I am Irish and when I was young hearing the "Banshee" used to scare the feck outta me. Once I went fox hunting with my uncle all my fears were laid to rest. I am near 100percent sure that what most people think is a Banshee is a horny fox.
There is a paper written by Simon Young titled, "True Fairy Stories? Nineteenth-Century Irish Fairylore", which recounts some instances that were labeled as works of faeries that were most likely mundane. The story about the 'faerie pit' sticks out to me the most.
Yep, I had a vixen who used to scream outside of our house a few years ago. I'm sure she was a gorgeous animal but hearing her outside at 3 am while I tried to sleep was disturbing.
I feel like a lot of the animosity toward the Banshee is the "We Don't Talk About Bruno" effect. They portend terrible events, so people associate them with the events in bad spirit or even accuse them of causing the events, rather than just being there and knowing it'll happen and trying to warn you.
I was just about to say the same thing. People often mistake the byproducts of events fo the causes of them, and this very likely could be one such instance.
Please tell me that the "We Don't Talk About Bruno" Effect is an accepted concept in the world of academia; nothing would make me happier than something to contest the brilliance of the study claiming the rats they were testing were just too much of assholes to find any conclusive results.
In Appalachia, in the 1950s, banshees were spoken of as commonly present at night, especially in the woods. They were commonly considered to be female spirits mourning the death of a loved one belonging to her. The banshee was considered a bad onen suggesting death in the hearer's family. In Appalachia, the banshee wa considered a real entity that one never saw only heard.
Thanks for doing us proud. You made a great job of the Irish for someone who doesnt speak it, i was dreading listening but Im glad i got to enjoy instead
So the thing about the "Fomorians" is that they were Giants, but not necessarily in the traditional sense. They were basically mutants of a sort, and came in all shapes and sizes, and would interbreed with the normal humans. This lead to the creation of many of the Fae folk. So yes, technically Leprachauns are part Giant. More interestingly though, in its origiinal Gaelic spelling, the Fomorians translates to: "The Ones who came from Below" and/or "The Ones who came from the Sea"
Tracks with a lot of Western European mythology actually! One theory about the Norse, Greek, and Roman pantheons is that they’re mashups of the Indo-European and whatever was there before. Typically, fertility and agriculture gods and goddesses seem to predate the more warlike gods. The Titans are more elemental, while the Olympians are more civilizing. The Vanir are more associated with nature and farming, the Aesir more with war and trade.
The stories I was told said that the Fomorians were very ancient and were almost like a force of nature. They were said to have come from the same place that darkness came from and you had to travel by sea to get there. The Fomorian warlord Balor of the Evil Eye was said to have had a fortress on Tory Island of the coast of Donegal.
@@TheLoreLodge It's interesting how legends can continue to evolve in the modern times. There is a place in county Donegal called "The Poisoned Glen", local legend has it that the Fomorian warlord Balor was slain there when Lugh cast a spear into his eye, the blood that flowed from the eye was so poisonous that it split the stones and created the valley. The truth however, is less exciting. The true name of the valley is An Gleann Neamhe (The Heavenly Glen) as happened many times before and after, English cartographers not knowing Irish made a spelling error. In this case they spelled Neamhe as Neimhe which mean poison.
Honestly I really like this version of the Banshee, nowadays it's been put as an enemy class or magic thing you summon, but this makes it feel more like a natural thing, not a creature of evil or darkness, but just a force of mourning to signify death, a more peaceful and impactful interpretation, something that could be used for very powerful scenes or parts of a story.
2 things: - Firstly I'm sorry for your loss, recently went through the same thing and I know how much it hurts - Secondly nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope
In Cath Maige Tuired (The Battle of Magh Tuireadh) it's said that the goddess Brigid "invented" keening, after her son dies on the battlefield. I've always considered there to be a strong link between her and the Bean Sídhe. I believe it's also said they scream when a person of royal blood is going die? Which Brigid's son (Rúadán) was... He was also part Fomorian! "Brig came and keened for her son. At first she shrieked, in the end she wept. Then for the first time weeping and shrieking were heard in Ireland. (Now she is the Brig who invented a whistle for signalling at night.)"
I'm almost annoyed by how delighted I am by the fact that a video on the banshee requires a fifteen minute background ramble on the weird mythological history of Ireland. And Aiden pronounces Tuatha De Danaan correctly, which is a balm to my soul - as an Irish mythology nerd who's also cursed with an interest in the paranormal sheer number of times I've gritted my teeth at terrible butchering of the name is epic. 😂 You two make my day, so keep up the great work Aidens...
“Out from many a mud wall cabin; eyes were watching through the night Many a manly heart was beating for the blessed warning light Murmurs rang along the valleys to the banshee's lonely croon And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon.” Excerpt from The Rising of The Moon, as preformed by The Dubliners
Nah. These people knew what a fox sounded like. Nature was right outside their front door day and night. Nature was a part of their every day lives (unlike today where someone might hear a fox and freak out) and they knew what a fox sounded like. They also knew what a fox didn’t sound like. I believe them when they say it was something different. They’d know. And there were no mountain lions in Ireland or Scotland.
Except cougars and big cars are a recent feature of the british isles that the government deny. And British foxes dont sound as screamy as the american ones.
I'm from Ireland, living now in Egypt. I am 73 and yes there was a belief in the bean sidh when I was a child. They are said to wail before the death of people who have 'O'' or 'Mac' 'Mc'' in their surname. I have an O in mine!
I called the cops once years ago when I heard a cat screaming late one night. Didn't know it was a cat till later. I was convinced a child was being murdered. Was quite shook
Yeah foxes do scream like banshees. One screamed outside my window when I was a teenager, I came outside running thinking a woman was dying in my backyard.
