Homespun Haints: True Ghost Stories
True ghost stories are scarier (and funnier) when you hear them from the real people who experienced them. We’re Becky and Diana, and we interview people who have seen ghosts--so you can feel their fear with them. Each episode features true, personal stories of ghosts, demons, haints, hauntings, haunted houses, and paranormal experiences, sprinkled with humorous conversations about the random strange events in our own haunted lives.
Homespun Haints: True Ghost Stories
The Irish Death Knock: Exploring Banshee Lore with Steven J. Rolfes
Three knocks in the night. A wailing cry. A figure in white seen from the corner of your eye. Across cultures, these omens carry the same chilling message—someone will soon die.
In this captivating exploration of supernatural death harbingers, folklorist and author Steven J. Rolfes takes us deep into the mysterious world of banshees and their counterparts across different cultures. With his book Beware the Banshee's Cry as our guide, Steven reveals the fascinating complexities behind these ethereal messengers.
What exactly is a banshee? Steven presents three possibilities: the ghost of an ancestor with either loving or vindictive intentions, a fairy from the ancient Tuatha de Danann, or perhaps most intriguingly, a transformed Celtic goddess. The name itself—"bean sí" or "woman from the fairy mound"—connects these entities to pre-Christian Celtic traditions that have survived centuries of cultural evolution.
From Lady Fanshawe's encounter with a floating red-haired apparition at an O'Brien castle in 1649 to a mysterious black cat haunting a Cincinnati hospital in 1879, these stories span continents and centuries, demonstrating how banshees follow Irish families wherever they travel. We also discover similar traditions worldwide, including Germany's White Lady (Weissefrau) and Mexico's weeping woman (La Llorona), showing how humans across cultures have personified death's approach.
The folklore contains surprising elements—banshees' treasured combs that shouldn't be stolen, the protective power of iron against supernatural entities, and the specific families traditionally haunted by these harbingers. Stephen's storytelling brings these traditions to life with both scholarly insight and captivating narrative.
Listen now to discover whether your heritage comes with its own supernatural warning system, and consider: if you heard three knocks at your door tonight, would you answer?
Tired of websites that have been Frankensteined together using subpar body parts? Check out Becky and Diana's digital media and web design company, The Concept Spot, and let's make some digital spookiness together! theconceptspot.com
The Wind Howls Outside your Door. The wind howls outside your door as the moon disappears behind a cloud. You nod off in front of the dying fire, the book in your lap going limp against your knee. Suddenly you hear a knock on the door, three, even raps. You jerk awake. Was that your imagination? No, there it is again. Knock, knock, knock. And then you know the hard truth Someone, perhaps you, will soon die. Banshee lore is peculiar and fascinating, and folklorist Stephen Rolfes is an expert in it. He'll share some deep knowledge about who banshees are and where they come from today. On Homespun Haints. Hello, hainted Loves. Welcome to Homespun Haints. I'm Becky.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm Diana.
Speaker 1:Today we have a real treat for you guys. We are going to be talking to Stephen J Rolfes, who wrote a very intriguing book on folklore called Beware the Banshees Cry. Oh, I think I peaked there. He's a folklorist and he has all these really cool stories about banshees and he opens up by telling us how I recently encountered one. I didn't even know it, but he had listened to some of our episodes and was like oh yes, becky, that was a banshee, and I'm like oh my gosh, we're going to be talking to Stephen.
Speaker 1:He is so knowledgeable about this stuff. I think you guys are really going to enjoy it. If you, especially if you like Irish folklore, if you like spooky things or if you just like storytelling, and if you don't, why the hell are you listening to us?
Speaker 3:No, longer welcome on this podcast.
Speaker 1:So, diana, I'm also excited because, as you know, I'm getting ready to go to Italy.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, that's right, I can't wait. You said you're going to FaceTime me from the Vatican.
Speaker 1:I will, and everybody who's on our Patreon can live vicariously because I will be sharing stories and everywhere they'll let me film, especially if there's skeletons, I will be filming. So if you've been living under a rock for the last 2000 years and you don't know what Pompeii is, which you have been- if you lived there. Yeah, that's right, pompeii is a city. In ancient Rome it was a beach side city, it was a resort town.
Speaker 3:That's always the excuse for building your city right under a volcano, Like oh, there's a beach right there.
Speaker 1:It was like our Myrtle Beach. It was like Myrtle Beach.
Speaker 3:You mean Georgia's, specifically Atlanta's, or like the United States's? Okay, what's a direct comparison with Myrtle Beach?
