seen, nothing but a vast expanse of cloudless sky, innumerable scintillating stars, and the moon which was shining forth in all the serene majesty of its zenith. Yet, despite the fact that nothing was visible, everyone felt a presence that was at once sorrowful and weird, and which one and all instinctively knew was the Banshee, the attendant spirit of the O'Flahertys, come to warn them of some approaching catastrophe. The next night, when the chieftain and his followers were again sallying forth, the same thing happened, but, after that, nothing of a similar nature occurred for about a month. Then the wife of the O'Flaherty, during the absence of her husband on one of these foraging expeditions, had an experience. She had gone to bed one night and was restlessly tossing about, for, try how she would, she could not sleep, when she was suddenly terrified by a succession of the most awful shrieks, coming, apparently, from just beneath her window, and which sounded like the cries of some woman in the direst trouble or pain. She looked, but as she instinctively felt would be the case, she could see no one. She then knew that she had heard the Banshee; and on the morrow her forebodings were only too fully realised. With a fearful knowledge of its meaning, she saw a cavalcade, bearing in its midst a bier, slowly and sorrowfully wending its way towards the castle; and, needless to say, she did not require to be told that the foraging party had returned, and that the surviving warriors had brought back with them the lifeless and mutilated body of her husband. The Kenealy Banshee furnishes yet another instance of this extremely fascinating and, up to the present, wholly enigmatical type of haunting. Dr Kenealy, the well-known Irish poet and author, resided in his earlier years in a wildly romantic and picturesque part of Ireland. Among his brothers was one, a mere child, whose sweet and gentle nature rendered him beloved by all, and it was a matter of the most excessive grief to the entire household, and, indeed, the whole neighbourhood, when this boy fell into a decline and his life was despaired of by the physicians. As time went on he grew weaker and weaker, until the moment at length arrived, when it was obvious that he could not possibly survive another twenty-four hours. At about noon, the room in which the patient lay was flooded with a stream of sunlight, which came pouring through the windows from the cloudless expanse of sky overhead. The weather, indeed, was so gorgeous that it seemed almost incredible that death could be hovering quite so near the house. One by one, members of the family stole into the chamber to take what each one felt might be a last look at the sick boy, whilst he was still alive. Presently the doctor arrived, and, as they were all discussing in hushed tones the condition of the poor wasted and doomed child, they one and all heard someone singing, apparently in the grounds, immediately beneath the window. The voice seemed to be that of a woman, but not a woman of this world. It was divinely soft and sweet, and charged with a pity and sorrow that no earthly being could ever have portrayed; and now loud, and now hushed, it continued for some minutes, and then seemed to die away gradually, like the ripple of a wavelet on some golden, sun-kissed strand, or the whispering of the wind, as it gently rustles its way through field after field of yellow, nodding corn. "What a glorious voice!" one of the listeners exclaimed. "I've never heard anything to equal it." "Very likely not," someone else whispered, "it's the Banshee!" And so enthralled were they all by the singing, that it was only when the final note of the plaintive ditty had quite ceased, that they became aware that their beloved patient, unnoticed by them, had passed out. Indeed, it seemed as if the boy's soul, with the last whispering notes of the dirge, had joined the beautiful, pitying Banshee, to be escorted by it into the realms of the all-fearful, all-impatient Unknown. Dr Kenealy has commemorated this event in one of his poems. The story of another haunting by the friendly Banshee is told in Kerry, in connection with a certain family that used to live there. According to my source of information the family consisted of a man (a gentleman farmer), his wife, their son, Terence, and a daughter, Norah. Norah, an Irish beauty of the dark type, had black hair and blue eyes; and possessing numerous admirers, favoured none of them so much as a certain Michael O'Lernahan. Now Michael did not stand very well in the graces of either of Norah's parents, but Terence liked him, and he was reputed to be rich--that is to say rich for that part of Ireland. Accordingly, he was invited pretty freely to the farm, and no obstacles were placed in his way. On the contrary, he was given more than a fair amount of encouragement. At last, as had been long anticipated, he proposed and Norah accepted him; but no sooner was her troth plighted than they both heard, just over their heads, a low, despairing wail, as of a woman in the very greatest distress and anguish. Though they were much alarmed at the time, being positive that the sounds proceeded from no human being, neither