Great video! It's always nice to hear people talking about Irish folklore. We've such a rich culture when it comes to stories of the supernatural that its a real shame at times how a lot of people only know Ireland for the Leprechaun. As someone that's lived in rural Ireland their whole live, I'd say superstition around the banshee is still pretty high, although that may just be because my parents grew up in the 70's and 80's when stories about it were more common. There's a canal about a twenty minute walk from my home where supposedly a banshee was seen by a neighbour's mother back when my dad was a kid (as well as other weird shit that's happened there, that canal is for sure haunted) and my mother maintains her grandfather met a banshee while enroute to a funeral in his community. Additionally I have friends that live in even more rural areas and their families have similar stories (about more than just the banshee ofc, Ireland's got a lot of persistent folklore). While I've definitely noticed a decline in banshee superstition among the general population since I was a kid in the early 2000s, growing up in an environment where it was treated as "a thing you might actually see" and not just a story definitely had an effect on me, to the point where the one time I had sleep paralysis I was convinced there was a banshee sitting in the corner of my room watching me. While as an adult I don't really believe in the banshee, it's just such a cultural cornerstone of rural Ireland that I'd be lying if I said the thought of maybe hearing it outside when I'm laying in bed late at night isn't something that enters my mind. Again fantastic video and thanks for giving some love to one of Ireland's most interesting sidhe!
Waterford native here. Americans are used to hearing their places mentioned in pop media all the time but I've never heard my home said out loud by a non-native on RUclips before.
I wonder how much the banshee stories may have been influenced by norse legends of valkyries. They choose the slain, ie appear at our before death, are often described with norse beauty standards (extremely long fair hair) and are visible on battlefields. (Darraðarljóð)
>I wonder how much the banshee stories may have been influenced by norse legends of valkyries. Probably not at all, since both developed out of the same source and were fully developed concepts when Irish and Norse "met again"
@@wolfi9933 right, because English didn't change in any way grammatically when it met it's cousin French. And the fruit and tubor of those tomato-potato hybrids aren't in any way affected because "both nightshade". Mixing related things together doesn't revert or do nothing to or decrease diversity, it synthesises a particular mix from, and adds it to the collective. How much mixing did celts and nords do mythologically? Can't say I'm a layman. Did it happen? Yep - sharing ideas and killing each other are to be assumed - we're human.
@@EchoLog >ight, because English didn't change in any way grammatically when it met it's cousin French. When these concepts developed there were neither english and french... >Mixing related things together doesn't revert or do nothing to or decrease diversity, it synthesises a particular mix from, and adds it to the collective. Yeah, but there is no Gaelic-Norse-Mythology. When the Norse people and the Gaelic peoples met, but of their mythologies were literally a over 1500 years old. The idea that the banshee was influenced by the valkyrie makes no sense because it already existed for hundreds of years and was already a well developed concept. The concept of a wailing/weeping woman spirit is found in a lot of indoeuropean cultures, like the German Winselmutter/Klagemutter, variations of the Slavic Midnight woman etc.
@@wolfi9933 my point is you're saying poets and bards and uncles around campfires never took inspiration from their neighbors, because their neighbors were the same as them, or at least the same long enough ago. Which is imbecilic. Only someone obsessed with a particular methodology would act in that way, composing their mythology as such.
@@EchoLog No, his point is that they didn't fucking need to, because celtic and Germanic cultures were both *A* roughly the same age and *B* diverged from a culture which, in all likelihood, had a "weeping woman of death" long before they split. I'll also note that Banshees and Valkyries are really not very similar at all, Banshees being an omen, while Valkyries are very specifically servants of the Divine who actively *choose* who dies in battle. Really the only similarity is that both take the form of a woman, and both have a vague association with the concept of "death".
holy shit! i'm Ossetian, from the Northern Caucasus (the republic of North Ossetia), Scythians and later Alans are my direct ancestors! hearing about them on this channel was the last thing I expected to encounter hahaha thank you Lore Lodge!
Boys. I have not even started the video and I'm in tears. I love banshee so much! I litterally dress as one every Samhain. I'm so hopeful for what you'll get into in this!!! (Also, worried. But hey, I'm sure I'll still love your work at the end)
Follow up; yall did amazing. My heart is full. Loved when you covered the different townships in what their appearances were. Telling the tale of how the Banshee are simply Mourners, not evil or with negative intent, was so good to hear. When the tales came to America it was twisted to saying they were scary and brought Death with them. I've always loved Banshee, as the idea of a creature that mournes you. That you were loved, and mattered enough to weep for. If always found that soothing. Interesting fact. The women who were Keeners were often paid in alcohol, rather than money or food, for their work, and it slowly killed them. They slowly starved to death as they traveled from parish to parish to weep for the dead. Would explain why they were so slight in frame. Amazingly, there was a woman in Ireland who was a traveling Banshee, who lived long enough to have her voice recorded!!! I've heard it somewhere on RUclips before. The practice has since seemed to die out as a career path. Covering the Bavenshee (I actually don't know the spelling, forgive me my ancestors...) was awesome!!! Cuz I haven't heard much of them before!!! Thank you for covering this!!!!! I love you guys still!!!
I'm 8 minutes in and that repetitive acoustic loop in the background is driving me bonkers. It's making it a real challenge for me to listen to this one, which is very saddening because I love Irish folklore!
Each British culture has a version of this legend. The Irish have the Banshee "The Fairy Woman," the Scottish have the Caoineag "The Wailer," the Welsh have Gwrach Y Rhibyn "The Hag of the Dribble (mist)," and the English have Old Shuck the spectral black dog. I think the English version may be different because of the Germanic origins of the English.
Here in brazil we have a similar legend called "rasga mortalha". Usually it's an old hag that can shape shift into a bird/owl or some kind of bird with human head, and it appears to announce people's death
I'm from South Texas, I heard a scream one night outside the home where we use to live near Saxet Lake here in South texas. It was a woman's cry, blend of a scream & cry & moan that was so ugly it literally made the hair on the back of my neck & arms stand up so bad. I had to stand up. From where I was sitting in the house, I had to stand up Shake myself aware of the situation. A week later, my girlfriends father died he was elderly. I think The cry was a warning of death to come to come near.
In the American South 1850-1960, approximately, keening was a fairly commonly heard verb meaning "bucklinv over at the waist or while seated leaning toward a dead person with one's face toward the ground." See Faulkner or Calvin Brown's reference.
This was a great clip. You have a true gift of storytelling. You're very knowledgeable, relatable & down to Earth. Oh,& funny too. Keep up the great work!!😎👍👍
@@jandt9784 La Llorona is one of the most well known Mexican folktales "cucuy" is a word my parents would say to scare me when the house makes a noise. Basically "ooh the Boogeyman" 😂
Great video and history lesson. I love these videos- my Norse Gaelic heart loves to hear about history, the migration of humans and the best explanation of why we understand what we know at this point.