Speaker 1:Okay, give me a nice beach in the US, try.
Speaker 3:Key.
Speaker 2:West.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, yeah, but it's hard to get to. Pompeii was like easy to get to. What can you drive to?
Speaker 3:Because, like the Romans, would have driven to this city In their Flintstones cars powered by feet. I've never heard of driving a horse, but I really like that. I thought that was like something you do with cattle.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't drive cattle to Pompeii, especially if you need to get out because the volcanoes erupting. I mean they don't go very fast, it's really hard to be stuck between a volcano and cattle.
Speaker 1:That's really not a good situation for being in a vehicle. Okay, we are going nowhere with this. Okay, it was a beach resort and people did live there, just like people do live in Myrtle Beach or Miami Beach or Daytona Beach Should have said Daytona Beach. I had no idea what I used to live there. It's like Daytona Beach. I should have said Daytona Beach. I had no idea what I used to live there. It's like Daytona Beach. It's just like Daytona Beach, but without gasoline smears on the sand. And we can say that we used to live there. God, that beach was gross Back to Pompeii, all right.
Speaker 1:So 79 CE, this volcano erupted. People were like at the games. They were out doing their thing. They're like, oh look, it's smoking. But nobody took it seriously. Everyone thought, meh, he does that sometimes. And it exploded and it encased people in ash and, incredibly, preserved the city. You may have been able to see some of the plaster bodies that were uncovered, where they would pour plaster into the cavities left by the ash and then, when they would pull away the ash, they would have the perfect cast of a screaming Roman caught in his last moments of life. But what we didn't know up until this recent article was published in Nature magazine was that at least one of these unfortunate Romans. When he was covered in ash, his brain transformed into something that you could ideally make a vase or a window out of, should you plan to.
Speaker 3:His brain, not his cranium, his brain.
Speaker 1:His tissue in his brain transformed into glass. What, yeah, not as cranial. What, what part? Which tissue? The brain tissue?
Speaker 3:I don't know, isn't it?
Speaker 1:mostly fat. I thought it was mostly water.
Speaker 3:Water and fat. Yeah Well, I assume the water didn't turn into glass.
Speaker 1:That'd be weird, this report came out on February 27th, so I guess it's a little bit of old news, but it's not as old as Okay don't worry about spoilers.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to read that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a very, very dense sciencey article in Nature. It's called unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE. So that tells you right there what it was. So it really is glass. Glass, yeah. So they found a skull, right, okay, oh, wait, wait, wait, they got a photo. They got a photo of this guy. So they actually found a skull, which is kind of rare, considering, like, how hot this lava was. Maybe he was like on the outskirts, maybe he was trying to get out and he got caught by those cattle. So, regardless, he did not burn up as fast. So there's a little bit of a skull left in his brain turned to glass.
Speaker 1:But how you can read the article All right, well, thank you for that.
Speaker 1:They have tested it and this material and they have found that it is. It does have brain makeup. It's got human hair fat. Whatever that is, I'll quote here. The remnants on the skull are proven to be organic and human brain, owing to the preservation of proteins common in human brain tissue that would be a clue and fatty acids typical of both human brain triglycerides and human hair fat. That is something I never thought I would say. Human hair fat, wow. Moreover, exceptionally well-preserved complex networks of neurons, axons and other neural structures have been revealed by a scanning electron microscope. Investigation of the remains.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. So it contains neurons inside glass. The guy's neurons, or it's just the neuron left a pattern in the glass, so it looks like a decorative paperweight with little neurons running through it. Well, they don't go into that detail.
Speaker 1:They're looking at a high-powered microscope. They're looking at a high powered microscope. They're looking at what looks like a chunk of obsidian. It looks like black glass, basically, and they can see the neural network. So I don't know if they can tell, like, if it's actually the neurons. It's probably the impression of the neurons, Kind of like you know how a fossil isn't actually bone, it's just what happens to the bone I'm a person of bone.
Speaker 1:So basically they're. The whole article is about them trying to like prove that it's glass and then figure out how the hell that happened, because apparently this is this is kind of a new thing. You know, I don't know if I've ever heard of the brain turning to glass before. Glass brain no, no, no. But hey, for those of you that are like science fiction writers, you should read this article because it's a great fodder for some great ideas that sounds like Agatha Christie, the glass brain of.
Speaker 1:Pompeii, great historical fiction piece right about this guy's life.
