the banshee brushing her hair by moonlight
The Spirit of Doom
“But,”
says auntie Mary as she settles in by the fire with
her cup of tea, while we hug our knees and stare with
her into the flames,
“the Spirit of Doom, who reveals the secrets of
misfortune and death, gives the gift of song
and the ability to foretell death
to a special messenger, the `banashee'.
A Special Messenger, The Banshee.
“She it is, with her keening and wailing in the still of the night, who gives out the bad news:
`Somebody from a famous Irish family is about to die.'”
Auntie Mary breaks into a soft hum; wailing on plaintive tremolo notes, as she sings in a hollow gasping voice --- like the wind drumming up:
“O Danny Boy, the pipes the pipes are calling
From glen to glen and down the mountainside ...”
I am not sure whether I feel nervous, or have a giggle coming on.