This is awesome have you heard the myth surrounding the cry of a screech owl signifying the death of someone close to you I wonder if there's a connection I've tried researching it but can't find anything maybe you'll have better luck Love your videos always interesting and really helpful I'm working on trying to Write my own fantasy story We also have a superstition in my family where we don't ever cut our hair on Sundays
My family has some members that believe in the owl thing too! My great aunt in particular was always suspicious about them and she always rolls this story about an owl showing up at her mother’s funeral. When my grandma passed away, she came to the house and suddenly an owl starts showing up in the nearby woods 🦉
this is honestly really interesting. both of my parents have terminal cancer and i swear ever since they got their diagnosis’, we’ve been hearing an owl nearby
As a kid, I used to love Darby O'Gill and the Little People, and to this day, the beansidhe in it scares me more than anything else I've ever seen on a screen.
Great presentation Part of my family were Irish and were stationed near Carna - allegedly a very spooky place.Stories of people from the early 20th century disappearing into faerie caves and being offered a feast etc.I have a few of them written down somewhere...Supposedly crows gathered when they were passing.
@lorelodge I heard the banshee in Afghanistan when an IED killed one of our corpsmen. The wail started before the IED went off and I heard it from the patrol base. It was as described when this video talks about north west Irish county accounts. An impossibly loud and piercing kind of human shriek. Nobody else heard it and I didn’t know we had a KIA yet. Many legends involve the banshee being drawn to rivers. We were on the banks of the kajaki.
If you've ever played "kingdoms of Amalur", it touched a lot on many of the fae mythology. It's quite interesting how they integrated the myths into the gameplay itself, such as the faefolk in the courts of summer, fall, spring, and winter. Other things like the Sidhe is an actual area on the map.
Thank you so much for this, I just seen this! I've always loved the actual story of the banshee that's known, it makes me feel a little more connected to part of my ancestry (Irish blood on two counts, a bit of Scottish too) as well as its fun to learn about cultures
The description of the baobhan sith reminds me a lot of the Swedish skogsrå or Norwegian huldra. Though, at least in the case of the former, all she does is lure men into the forest until they get lost and then she leaves them there. Anyway, they look like beautiful women except something is wrong with them when viewed from behind: They may have animal tails, a hollow opening in their back, or a back covered in tree bark.
If you're familiar with The Cranberries song Zombie, the singing style utilized is very similar to Irish keening. Gives you a better idea of what a banshee might sound like
My name is spelt Aoibhe, I had no idea there was a specifc banshee with a similar name lol, also your knowledge of irish history/mythology is very impressive! (Watching this from Galway rn)
Omg, i nearly died when I heard you try to say any of those names!!! Not even close, and of course, they aren't spelt as you would expect as it is a totally different language! Banshees are old folks' tails and it is generally believed it is just a screaming fox. We have a lot of foxes here in Ireland. (example of screaming fox ruclips.net/video/g6v2tpJ24d4/видео.html ) Note: Also, I am full-blooded Irish and have naturally blond hair!
An interesting thing to note on your mentioning that most people never wrote down the background of banshees: this is also why we really don't know how ancient battles were fought. That is, no one really explained HOW the battles were conducted because it was assumed everyone reading already understood the mechanics. So while we have a rough idea of how battles MIGHT have even conducted, our actual first-hand sources are basically nil.
Fun fact, @33:52 that's my dads home village of Cloghane, shot from the Conor Pass, Co.Kerry (in the distance) on the other side of the pass is Dingle. 😍
So my great aunt, who lives in Kentucky (we r swiss German, not Irish btw) and she was hearing rattling chains and banging and wailing outside her front door. (She thought it was a demon trying to get in cuz she is very Catholic). But not too long later her husband died. This video reminded me of it, and even though we rnt Irish, and this was in Kentucky, this story is eerily family to what happens to my great aunt. (We r descended from a Germanic royal family so idk if they have banshees too, idk but this is very interesting)
Thanks for bringing up Proto-Indo-European! Yep, most of the languages of Europe and India, as well as Persian languages, are all related. In Europe, it broke down to the Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages. The real mystery is the existence of language isolates, like (as you pointed out) Basque, and to a lesser degree, Hungarian and Finnish. They're just weird. On a less positive note, quite literally, the repetitive music in the background drove me quietly crazy while I was listening to this.
What about banshees? Aren't they part of Irish folklore? There's a great movie about it with Sean Connery called "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" from a long time ago. The banshee in it is super scary. They had amazing special effects in the 50s and 60s it seems.
🇬🇧To hear the sound of Keening Which is unique & makes your skin go goosebumps Listen to a song by the Cranberries( an Irish Band) called Zombie The female singer the late Dolores O Riordan is a brilliant Keener Also the recently departed singer Sinead O Connor also adds Keening to some of her songs Sinead is one of my favourite female singers & id recommend her album " I do not want, What i have not got" All of the tracks are amazing Anyway both Dolores & Sinead both Keen on some of their songs & its unique talent & does sound unearthly! Thank you for the vid, Irish folklore & legend is just so Compelling. Peace 🇬🇧👧
This is very informative, fascinating even, however I am personally more interested in the contextual/etymological background on the drinking fairy of Irish mythology. The one that makes us drink every time we hear a glass clink or someone breathe 😝
If the next Coffee bit isn't him flinching in aniticpation, thinking he's in the clear and then gets hit anyways, I am Rioting. Good Video though. Appreciate these videos as a night shift guy. Keep it up!