Speaker 3:And why he's the only one who had his brain turned to glass.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, investigations are ongoing. They've only been digging at this site for about 300 years. They may find more glass-brained people. Okay, so this is a tip, archaeologist here, former archaeologist, just a tip for those of you looking for glass brain people, look for cattle tracks, trust me why? Because the people trying to get out and the cattle that were in the way they. They did the slow burn, okay, which is the only good David Bowie song on the album Heathen, by the way. Prove me wrong.
Speaker 3:No, you're right. Well, that's an ideal situation Brain turning to glass. I would love it if my brain turned to glass when I died. Wouldn't that be awesome? Your loved one could have a big brain paperweight instead of a stupid jar full of burned up pieces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that would assume that you would be on vacation under a volcano without your loved one when you met your untimely demise and 2000 years had gone by before archaeologists discovered your brain and dug it up. So I think the chances of you having a glass brain and it actually ending up on your partner's mantelpiece it's kind of slim.
Speaker 3:I kind of wonder if the guy was like struck by lightning or something I know right, and it's just like it created plasma Like inside his skull and ricocheted around. I just imagine You've never had plasma in your skull, you don't know what it feels like, so it could feel like your brain is turning to glass.
Speaker 1:Maybe it was lava lightning.
Speaker 3:Lava lightning Prove us wrong. Even though that's two different types of damage, we think the same thing can produce both lightning and lava and its volcanoes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We are excited to talk to Stephen here in a few minutes, but for those of you that aren't a member of our Patreon, look a commercial. Oh man, I had a rough day. What happened, honey? I was out with the guys and they well, and, and they said I wasn't spooky enough. Oh honey, how could they say that to you? You're hella spooky. You think so, of course. After all, you came up with the ectoplasm being ghost jizz theory and you've been scratched by more horny ghosts than anyone else. I know.
Speaker 3:Well, I suppose you're right.
Speaker 1:But if you're really worried about it, I have just the thing oh wow, A spooky AF t-shirt. That's right, Our spooky AF line comes in shirt, sweatshirt, pillow and even a high-quality mug man.
Speaker 2:those are super awesome, especially for something with profanity on it.
Speaker 1:What's even better, all these items were hand-lettered exclusively from homespun hates by world-renowned calligrapher Nikki Malick. Holy ghostly cannoli. That's amazing. From now on, whenever you brandish your spooky AF gear, no one will accuse you of being boring. Yeah, I'm spooky AF. Visit homespunhaintscom for all spooky AF merchandise. Hello, hainted Loves, welcome to Homespun Haints. I'm Becky and I'm Diana. Today on the show, we are thrilled to bring on author Stephen J Rolfes, and he is author of Beware the Banshee's Cry, as well as nine other soon to be 10 other books. I'm really excited to talk to Stephen today and learn about Banshees and so many other spooky things. So, stephen, thank you so much for being here today with us. Well, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Greetings and salutations. Salutations. Now, before we go any further, I do want to put in one quick point. Okay, a few weeks back you had a show with a very nice lady from Mississippi and at the beginning I forget who said it one of the two of you talked about hearing three booms that was me, that was you.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that happened in my backyard. Back three booms that was me, that was you. Okay, yeah, that happened in my backyard.
Speaker 2:Backyard booms that sounds like the Irish death knock. Oh no, oh no. The banshees cry, and these strange knocks will always come in groups of three, and after they come, within a day or two, or maybe right then, someone in the family is going to die. Of course, becky, you don't have to worry because you're of German descent, as I am. Now, diana might have a little problem there, because you have to be Irish to get a banshee Dang it.
Speaker 1:So my Scottish ancestry isn't close enough, I'm safe.
Speaker 2:Swing and a miss. Nope, it's got to be an O or a Mac or no.
Speaker 1:Irishman you be. That banshee was obviously barking up the wrong house.
Speaker 2:Talking of the three knocks, I do have one case from the 1940s in the city of Derry, and this is on the street Now you probably have people in Ireland listening to this. The name of the street was Fulton's Place and it's very near the St Columbus Church, which they called the Long Tower. Well, this was, I believe, right after World War II, was, I believe, right after World War II, and there was an elderly man who was pretty much dying that night and the friends and the family came around and one of the people who was there that night was a teenage girl. You know, she's maybe about 13 or 14. And you too, having once been teenage girls yourselves, you would know that of all the places in the world you would want to be, that's probably down at the bottom of the list.
Speaker 2:She made her greetings and goodbyes to the man and she's just sitting there and suddenly she hears knocking at the door and no one else is paying attention and she's wondering why the heck isn't anybody getting up and answering the door.
