Often depicted as a screeching woman in rags The Banshee is a spirit whose origin lay deep within the roots of 8th century ancient celtic mythology, also known as The Woman Of The Fairies, The Banshee is renowned the world over for it’s haunting wailing and desperate screams.

To truly understand just what a Banshee is we first need to understand The Tribe of Danu. The "Tribe of Danu" are a varied pantheon who appeared in a number of forms throughout the ancient Celtic world. Each member of the Tribe has various associations with a particular feature of life or nature. They were believed to dwell within the Otherworld, a supernatural realm of everlasting youth, beauty, health, abundance and joy, but often they would leave their paradise beneath the earth to visit and interact with the human world.

Among the mortals the Tribe of Danu were depicted as kings, queens and heroes - champions of the distant past burdened with supernatural powers and abilities. Over time this lead to the creation of the one thing anyone with great power needs more than anything else, an heir. And so, the Aos sí "ees shee" are born.

Potentially a lesser known class of the paranormal lexicon: The Aos Sí "ees shee", also known as THE SIDHE."the shee" are a supernatural legacy race which exists within the realm of Celtic mythology – comparable to fairies or elves; These beings don’t belong to either the realm of man nor the gods and so they reside in a world between the two. The aos sí are said to live in an invisible world that coexists with the realm of man. Their home is described as a parallel universe in which they walk among the living and in modern Irish folklore, the shee are variously said to be roaming ancestors and in some cases are believed to be the very spirits of nature itself.

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It’s from this universe between the fabric of the living and the dead where the Banshee is believed to have originated. The link soons becomes clear when we take a look at the original spelling of "Bean Sidhe" "Ban Shee". And begin to break it down. Over time language and outlooks began to differ and as change tore through the land both gaelic and celtic lore and legends were altered and adopted by the dominant christian hermogony. Eventually the correct spelling was discarded as a more phonetic scripture took over the primal and warring western world.

First we have the word "Bean", which is the Irish word for woman. But then we have "Sidhe", this is where the connection to the mythical remains. Sidhe is a very old and important word in the celtic language not only is it just one of a number of words for "fairy", "sprite" or "spirit"; but all throughout Ireland you will find ancient burial mounds and traditionally any one of these bygone hills are known as a "sídhe".

So it should make sense that in the old Irish language, aos sí (ees shee) roughly translates to "people of the mounds". And it is believed that through these rolling mounds of death that the Banshee and others like her gain entrance into our world from the universe in between, and if in fact these are ancestral tombs then it adds weight to the myth that her mournful wailing can only be heard by those of pure irish decent, the banshee screetches to foretell the death of a member of the family of the person who heard the spirit. However in extremely rare cases, a male can become a banshee. Its usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Other World.

The aos sí are variously believed to be the survivals of pre-Christian Gaelic deities, spirits of nature, or the ancestors. Sightings of Banshees have been reported as recently as 1948. In Irish legend, a banshee wails nearby if someone is about to die. There are particular families who are believed to have banshees attached to them, and whose cries herald the death of a member of that family.