Normally I listen to these when I’m relaxing or working out but the music in the background absolutely drove me crazy, the repetition of the banjo sound made me lose it. Only 15 minutes in too
Woah woah woah , genuine Irish person here… one of the best things is watching your vids and thinking none of this shit goes down over here, no Bigfoot sightings etc 😂 good vid 🇮🇪☘️💪🏼
Aidan, I remember a story where a person comes upon a woman who is wailing. It’s said that if she is at a stream and washing a garment it is a banshee who is foretelling your demise. This story also has the woman as an old crone or alternatively a beautiful young woman. Supposedly if you hear the wail, someone in the family will die, but if you she her (especially washing blood from a garment), then your death is imminent. I’m 64 years old and I remember my grandmother telling me that when I was a kid. Of course, she could tell some pretty wild stories. LOL. Brenda (formerly McCormick)
In Trinidad and Tobago, we have the La Diablesse, which is a woman in a long white dress, under which hides a hoofed foot (cow) and a normal foot. She wears broad rim hat to hide her face, it's also known to lure men into the forest.
with the tolkien elf tuatha de comparison, may I also note both ended up giving up all their land in the world of men for a mysterious land across the sea to the west. May I also add that in tolkien's mythos, when an elf stayed in middle earth too long and didn't return across the sea, their body faded, at which point they are called back by the judge god, but they can say no, so it's possible there are bad elves that are just bodiless phantoms, able perhaps to give people feelings like the ring wraiths who are going through a similar predicament brought on by the rings, or perhaps even move things and make sounds.... like a banshee Also the hair thing, Galadriel has silvery-golden hair, and gives to Gimli three hairs from her head as a sign of honor, as she refused to give even one hair to her talented though troubled cousin Feanor... This just keeps getting deeper
15:39 it should be noted, that Tolkien based his elves off the Old English Aelfr, not necessarily the norse ones. There is, if I'm not mistaken, almost 1500 years of divergence between North Germanic and Continental germanic cultures, though the exact number might be smaller if I'm stupid.
Not sure how I missed this I've been subbed for a couple years an never missed and Bussy Bois upload. Wonder what else ShitTube is hiding from me like all my Music.
Being Irish, I remember when I was a kid, the stories of the banshee scared the fuck out of me. Then my dad told me they only haunt family's that begin with "O'" like "O'Connell, etc..." then I went into school the next day and told him he was going to die because his surname started with O
I've heard the Bean-Sidhe twice in my life. Once before my uncle Tivis died and again while walking down the road with two friends named "Mike". The scream sounded Owlish and stretched out inhumanly long into the name "Miiikkkkeeeee!"at the end. Let me tell you...both Mikes were GONE when I turned around! Also both Mikes had a brush with death that year...although both did live. This makes me believe sometimes they warn us when we're courting danger in the way we're living. I expected to hear the Bean-Sidhe when my grandma died...but instead an owl flew by us after we got the phone call that they were talking her off life support. The owl flew by my brother and I in full day light as we sat by the garage door talking about the phone call. The owl not only flew by us in broad daylight, but it made all kinds of noises as it flew by. I've seen owls before...but never during the day and the owls I've seen never made noises after they seen me.
Great video! I was going to make a banshee for my fantasy world and make it a species of particularly large howler monkey with long hair. Now I’m not sure if I should do that due to inaccurate banshee depiction.
I am Irish and when I was young hearing the "Banshee" used to scare the feck outta me. Once I went fox hunting with my uncle all my fears were laid to rest. I am near 100percent sure that what most people think is a Banshee is a horny fox.
There is a paper written by Simon Young titled, "True Fairy Stories? Nineteenth-Century Irish Fairylore", which recounts some instances that were labeled as works of faeries that were most likely mundane. The story about the 'faerie pit' sticks out to me the most.
🤣 I'm telling everyone this for thr rest of my life
Yep, I had a vixen who used to scream outside of our house a few years ago. I'm sure she was a gorgeous animal but hearing her outside at 3 am while I tried to sleep was disturbing.
I have to disagree. People knew what Foxes sound like. Also some of the banshees were described as sounding similar to a fox, others weren't.
red cloak and vixen fox reference made me think the same.
A horny fox or rabid one...
I feel like a lot of the animosity toward the Banshee is the "We Don't Talk About Bruno" effect. They portend terrible events, so people associate them with the events in bad spirit or even accuse them of causing the events, rather than just being there and knowing it'll happen and trying to warn you.
I was just about to say the same thing. People often mistake the byproducts of events fo the causes of them, and this very likely could be one such instance.
@@beansforwhat It's a terrible human tendency. So prevalent that the term "Don't kill the messenger" became necessary.
Please tell me that the "We Don't Talk About Bruno" Effect is an accepted concept in the world of academia; nothing would make me happier than something to contest the brilliance of the study claiming the rats they were testing were just too much of assholes to find any conclusive results.
Kinda similar to what people say about the Mothman. He doesn't kill people he doesn't bring death, he just warns about it, and people blame him
Like the Mothman too
In Appalachia, in the 1950s, banshees were spoken of as commonly present at night, especially in the woods. They were commonly considered to be female spirits mourning the death of a loved one belonging to her. The banshee was considered a bad onen suggesting death in the hearer's family. In Appalachia, the banshee wa considered a real entity that one never saw only heard.
Ya the Appalachian mt were apart of an Irish mt rang
Thanks for doing us proud. You made a great job of the Irish for someone who doesnt speak it, i was dreading listening but Im glad i got to enjoy instead
I tried my best, I’m sure I still missed a few but I hope the thought counts 😅
So the thing about the "Fomorians" is that they were Giants, but not necessarily in the traditional sense. They were basically mutants of a sort, and came in all shapes and sizes, and would interbreed with the normal humans. This lead to the creation of many of the Fae folk. So yes, technically Leprachauns are part Giant. More interestingly though, in its origiinal Gaelic spelling, the Fomorians translates to: "The Ones who came from Below" and/or "The Ones who came from the Sea"
Puts a different spooky spin on it, why would they name it in that way if they didn’t see where the Fomorians came from?
Tracks with a lot of Western European mythology actually! One theory about the Norse, Greek, and Roman pantheons is that they’re mashups of the Indo-European and whatever was there before.
Typically, fertility and agriculture gods and goddesses seem to predate the more warlike gods. The Titans are more elemental, while the Olympians are more civilizing. The Vanir are more associated with nature and farming, the Aesir more with war and trade.
The stories I was told said that the Fomorians were very ancient and were almost like a force of nature. They were said to have come from the same place that darkness came from and you had to travel by sea to get there. The Fomorian warlord Balor of the Evil Eye was said to have had a fortress on Tory Island of the coast of Donegal.