of them seems to have regarded the phenomenon in the shape of a warning, and both continued their love-making as if the incident had never occurred. A few weeks later, however, Norah noticed a sudden change in her lover; he was colder and more distant, and, whilst he was with her, she invariably found him preoccupied. At last the blow fell. He failed to present himself at the house one evening, though he was expected as usual, and, as no explanation was forthcoming the following morning, nor on any of the succeeding days, inquiries were made by the parents, which elicited the fact that he had become engaged to another girl, and that the girl's home was but a few minutes' walk from the farm. This proved too much for Norah; although, apparently, neither unusually sensitive nor particularly highly strung, she fell ill, and shortly afterwards died of a broken heart. It was not until the night before she died, however, that the Banshee paid her a second visit. She was lying on a couch in the parlour of the farmhouse, with her mother sitting beside her, when a noise was heard that sounded like leaves beating gently against the window-frames, and, almost directly afterwards, came the sound of singing, loud, and full of intense sorrow and compassion; and, obviously, that of a woman. "'Tis the Banshee," the mother whispered, immediately crossing herself, and, at the same time, bursting into tears. "The Banshee," Norah repeated. "Sure I hear nothing but that tapping at the window and the wind which seems all of a sudden to have risen." But the mother made no response. She only sat with her face buried in her hands, sobbing bitterly and muttering to herself, "Banshee! Banshee!" Presently, the singing having ceased, the old woman got up and dried her tears. Her anxiety, however, was not allayed; all through the night she could still be heard, every now and again, crying quietly and whispering to herself "'Twas the Banshee! Banshee!"; and in the morning Norah, suddenly growing alarmingly ill, passed away before medical assistance could be summoned. A case of Banshee haunting that is somewhat unusually pathetic was once related to me in connection with a Dublin branch of the once powerful clan of McGrath. It took place in the fifties, and the family, consisting of a young widow and two children, Isa and David, at that time occupied an old, rambling house, not five minutes' walk from Stephen's Green. Isa seems to have been the mother's favourite--she was undoubtedly a very pretty and attractive child--and David, possibly on account of his pronounced likeness to his father, with whom it was an open secret that Mrs McGrath had never got on at all well, to have received rather more than his fair share of scolding. This, of course, may or may not have been true. It is certain that he was left very much to himself, and, all alone, in a big, empty room at the top of the house, was forced to amuse himself as he best could. Occasionally one of the servants, inspired by a fellow-feeling--for the lot of servants in those days, especially when serving under such severe and exacting mistresses as Mrs McGrath, was none too rosy--used to look in to see how he was getting on and bring him a toy, bought out of her own meagre savings; and, once now and again, Isa, clad in some costly new frock, just popped her head in at the door, either to bring him some message from her mother, or merely to call out "Hullo!" Otherwise he saw no one; at least no one belonging to this earth; he only saw, he affirmed, at times, strange-looking people who simply stood and stared at him without speaking, people who the servants--girls from Limerick and the west country--assured him were either fairies or ghosts. One day Isa, who had been sent upstairs to tell David to go to his bedroom to tidy himself, as he was wanted immediately in the drawing-room, found him in a great state of excitement. "I've seen such a beautiful lady,"[6] he exclaimed, "and she wasn't a bit cross. She came and stood by the window and looked as if she wanted to play with me, only I daren't ask her. Do you think she will come again?" "How can I tell? I expect you've been dreaming as usual," Isa laughed. "What was she like?" "Oh, tall, much taller than mother," David replied, "with very, very blue eyes and kind of reddish-gold hair that wasn't all screwed up on her head, but was hanging in curls on her shoulders. She had very white hands which were clasped in front of her, and a bright green dress. I didn't see her come or go, but she was here for a long time, quite ten minutes." "It's another of your fancies, David," Isa laughed again. "But come along, make haste, or mother will be angry." A few minutes later, David, looking very shy and awkward, was in the drawing-room being introduced to a gentleman who, he was informed, was his future papa. David seems to have taken a strong dislike to him from the very first, and to have foreseen in the coming alliance nothing but trouble and misery for himself. Nor were his apprehensions without foundation, for, directly after the marriage took place, he became subjected to the very strictest discipline. Morning and afternoon alike he was kept hard at his books, and