[ban-shee, ban-shee] 
| (in Irish folklore) a spirit in the form of a wailing woman who appears to or is heard by members of a family as a sign that one of them is about to die. |
| ban·shee also ban·shie (bān'shē) n. A female spirit in Gaelic folklore believed to presage, by wailing, a death in a family. [Irish Gaelic bean sídhe, woman of the fairies, banshee : bean, woman (from Old Irish ben; see gwen- in Indo-European roots) + sídhe, fairy (from Old Irish síde, genitive of síd, fairy mound; see sed- in Indo-European roots).] |
banshee
("woman of the fairies") supernatural being in Irish and other Celtic folklore whose mournful "keening," or wailing screaming or lamentation, at night was believed to foretell the death of a member of the family of the person who heard the spirit. In Ireland banshees were believed to warn only families of pure Irish descent. The Welsh counterpart, the gwrach y Rhibyn ("witch of Rhibyn"), visited only families of old Welsh stock
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