@@TheLoreLodge It's interesting how legends can continue to evolve in the modern times. There is a place in county Donegal called "The Poisoned Glen", local legend has it that the Fomorian warlord Balor was slain there when Lugh cast a spear into his eye, the blood that flowed from the eye was so poisonous that it split the stones and created the valley. The truth however, is less exciting. The true name of the valley is An Gleann Neamhe (The Heavenly Glen) as happened many times before and after, English cartographers not knowing Irish made a spelling error. In this case they spelled Neamhe as Neimhe which mean poison.
This is so interesting- thank you so, so much for sharing
Honestly I really like this version of the Banshee, nowadays it's been put as an enemy class or magic thing you summon, but this makes it feel more like a natural thing, not a creature of evil or darkness, but just a force of mourning to signify death, a more peaceful and impactful interpretation, something that could be used for very powerful scenes or parts of a story.
Glad to see some Irish folklore on the channel!
My grandmother passed on Tuesday. I swear about 8 hours before she actually passed I heard a loud scream. I thought it was my cat. It was not.
i’m so sorry for your loss
2 things:
- Firstly I'm sorry for your loss, recently went through the same thing and I know how much it hurts
- Secondly nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope
A friend heard it the night his friend died in a car crash
@@Lazarou101 aw don't worry it was probably a fox or something...... probably......why do I hear screaming?
In Cath Maige Tuired (The Battle of Magh Tuireadh) it's said that the goddess Brigid "invented" keening, after her son dies on the battlefield. I've always considered there to be a strong link between her and the Bean Sídhe. I believe it's also said they scream when a person of royal blood is going die? Which Brigid's son (Rúadán) was... He was also part Fomorian!
"Brig came and keened for her son. At first she shrieked, in the end she wept. Then for the first time weeping and shrieking were heard in Ireland. (Now she is the Brig who invented a whistle for signalling at night.)"
I'm almost annoyed by how delighted I am by the fact that a video on the banshee requires a fifteen minute background ramble on the weird mythological history of Ireland. And Aiden pronounces Tuatha De Danaan correctly, which is a balm to my soul - as an Irish mythology nerd who's also cursed with an interest in the paranormal sheer number of times I've gritted my teeth at terrible butchering of the name is epic. 😂 You two make my day, so keep up the great work Aidens...
When you're Mexican, but there's a chance your grandpa was Irish (need a DNA test to confirm first), there's two options the wailing could be now 😭
You get a family specific Llorona 😭💀
Welcome to the club lad... 🇮🇪🍀🍻
That's tough just cause history too. It's like "England did this to us TWICE?!"
Cartel victim
Me children 😂
“Out from many a mud wall cabin; eyes were watching through the night
Many a manly heart was beating for the blessed warning light
Murmurs rang along the valleys to the banshee's lonely croon
And a thousand pikes were flashing by the rising of the moon.” Excerpt from The Rising of The Moon, as preformed by The Dubliners
Love It! One of my all time favs!
And where is the gathering we are to meet by the river that is well know to u and me
@@horseandyogsim3348 One word more for signal taken, whistle up the marching tune...
Well they fought for dear old Ireland and full bitter was their fate!
Hearing your pronunciation of half the counties makes my soul weep Aiden
I only had so much time to research this one 😅
@The Lore Lodge Ahhh, its all good haha, sure it's far from the worst I've heard :p
If you've ever heard a fox or cougar mating call, you can guess where these banshee and banshee adjacent myths come from pretty easily.
The night before grandmother passed away the foxes were keening outside. I know they were foxes, by I'm not sure it was a coincidence.
Nah. These people knew what a fox sounded like. Nature was right outside their front door day and night. Nature was a part of their every day lives (unlike today where someone might hear a fox and freak out) and they knew what a fox sounded like. They also knew what a fox didn’t sound like. I believe them when they say it was something different. They’d know.
And there were no mountain lions in Ireland or Scotland.
Except cougars and big cars are a recent feature of the british isles that the government deny. And British foxes dont sound as screamy as the american ones.
I'm from Ireland, living now in Egypt. I am 73 and yes there was a belief in the bean sidh when I was a child. They are said to wail before the death of people who have 'O'' or 'Mac' 'Mc'' in their surname. I have an O in mine!
Remember, kids: If you hear weird screaming in the woods that isn't quite human, it's almost certainly a red fox or bobcat and not a mythical entity.
True, but I don’t really want to be around of the three…woods aren’t for me anyways, I guess.
I called the cops once years ago when I heard a cat screaming late one night. Didn't know it was a cat till later. I was convinced a child was being murdered. Was quite shook
@@cabbageo_0 can't relate. Constantly outside. The woods grow less scary the more you're in them and realize everything is more scared of you.
Yeah foxes do scream like banshees. One screamed outside my window when I was a teenager, I came outside running thinking a woman was dying in my backyard.
The scream of a fox at night is rather chilling. It will scare the crap out of you!!
OH man, I'm so glad you included all that historical stuff I didn't know! The Tuatha De have some perfect aspects to fit into a story I'm writing 😍
Great video! It's always nice to hear people talking about Irish folklore. We've such a rich culture when it comes to stories of the supernatural that its a real shame at times how a lot of people only know Ireland for the Leprechaun. As someone that's lived in rural Ireland their whole live, I'd say superstition around the banshee is still pretty high, although that may just be because my parents grew up in the 70's and 80's when stories about it were more common.
There's a canal about a twenty minute walk from my home where supposedly a banshee was seen by a neighbour's mother back when my dad was a kid (as well as other weird shit that's happened there, that canal is for sure haunted) and my mother maintains her grandfather met a banshee while enroute to a funeral in his community. Additionally I have friends that live in even more rural areas and their families have similar stories (about more than just the banshee ofc, Ireland's got a lot of persistent folklore).
While I've definitely noticed a decline in banshee superstition among the general population since I was a kid in the early 2000s, growing up in an environment where it was treated as "a thing you might actually see" and not just a story definitely had an effect on me, to the point where the one time I had sleep paralysis I was convinced there was a banshee sitting in the corner of my room watching me. While as an adult I don't really believe in the banshee, it's just such a cultural cornerstone of rural Ireland that I'd be lying if I said the thought of maybe hearing it outside when I'm laying in bed late at night isn't something that enters my mind. Again fantastic video and thanks for giving some love to one of Ireland's most interesting sidhe!