any slowness or inability to master a lesson was treated as idleness and punished accordingly. The moments he had to himself in his beloved nursery now became few and far between, for, directly he had finished his evening preparation, he was given his supper and packed off to bed. The one or two servants who had befriended him, unable to tolerate the new regime, gave notice and left, and there was soon no one in the house who showed any compassion whatever for the poor lonely boy. Things went on in this fashion for some weeks, and then a day came, when he really felt it impossible to go on living any longer. He had been generally run down for some weeks, and this, coupled with the fact that he was utterly broken in spirit, rendered his task of learning a wellnigh impossibility. It was in vain he pleaded, however; his entreaties were only taken for excuses; and, when, in an unguarded moment, he let slip some sort of reference to unkind treatment, he was at once accused of rudeness by his mother and, at her request, summarily castigated. The limit of his tribulation had been reached. That night he was sent to bed, as usual, immediately after supper, and Isa, who happened to pass by his room an hour or so afterwards, was greatly astonished at hearing him seemingly engaged in conversation. Peeping slyly in at the door, in order to find out with whom he was talking, she saw him sitting up in bed, apparently addressing space, or the moonbeams, which, pouring in at the window, fell directly on him. "What are you doing?" she asked, "and why aren't you asleep?" The moment she spoke he looked round and, in tones of the greatest disappointment, said: "Oh, dear, she's gone. You've frightened her away." "Frightened her away! Why, what rubbish!" Isa exclaimed. "Lie down at once or I'll go and fetch mamma." "It was my green lady," David went on, breathlessly, far too excited to pay any serious heed to Isa's threat. "My green lady, and she told me I should be no more lonely, that she was coming to fetch me some time to-night." Isa laughed, and, telling him not to be so silly, but to go to sleep at once, she speedily withdrew and went downstairs to join her parents in the drawing-room. That night, at about twelve, Isa was awakened by singing, loud and plaintive singing, in a woman's voice, apparently proceeding from the hall. Greatly alarmed she got up, and, on opening her door, perceived her parents and the servants, all in their night attire, huddled together on the landing, listening. "Sure 'tis the Banshee," the cook at length whispered. "I heard my father spake about it when I was a child. She sings, says he, more beautifully than any grand lady, but sorrowful like, and only before a death." "Before a death," Isa's mother stammered. "But who's going to die here? Why, we are all of us perfectly sound and well." As she spoke the singing ceased, there was an abrupt silence, and all slowly retired to their rooms. Nothing further was heard during the night, but in the morning, when breakfast time came, there was no David; and a hue and cry being raised and a thorough search made, he was eventually discovered, drowned in a cistern in the roof. CHAPTER XIII MY OWN EXPERIENCES WITH THE BANSHEE In order definitely to establish my claim to the Banshee, I am obliged to state here that the family to which I belong is the oldest branch of the O'Donnells, and dates back in direct unbroken line to Niall of the Nine Hostages. I am therefore genuinely Celtic Irish, but, in addition to that, I have in my veins strains both of the blood of the O'Briens of Thomond (whose Banshee visited Lady Fanshawe), and of the O'Rourkes, Princes of Brefni; for my ancestor, Edmund O'Donnell, married Bridget, daughter of O'Rourk of the house of Brefni, and his mother was the daughter of Donat O'Brien of the house of Thomond. All of which, and more, may be ascertained by a reference to the Records of the Truagh O'Donnells.[15] Possibly my first experience of the Banshee occurred before I was old enough to take note of it. I lost my father when I was a baby. He left home with the intention of going on a brief visit to Palestine, but, meeting on the way an ex-officer of the Anglo-Indian army, who had been engaged by the King of Abyssinia to help in the work of remodelling the Abyssinian army, he abandoned his idea of visiting the Holy Land, and decided to go to Abyssinia instead. What actually happened then will probably never be known. His death was reported to have taken place at Arkiko, a small village some two hours walking distance from Massowah, and from the letters[16] subsequently received from the French Consul at Massowah and several other people, as well as from the entries in his diary (the latter being recovered with other of his personal effects and sent home with them), there seems to have been little, if any, doubt that he was trapped and murdered, the object being robbery. The case created quite a sensation at the time, and is referred to in a work entitled "The Oriental Zig-zag," by Charles Hamilton, who, I believe, stayed some few years later at the house at Massowah, where my father lodged, and was stated to have shared his fate. With regard to the