Celtic fairy traditions
Banshee
One Irish informant calls the banshee a dead friend, relative, or ancestor who appears to warn the living. Evans-Wentz places such testimony beside traditions connecting fairy women with the Sidhe. Elsewhere Bean-sidhe and Bean Chaointe overlap with the wailing woman and with Aine near Lough Gur. The survey therefore preserves several relationships rather than supplying a single origin story.
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In the sources
Principal account
ReportedOne Irish informant calls the banshee a dead friend, relative, or ancestor who appears to warn the living. Evans-Wentz places such testimony beside traditions connecting fairy women with the Sidhe.
Further detail
ReportedElsewhere Bean-sidhe and Bean Chaointe overlap with the wailing woman and with Aine near Lough Gur. The survey therefore preserves several relationships rather than supplying a single origin story.
Context & interpretation
Evans-Wentz combines named informants, manuscript narratives, and his own psychical theory in a 1911 survey. This entry preserves those distinctions: collected belief and literary tradition do not establish the physical existence of an Otherworld.
Original passages
Source 1
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
the banshee is a dead friend, relative, or ancestorOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 71
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0071
- Original scan leaf
- 72
- Recorded leaf number
- 72
- Current Reader position
- 67
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Source 2
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
closely hid nest did awake, The woman of wailing from Gur's voicy lake. 'Thomas O'Connellan, the great minstrel bard, some of whose com-Open this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Celtic fairy traditions; active reader leaf 112
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0045-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0045-E001-P0112
- Original scan leaf
- 113
- Recorded leaf number
- 113
- Current Reader position
- 108
- Reader verification
- Source-preserving update confirmed
Continue exploring
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