You should cover vampire legends and missing persons reports and cold cases.
Waterford native here. Americans are used to hearing their places mentioned in pop media all the time but I've never heard my home said out loud by a non-native on RUclips before.
I wonder how much the banshee stories may have been influenced by norse legends of valkyries. They choose the slain, ie appear at our before death, are often described with norse beauty standards (extremely long fair hair) and are visible on battlefields. (Darraðarljóð)
>I wonder how much the banshee stories may have been influenced by norse legends of valkyries.
Probably not at all, since both developed out of the same source and were fully developed concepts when Irish and Norse "met again"
@@wolfi9933 right, because English didn't change in any way grammatically when it met it's cousin French.
And the fruit and tubor of those tomato-potato hybrids aren't in any way affected because "both nightshade".
Mixing related things together doesn't revert or do nothing to or decrease diversity, it synthesises a particular mix from, and adds it to the collective.
How much mixing did celts and nords do mythologically? Can't say I'm a layman.
Did it happen? Yep - sharing ideas and killing each other are to be assumed - we're human.
@@EchoLog >ight, because English didn't change in any way grammatically when it met it's cousin French.
When these concepts developed there were neither english and french...
>Mixing related things together doesn't revert or do nothing to or decrease diversity, it synthesises a particular mix from, and adds it to the collective.
Yeah, but there is no Gaelic-Norse-Mythology.
When the Norse people and the Gaelic peoples met, but of their mythologies were literally a over 1500 years old.
The idea that the banshee was influenced by the valkyrie makes no sense because it already existed for hundreds of years and was already a well developed concept.
The concept of a wailing/weeping woman spirit is found in a lot of indoeuropean cultures, like the German Winselmutter/Klagemutter, variations of the Slavic Midnight woman etc.
@@wolfi9933 my point is you're saying poets and bards and uncles around campfires never took inspiration from their neighbors, because their neighbors were the same as them, or at least the same long enough ago.
Which is imbecilic. Only someone obsessed with a particular methodology would act in that way, composing their mythology as such.
@@EchoLog No, his point is that they didn't fucking need to, because celtic and Germanic cultures were both *A* roughly the same age and *B* diverged from a culture which, in all likelihood, had a "weeping woman of death" long before they split. I'll also note that Banshees and Valkyries are really not very similar at all, Banshees being an omen, while Valkyries are very specifically servants of the Divine who actively *choose* who dies in battle. Really the only similarity is that both take the form of a woman, and both have a vague association with the concept of "death".
holy shit! i'm Ossetian, from the Northern Caucasus (the republic of North Ossetia), Scythians and later Alans are my direct ancestors! hearing about them on this channel was the last thing I expected to encounter hahaha thank you Lore Lodge!
Boys. I have not even started the video and I'm in tears. I love banshee so much! I litterally dress as one every Samhain. I'm so hopeful for what you'll get into in this!!! (Also, worried. But hey, I'm sure I'll still love your work at the end)
Follow up; yall did amazing. My heart is full. Loved when you covered the different townships in what their appearances were.
Telling the tale of how the Banshee are simply Mourners, not evil or with negative intent, was so good to hear. When the tales came to America it was twisted to saying they were scary and brought Death with them.
I've always loved Banshee, as the idea of a creature that mournes you. That you were loved, and mattered enough to weep for. If always found that soothing.
Interesting fact. The women who were Keeners were often paid in alcohol, rather than money or food, for their work, and it slowly killed them. They slowly starved to death as they traveled from parish to parish to weep for the dead. Would explain why they were so slight in frame. Amazingly, there was a woman in Ireland who was a traveling Banshee, who lived long enough to have her voice recorded!!! I've heard it somewhere on RUclips before. The practice has since seemed to die out as a career path.
Covering the Bavenshee (I actually don't know the spelling, forgive me my ancestors...) was awesome!!! Cuz I haven't heard much of them before!!!
Thank you for covering this!!!!! I love you guys still!!!
Oh my God 😂 that offhand O'Keefe reference. I knew there's a reason I love this channel even beyond the cool stories.
I'm 8 minutes in and that repetitive acoustic loop in the background is driving me bonkers. It's making it a real challenge for me to listen to this one, which is very saddening because I love Irish folklore!
I made it to 20 min. Sucks because I really liked this one. The loop is actually aggravating.
Me: Oh boy, a new Lore Lodge video about folklore!! And it's about the Banshee? I can't wait!
My Irish ancestors: 👁👄👁
Each British culture has a version of this legend. The Irish have the Banshee "The Fairy Woman," the Scottish have the Caoineag "The Wailer," the Welsh have Gwrach Y Rhibyn "The Hag of the Dribble (mist)," and the English have Old Shuck the spectral black dog. I think the English version may be different because of the Germanic origins of the English.
Here in brazil we have a similar legend called "rasga mortalha". Usually it's an old hag that can shape shift into a bird/owl or some kind of bird with human head, and it appears to announce people's death
I'm from South Texas, I heard a scream one night outside the home where we use to live near Saxet Lake here in South texas. It was a woman's cry, blend of a scream & cry & moan that was so ugly it literally made the hair on the back of my neck & arms stand up so bad. I had to stand up. From where I was sitting in the house, I had to stand up Shake myself aware of the situation. A week later, my girlfriends father died he was elderly. I think The cry was a warning of death to come to come near.
I am highly interested in these kinds of folklore and myth, so this is a very exciting topic to see covered!
If you've ever cried really hard to where you do those quick shaky inhales, I imagine thats what they mean by hiccups
It's pretty neat to hear about just a few of the things that inspired illwinter when they were making the Dominions game series
In the American South 1850-1960, approximately, keening was a fairly commonly heard verb meaning "bucklinv over at the waist or while seated leaning toward a dead person with one's face toward the ground." See Faulkner or Calvin Brown's reference.
Again, absolutely fascinating. I cannot express how enthralled by this video I have been. You do such a great job with these.
This was a great clip. You have a true gift of storytelling. You're very knowledgeable, relatable & down to Earth. Oh,& funny too. Keep up the great work!!😎👍👍
You should do a video on La Llorona for all the Mexican folk
Never heard of ( assuming)her. Seems the more popular lore is the cucoey that I embarrassingly only first heard of from the TV show supernatural
@@jandt9784 la llorona is one of the most (if not the most) well known/popular mexican folktales.