supernatural happenings in connection with the event. The house that my father had occupied before setting out for the East was semi-detached, the first house in a row, which at that time was not completed. It was situated in a distinctly lonely spot. On the one side of it, and to the rear, were gardens, bounded by fields, and people rarely visited the place after nightfall. On the night preceding my father's death, my mother was sitting in the dining-room, which overlooked the back garden, reading. It was a windy but fine night, and, save for the rustling of the leaves, and an occasional creaking of the shutters, absolutely still. Suddenly, from apparently just under the window, there rang out a series of the most harrowing screams. Immeasurably startled, and fearing, at first, that it was some woman being murdered in the garden, my mother summoned the servants, and they all listened. The sounds went on, every moment increasing in vehemence, and there was an intensity and eeriness about them that speedily convinced the hearers that they could be due to no earthly agency. After lasting several minutes they finally died away in a long, protracted wail, full of such agony and despair, that my mother and her companions were distressed beyond words. As soon as they could summon up the courage they went out and scoured the gardens, but though they looked everywhere, and there was little cover for anyone to hide, they could discover nothing that could in any way account for the noises. A dreadful fear then seized my mother. She believed that she had heard the Banshee which my father had often spoken about to her, and she was little surprised, when, in a few days time, the news reached her that my father was dead. He had died about dawn, the day after my mother and the servants had heard the screaming. I sent an account of the incident, together with other phenomena that happened about the same time, signed by two of the people who experienced them, to the Society for Psychical Research, who published it in their journal in the autumn of 1899. I have vivid recollections of my mother telling me about it when I was a little boy, and I remember that every time I heard the shutters in the room where we sat rattle, and the wind moan and sigh in the chimney, I fully expected to hear terrible shrieks ring out, and to see some white and ghastly face pressed against the window-panes, peering in at me. After these recitations I was terrified at the darkness, and endured, when alone in my bedroom, agonies of mind that no grown-up person, perhaps, could ever realise. The house and garden, so very bright and cheerful, and in every way ordinary, in the daytime, when the sun was out, seemed to be entirely metamorphosed directly it was dusk. Shadows assuredly stranger than any other shadows--for as far as I could see they had no material counterpart--used to congregate on the stairs, and darken the paths and lawn. There were always certain spots that frightened me more than others, a bend in one of the staircases, for example, the banisters on the top landing, a passage in the basement of the house, and the path leading from the gate to the front door. Even in the daytime, occasionally, I was chary about passing these places. I felt by instinct something uncanny was there; something that was grotesque and sinister, and which had specially malevolent designs toward me. When I was alone I hurried past, often with my eyes shut; and at night time, I am not ashamed to admit, I often ran. Yet, at that time I had no knowledge that others beside myself thought these things and had these experiences. I did not know, for instance, that once, when my youngest sister, who was a little older than I, was passing along that passage I so much dreaded, she heard, close beside her, a short, sharp laugh, or chuckle, and so expressive of hatred and derision, that the sound of it haunted her memory ever after. I also did not know then that one evening, immediately prior to my father's death, when another of my sisters was running up the stairs, she saw, peering down at her from over the banisters on that top landing I so much dreaded, a face which literally froze her with horror. Crowned with a mass of disordered tow-coloured hair, the skin tightly drawn over the bones like a mummy, it looked as if it had been buried for several months and then resurrected. The light, obliquely set eyes, suffused with baleful glee, stared straight at her, while the mouth, just such a mouth as might have made that chuckle, leered. It did not seem to her to be the face of anyone that had ever lived, but to belong to an entirely different species, and to be the creation of something wholly evil. She looked at it for some seconds, too petrified to move or cry out, until, her faculties gradually reassuring themselves, she turned round from the spot and flew downstairs. Some years later, just before the death of my mother, at about the same time of day and in precisely the same place, the head was again seen, this time by my younger sister, the one who had heard the ghostly chuckle. I think, without doubt, that the chuckle, no less than the head, must be attributed to the malignant Banshee. I may