Speaker 2:It's probably someone with some food and they're just kind of knocking let me in but no one notices. And this happened a second time not too much longer away. And finally it happened a third time and she said well, even though this isn't my house, someone needs to get in. So she gets up, she walks to the door and she opens it and she sees an old small woman wearing a cloak and walking away from the house. But all of a sudden that lady stops and she sensed that the door was open. She turned around and started to walk back towards the house now that the door was open, and of course the girl screamed and slammed the door and pretty much fainted away. Well, wouldn't you know that the man they had come to visit, well, he died later that evening and apparently that was the death knock coming for him.
Speaker 1:Whoa. If she hadn't opened the door, would you speculate, the man wouldn't have died.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no, when the banshee comes. It's done, they're just announcing it.
Speaker 1:Ah, got it. I grew up in Appalachia and there we have a tradition the same thing if you hear the three knocks, don't open the door because you'll invite not banshee, but whatever the derivative is in, and then a death could occur. So you can avoid the death by not opening the door in Appalachia.
Speaker 2:In French Brittany there is a very dark spirit known as Anku, and he is pretty much what our modern grim reaper is based on, but instead of a hood he has a wide brim cap and he goes about at night on these old country roads in a creaky cart filled with souls, and he will come up to the house of the person that is destined to die and he'll knock on the door three times, and you definitely don't want to invite him in.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that's the one that comes knocking that you don't want to let in, Becky.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:I think we might have heard of Anku at one point before.
Speaker 2:It's part of the Unseelie Court and the Wild Hunt right Well it's funny that you mention the Wild Hunt, because in Ireland there is something known as the Coach of Bower. Now, the Coach of Bower is said to be an elegant, wonderful coach. Is said to be an elegant, wonderful coach If you remember those fantastic movies from Mario Bava at the beginning of the 60s with the elegant coaches being driven by phantoms. Well, this would be like it, and quite often it is a banshee who is riding in it. It is a banshee who is riding in it. The person driving the coach looks perfectly normal. You must definitely throw yourself to the ground and put your hands up and don't look. Don't look at what it is, otherwise it'll stop and it'll take you along, unless you want to go riding with Odin or going with the night marchers or the coach of Bauer. Yeah, just hide on the ground.
Speaker 3:Where does it take you?
Speaker 2:To hell. Wherever they go, no one has it to come back to tell us.
Speaker 1:No, we're not supposed to know. Stephen, how did you get interested in Banshees, since you're obviously a scholar on Banshees and other folklore?
Speaker 2:I love folklore, I love Ireland. I'm going back next year. I can't wait to get there. But yes, banshees are something that people have heard about. They say the old expression to scream like a banshee, but very few people know much about them. So I spent a lot of time and I came up with hundreds of cases of meeting the banshee.
Speaker 2:But I'll tell you one thing now, something that I have never figured out is what is a banshee? Now, it can be one of three things. One, it could be the ghost of an ancestor, maybe a few hundred years ago, who either loved the family so much they want to help their passing from this world to the next, or it could be someone who hated the family and takes utter delight in announcing their deaths, and I have a lot of cases of that in the book. Or number. Two, it could be one of the fairies, the Tuatha de Danann, what they call the she, the dwellers in the mound. In fact, the name Banshee is two words Bans, she, which means the woman from the mound, and that's not a pile of dirt. That is the fairy mound, and this is the most interesting and the one I think your watchers and listeners will love. It might be a Celtic goddess, because there are a number of Celtic goddesses who have, apparently, with the coming of Christianity which, I apologize to the Irish, I'm no doubt mispronouncing it, forgive me, I'm German, but Aene was the goddess well about right now of spring, of summer, of fertility, of the animals, of the crops, of the people, in other words, all of the good stuff. And she was connected to the Fitz no one saw that Fitzgerald and the Okara families, okara families and she had a fairy mound near Nakene, which is in County Limerick.
Speaker 2:And, if you like folklore and ancient rituals, there was a ritual that survived way in the historic times through the 1800s, probably well into the 1900s. On Midsummer this might be Midsummer or it might be right around Beltane People of the area would gather at this mound and they would perform like a dance, a ritual, and then they would have torches and they would take these torches and they would go scattering off in different directions and going into the different fields. That way you're bringing the fertilizing power of Aene to the different farms and the fields. And now she is a banshee. And also, I won't give the story now, but I'll just say in the book I have another goddess named Cleona, and I have an incredible story, a hilarious story actually about her, and she's now a banshee too. So it's one of three things a ghost, a fairy or an ancient goddess, a fairy or an ancient goddess?