@@jandt9784 La Llorona is one of the most well known Mexican folktales "cucuy" is a word my parents would say to scare me when the house makes a noise. Basically "ooh the Boogeyman" 😂
Great video and history lesson. I love these videos- my Norse Gaelic heart loves to hear about history, the migration of humans and the best explanation of why we understand what we know at this point.
Count Dankula speculated that the Banshee might be a fox, which sounds often like a woman screaming.
This is awesome have you heard the myth surrounding the cry of a screech owl signifying the death of someone close to you I wonder if there's a connection I've tried researching it but can't find anything maybe you'll have better luck Love your videos always interesting and really helpful I'm working on trying to Write my own fantasy story We also have a superstition in my family where we don't ever cut our hair on Sundays
I believe the owl screech is a native American tale? I know Owls represented Death for many tribes, for how silent and swiftly they kill.
My family has some members that believe in the owl thing too! My great aunt in particular was always suspicious about them and she always rolls this story about an owl showing up at her mother’s funeral. When my grandma passed away, she came to the house and suddenly an owl starts showing up in the nearby woods 🦉
If you're working on writing a story, you should start by using punctuation to form sentences .
My Aunt told be they were screeching the night before my uncle died!
this is honestly really interesting. both of my parents have terminal cancer and i swear ever since they got their diagnosis’, we’ve been hearing an owl nearby
As a kid, I used to love Darby O'Gill and the Little People, and to this day, the beansidhe in it scares me more than anything else I've ever seen on a screen.
very happy to learn more about irish folklore
Great presentation Part of my family were Irish and were stationed near Carna - allegedly a very spooky place.Stories of people from the early 20th century disappearing into faerie caves and being offered a feast etc.I have a few of them written down somewhere...Supposedly crows gathered when they were passing.
It was awesome hearing u mention the Scythians!!
@lorelodge
I heard the banshee in Afghanistan when an IED killed one of our corpsmen.
The wail started before the IED went off and I heard it from the patrol base.
It was as described when this video talks about north west Irish county accounts.
An impossibly loud and piercing kind of human shriek.
Nobody else heard it and I didn’t know we had a KIA yet.
Many legends involve the banshee being drawn to rivers. We were on the banks of the kajaki.
One form of the banshee was a woman washing bloody clothing in a river.
I LOVE the extent of the facts and, especially, the history you provide. AWESOME!!
If you've ever played "kingdoms of Amalur", it touched a lot on many of the fae mythology. It's quite interesting how they integrated the myths into the gameplay itself, such as the faefolk in the courts of summer, fall, spring, and winter. Other things like the Sidhe is an actual area on the map.
Thank you so much for this, I just seen this! I've always loved the actual story of the banshee that's known, it makes me feel a little more connected to part of my ancestry (Irish blood on two counts, a bit of Scottish too) as well as its fun to learn about cultures
The title of this video is unhinged in the best way possible
The description of the baobhan sith reminds me a lot of the Swedish skogsrå or Norwegian huldra. Though, at least in the case of the former, all she does is lure men into the forest until they get lost and then she leaves them there. Anyway, they look like beautiful women except something is wrong with them when viewed from behind: They may have animal tails, a hollow opening in their back, or a back covered in tree bark.
If you're familiar with The Cranberries song Zombie, the singing style utilized is very similar to Irish keening. Gives you a better idea of what a banshee might sound like
How am I supposed to see this video title and not click? I can't just scroll away
I love all your history info. Thanks for the stories
That intro just sent me into fits of laughter! God, I enjoyed that.
4:05 you just explained my grandmas lineage! So cool!
I find the rock mound aspect to be very interesting. When these oral traditions were being told, the rock mound were already there!
My name is spelt Aoibhe, I had no idea there was a specifc banshee with a similar name lol, also your knowledge of irish history/mythology is very impressive! (Watching this from Galway rn)
How do you pronounce it lovely
Omg, i nearly died when I heard you try to say any of those names!!! Not even close, and of course, they aren't spelt as you would expect as it is a totally different language! Banshees are old folks' tails and it is generally believed it is just a screaming fox. We have a lot of foxes here in Ireland. (example of screaming fox ruclips.net/video/g6v2tpJ24d4/видео.html ) Note: Also, I am full-blooded Irish and have naturally blond hair!
An interesting thing to note on your mentioning that most people never wrote down the background of banshees: this is also why we really don't know how ancient battles were fought. That is, no one really explained HOW the battles were conducted because it was assumed everyone reading already understood the mechanics.
So while we have a rough idea of how battles MIGHT have even conducted, our actual first-hand sources are basically nil.
See! I came back to watch it a second time since once wasn’t good enough for you, Aidens!
Fun fact, @33:52 that's my dads home village of Cloghane, shot from the Conor Pass, Co.Kerry (in the distance) on the other side of the pass is Dingle. 😍
So my great aunt, who lives in Kentucky (we r swiss German, not Irish btw) and she was hearing rattling chains and banging and wailing outside her front door. (She thought it was a demon trying to get in cuz she is very Catholic). But not too long later her husband died. This video reminded me of it, and even though we rnt Irish, and this was in Kentucky, this story is eerily family to what happens to my great aunt. (We r descended from a Germanic royal family so idk if they have banshees too, idk but this is very interesting)
Thanks for bringing up Proto-Indo-European! Yep, most of the languages of Europe and India, as well as Persian languages, are all related. In Europe, it broke down to the Romance, Germanic, and Slavic languages. The real mystery is the existence of language isolates, like (as you pointed out) Basque, and to a lesser degree, Hungarian and Finnish. They're just weird.
On a less positive note, quite literally, the repetitive music in the background drove me quietly crazy while I was listening to this.
Glad you have a video on old Celtic Pagan Tales.
Can you do more videos on Irish/Celtic folklore please
I’d like this as well!
I love the music in the background
What about banshees? Aren't they part of Irish folklore? There's a great movie about it with Sean Connery called "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" from a long time ago. The banshee in it is super scary. They had amazing special effects in the 50s and 60s it seems.
I love it when the coffee bag smacks you in the face when you say it's name
So some guy shows up in Ireland talking about himself turning into a salmon for 5500 years.... was he drunk? He sounds drunk.