add, perhaps, without digressing too much, that supernatural happenings, apart from the Banshee, were associated with both my parents' deaths. On the night following my father's murder, and on every subsequent night for a period of six weeks, my mother and the servants were aroused regularly at twelve o'clock by a sound, as of someone hammering down the lids of packing-cases, issuing from the room in the basement of the house, which my father had always used as a study. They then heard footsteps ascending the stairs and pausing outside each bedroom in turn, which they all recognised as my father's, and, occasionally, my old nurse used to see the door of the night nursery open, and a light, like the light of a candle outside, whilst at the same time she would hear, proceeding from the landing, a quick jabber, jabber, jabber, as of someone talking very fast, and trying very hard to say something intelligible. No one was ever seen when this voice and the footsteps, said to be my father's, were heard, but this circumstance may be accounted for by the fact that my father, just before leaving Ireland, had remarked to my mother that, should anything happen to him abroad, he would in his spirit appear to her; and she, growing pale at the mere thought, begged him to do no such thing, whereupon he had laughingly replied: "Very well then, I will find some other means of communicating with you." Many manifestations of a similar nature to the foregoing, and also, like the foregoing, having nothing to do with the Banshee, occurred immediately after the death of my mother, but of these I must give an account on some future occasion. Years passed, and nothing more was seen or heard of the Banshee till I was grown up. After leaving school I went to Dublin to read with Dr Chetwode Crawley, in Ely Place, for the Royal Irish Constabulary, and I might, I think, have passed into that Force, had it not been for the fact that at the preliminary medical examination some never-to-be-forgotten and, as I thought then, intensely ill-natured doctor, rejected me. Accordingly, I never entered for the literary, but returned home thoroughly dispirited, and faced with the urgent necessity of at once looking around for something to do. However, in a very short time I had practically settled on going to America to a ranch out West (a most disastrous venture as it subsequently proved to be), and it was immediately after I had reached this decision that my first actual experience with what I believe to have been the malevolent family Banshee occurred. It happened in the same house in which the other supernatural occurrences had taken place. All the family, saving myself, were away at the time, and I was the sole occupant of one of the landings, the servants being all together on another floor. I had gone to bed early, and had been sleeping for some time, when I was awakened about two o'clock by a loud noise, for which I could not account, and which reverberated in my ears for fully half a minute. I was sitting up, still wondering what on earth could have produced it, when, immediately over my head, I heard a laugh, an abrupt kind of chuckle, that was so malicious and evil that I could not possibly attribute it to any human agency, but rather to some entity of wholly satanic origin, and which my instinct told me was one of our attendant Banshees. I got out of bed, struck a light, and made a thorough investigation, not only of the room, but the landing outside. There was no one there, nothing, as far as I could see, that could in any way explain the occurrence. I threw open the bedroom window and looked out. The night was beautiful--the sky brilliantly illuminated with moon and stars--and everything perfectly still, excepting for the very faintest rustling of the leaves as the soft night breeze swept through the branches and set them in motion. I listened for some time, but, the hush continuing, I at last got back again into bed, and eventually fell asleep. I mentioned the incident in the morning to the servants, and they, too, had heard it. A short time afterwards I went to the United States, and had the most unhappy and calamitous experience in my whole career. My next experience of the Banshee happened two or three years later, when, having returned from America, I was living in Cornwall, running a small preparatory school, principally for delicate boys. The house I occupied was quite new, in fact I was the first tenant, and had watched it being built. It was the last house in a terrace, and facing it was a cliff, at the foot of which ran a steep path leading to the beach. At this particular time there was no one in the house but my aged housekeeper, by name Mrs Bolitho, and myself, and whilst Mrs Bolitho slept in a room on the first floor, I was the sole occupant of the floor immediately above it. One night I had been sitting up writing, rather later than usual, and, being very tired, had dropped off to sleep, almost immediately after getting into bed. I woke about two o'clock hearing a curious kind of tapping noise coming along the passage that ran parallel with my bed. Wondering what it could be, I sat up and listened. There were only bare boards outside, and