🇬🇧To hear the sound of Keening
Which is unique & makes your skin go goosebumps
Listen to a song by the Cranberries( an Irish Band) called Zombie
The female singer the late
Dolores O Riordan is a brilliant Keener
Also the recently departed singer
Sinead O Connor also adds Keening to some of her songs
Sinead is one of my favourite female singers & id recommend her album
" I do not want, What i have not got"
All of the tracks are amazing
Anyway both Dolores & Sinead both Keen on some of their songs & its unique talent & does sound unearthly!
Thank you for the vid, Irish folklore & legend is just so
Compelling.
Peace
🇬🇧👧
The coffee is awesome! Just finished my first bag
This is very informative, fascinating even, however I am personally more interested in the contextual/etymological background on the drinking fairy of Irish mythology. The one that makes us drink every time we hear a glass clink or someone breathe 😝
Oh shit, the drinking fairy is here! Time to drink *again*....
If the next Coffee bit isn't him flinching in aniticpation, thinking he's in the clear and then gets hit anyways, I am Rioting. Good Video though. Appreciate these videos as a night shift guy. Keep it up!
Normally I listen to these when I’m relaxing or working out but the music in the background absolutely drove me crazy, the repetition of the banjo sound made me lose it. Only 15 minutes in too
Dude, that was awesome!
Another excellent episode, Aidan(s)!!
I have 2 friends named Aiden and Aden but with this channel I have 2 more
Cool thing about the white hair, is that red hair generally doesn't grey with age, it turns white.
I can attest to that.
"Siouxse and the Banshees" is one of the most badass band names of all.
"Also, if you're off in the forest, and a deer-hooved woman comes out to get it on with you, you probably shouldn't do it."
Ah crap!
There goes my weekend plans :(
Ah goddamn it. Alright I'll go do something else
Woah woah woah , genuine Irish person here… one of the best things is watching your vids and thinking none of this shit goes down over here, no Bigfoot sightings etc 😂 good vid 🇮🇪☘️💪🏼
Love the sponsor ad yet again. Do you ship to Australia?
The version I heard from my Grandfather was that everyone except for the person who is going to die can hear the Banshee wailing
That’s one of the cool things about this legend, it varies just a bit from place to place, so it really does feel like each family may have their own
Aidan, I remember a story where a person comes upon a woman who is wailing. It’s said that if she is at a stream and washing a garment it is a banshee who is foretelling your demise. This story also has the woman as an old crone or alternatively a beautiful young woman. Supposedly if you hear the wail, someone in the family will die, but if you she her (especially washing blood from a garment), then your death is imminent. I’m 64 years old and I remember my grandmother telling me that when I was a kid. Of course, she could tell some pretty wild stories. LOL. Brenda (formerly McCormick)
In Trinidad and Tobago, we have the La Diablesse, which is a woman in a long white dress, under which hides a hoofed foot (cow) and a normal foot. She wears broad rim hat to hide her face, it's also known to lure men into the forest.
-grabs a cast iron bar and settles in to watch the episode-
"Sobbing Death Fairies From the Otherworld" sounds like a good band name...or anime title.
"These are more desendants of Noah.."
Yeah, evryone is.
That's...That's how it works.
with the tolkien elf tuatha de comparison, may I also note both ended up giving up all their land in the world of men for a mysterious land across the sea to the west.
May I also add that in tolkien's mythos, when an elf stayed in middle earth too long and didn't return across the sea, their body faded, at which point they are called back by the judge god, but they can say no, so it's possible there are bad elves that are just bodiless phantoms, able perhaps to give people feelings like the ring wraiths who are going through a similar predicament brought on by the rings, or perhaps even move things and make sounds.... like a banshee
Also the hair thing, Galadriel has silvery-golden hair, and gives to Gimli three hairs from her head as a sign of honor, as she refused to give even one hair to her talented though troubled cousin Feanor...
This just keeps getting deeper
“Are you or a loved one Irish?”
Me, with strong Irish heritage: “Uh oh.”
15:39 it should be noted, that Tolkien based his elves off the Old English Aelfr, not necessarily the norse ones. There is, if I'm not mistaken, almost 1500 years of divergence between North Germanic and Continental germanic cultures, though the exact number might be smaller if I'm stupid.
Aiden shouting from the background is my favorite thing ❤
You say tuaday(sorry for misspelling)
There’s an almost 1 for 1 mythology in the kingdoms of amalur reckoning game with the Tuatha dayone. Neat!
Not sure how I missed this I've been subbed for a couple years an never missed and Bussy Bois upload. Wonder what else ShitTube is hiding from me like all my Music.
15:43 the whole otherworld thing kind of reminds me vaguely of Shinto belief
Being Irish, I remember when I was a kid, the stories of the banshee scared the fuck out of me. Then my dad told me they only haunt family's that begin with "O'" like "O'Connell, etc..." then I went into school the next day and told him he was going to die because his surname started with O
Thanks for that I would be O’Sullivan 😫😫😫
Tbh Banshee’s are pretty benevolent spirts, and are rather kind for warning you
I've heard the Bean-Sidhe twice in my life. Once before my uncle Tivis died and again while walking down the road with two friends named "Mike". The scream sounded Owlish and stretched out inhumanly long into the name "Miiikkkkeeeee!"at the end. Let me tell you...both Mikes were GONE when I turned around! Also both Mikes had a brush with death that year...although both did live. This makes me believe sometimes they warn us when we're courting danger in the way we're living. I expected to hear the Bean-Sidhe when my grandma died...but instead an owl flew by us after we got the phone call that they were talking her off life support. The owl flew by my brother and I in full day light as we sat by the garage door talking about the phone call. The owl not only flew by us in broad daylight, but it made all kinds of noises as it flew by. I've seen owls before...but never during the day and the owls I've seen never made noises after they seen me.
"But how did you survive??"
"I turned into a fish"
The hiccup noise is a sob. When people cry really deeply, the swallowing and breathing noises and sobs they make used to be referred to as hiccups.
Great video! I was going to make a banshee for my fantasy world and make it a species of particularly large howler monkey with long hair. Now I’m not sure if I should do that due to inaccurate banshee depiction.