the noise was very clear and resonant, but difficult to analyse. It might have been produced by the very high heels of a lady's boot or shoe, or the bony foot of a skeleton. I could compare it with nothing else. On it came, tap, tap, tap, till it finally seemed to halt outside my door. There was then a pause, during which I could feel somebody or something was listening most earnestly, making sure, I thought, whether I was awake or not, and then a terrific crash on one of the top panels of the door. After this there was silence. I got up, and, somewhat timidly opening the door, for I more than half expected to find myself confronted with something peculiarly dreadful and uncanny, peeped cautiously out. There was nothing to be seen, however; nothing but the cold splendour of the moon, which, shining through a window nearly opposite me, filled the entire passage with its beams. I went into each of the rooms on the landing in turn, but they were all empty, and there was nothing anywhere that could in any way account for what I had heard. In the morning I questioned Mrs Bolitho, but she had heard nothing. "For a wonder," she said, "I slept very soundly all through the night, and only awoke when it was time to get up." Two days later I received tidings of the death of my uncle, Colonel John Vize O'Donnell of Trough.[17] He had died almost suddenly, his death occurring a few hours after I had heard the footsteps and the knock. Three years after this experience I had moved into another house in the same town--also a new house, and also the last in a terrace. At the rear, and on one side of it, was a garden, flanked by a hedge, beyond which were fields that led in almost unbroken succession to the coast. It could not be altogether described as occupying a lonely position, although the fields were little frequented after dusk. Well, one night my wife and I were awakened about midnight by a series of the most agonising and heart-rending screams, which, if like anything earthly at all, seemed to us to be more like the screams of a woman in the very direst distress. The cries were so terrible and sounded so near to us, almost, in fact, in the room, that we were both horribly alarmed, and hardly knew what to say or think. "Whatever is happening?" my wife whispered, catching hold of me by the arm, "and what is it?" "I don't know," was my reply, "unless it is the Banshee, for there is nobody else that could make such a noise." The screams continued for some seconds, and then died away in one long-drawn-out wail or sob. I waited for some minutes to see if there was a repetition of the sounds, and, there being none, I at length got up, and not, I confess, without considerable apprehensions, went out on to the landing, where I found several of the other inmates of the house collected together discussing with scared faces the screams which they, too, had heard. An examination of the house and grounds was at once made, but nothing was discerned that could in any way account for the sounds, and I adhered to my opinion that it must have been the Banshee; which opinion was very considerably strengthened, when, a few days later, I received the news that an aunt of mine, an O'Donnell, in County Kerry, had passed away within twenty-four hours of the time the screaming had occurred. It is, perhaps, a dozen years or so since we left Cornwall, and my latest experience of the Banshee took place in the house in which we are now living near the Crystal Palace. The experience occurred in connection with the death of my youngest sister. On the night preceding her decease I dreamed most vividly that I saw the figure of a female dressed in some loose-flowing, fantastic garment come up the path leading to the house, and knock very loudly several times, in quick succession, at the back door. I was going to answer, when a sudden terror held me back. "It's the Banshee," a voice whispered in my ear, "the Banshee. Don't let her in, she's coming for one of you." This so startled me that I awoke. I then found that my wife was awake also, trembling all over, and in a great state of excitement. "Did you hear that tremendous knock?" she whispered. "What!" I replied. "You don't mean to say there really was a knock? Why, I fancied it was only in my dream." "You may have dreamt it," she said, "but I didn't--I heard it; it was at this door, not at the front door. I say knock, but it was really a crash--a terrific crash on the top panel of the door." We anxiously waited to see if there would be a repetition, but, nothing happening, we lay down again, and eventually went to sleep. On the following day we received a telegram informing us that at ten o'clock that morning my sister had passed away. Since then, I am glad to relate I have not again come in contact with the Banshee. At the same time, however, there are occasions when I feel very acutely that she is not far away, and I am seldom, if ever, perhaps, absolutely free from an impression that she hovers near at hand, ready to manifest herself the moment either death or disaster threaten any member of my family. Moreover, that she takes a peculiar interest in my personal affairs, I have, alas, only too little reason to doubt.