Speaker 1:Why do you think a goddess would, especially one who's to? Life and fertility are also death goddesses.
Speaker 2:I'll give you one very familiar example of that. It's Aphrodite. She was also a death goddess, and keep in mind the Khorne goddess, demeter, who was her daughter, kor, or, as we know, her Persephone, who became the queen of the dead. So, yes, you have life and death together in the same symbolic person.
Speaker 1:Interesting. That does make sense. So how far back do stories of Banshees go?
Speaker 2:The oldest one that I could find. I'm sure it goes much further than that was from the ancient Ireland and the story of the great Irish hero, cuchulainn. Now, you probably heard his name. They say that Cuchulainn is the Irish Heracles, but personally I think that Heracles is the Greek Cuchulainn. Now he saw the goddess. Now this is one that stop me, if you've heard her name before Morrigan.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, who created panic among soldiers? Maka, who spent her time usually as a crow, flying in circles above a battlefield waiting for dinner to be served, and Baal, who was the great washerwoman. And Morrigan fell in love with Cuchulain, the big, strong He-Man hero, but he didn't want anything to do with her because he was in the middle of war. He spent a lot of time in war and on his last battle, cuchulain was walking with the druid Cathbad and they saw out in the stream a woman who was washing the clothes and the armor of a warrior. Well, this armor and clothing was just covered in blood and the water was turning scarlet around her. And Cathbad said look, cuchulain, you know whose clothes he's washing. Why, that's yours. That means that if you go ahead and you fight in this battle, you will die for certain. Come, let's turn around and let's go back, because you're not going to live well, coochalane, turn around, run away from a battle that beagle is not hunting. He said you want to go? Fine, safety is that way, the battle is this way, that's where I'm headed. So he goes and you're going to love this.
Speaker 2:There is a standing stone on top of a mound. Now, if you're into the lay theory. You know, this is where the lay lines go. This is the spiritual power. Well, he walked up to it, took off his belt, put it around the stone and he fastened himself to that stone. That way, when he fell, he would not touch the earth. Not to touch the earth and not to see the sun from Sir James Fraser.
Speaker 2:Well, he started the fight and the enemy was rushing up on him. Spears were piercing him, arrows were piercing him, but he just kept fighting. But he was slowing down bit by bit, and then he wasn't moving and there was a whole pile of dead bodies in front of him and the enemy soldiers were saying is he resting, can we attack, or is he suddenly going to come out and start slicing again? Well, flying overhead, who should be there? But the banshee goddess Morrigan. And she's in the form of a crow, and she says, as every woman has said in their lives at least once if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. So she flew down, landed right on his head, and they knew that.
Speaker 3:The great Kutulain was dead, but his body did not touch the earth. Did that prevent them from being able to conquer him somehow?
Speaker 2:It had a spiritual significance. Okay that he was still upright.
Speaker 1:You mentioned you had a whole stack of banshee stories that you would like to share with us.
Speaker 2:Remember I told you about the ghosts who hate their families, right? Well, the Lady Fanshawe. Back in the year 1649, she saw just such a banshee. Now you may not have heard the name, lady Fanshawe, but you certainly enjoy her product, because she was the first person in the English language to come up with the recipe for ice cream. And this was in where are we? At County Cork.
Speaker 2:She was visiting a castle owned by the O'Brien family, and this was a very old, ancient castle. It even had this big moat in front of it. Well, she was there visiting with the O'Briens and at nighttime they became tired. She went up to bed. She got into bed, no doubt dreaming of sugary treats, and suddenly she hears this wailing and crying outside of her window. Problem is, she's on the second floor and there's a moat. So, okay, she gets up, she walks, opens up the curtains and she sees this beautiful Irish girl with red hair that's floating around like she's underwater. And this lady is floating in air and she's looking in. She's looking in at Lady Fanshawe's clothes. Well, the fact that you've been dead for a few centuries doesn't mean you can't keep up with the latest fashion. And then, all of a sudden, the lady lets out another scream and Lady Fanshawe is like shaking at this point and then the Irish girl floats backwards into the air and then a third time she lets out a scream and then she vanishes and Lady Fanshawe closes the curtains and says, okay, I'm going to get a good night's sleep now. Well, in the morning she goes down and she breakfast and here's her host that comes in and they're talking and she said now I had the strangest thing happen to me last night. Oh, he said yes, and she explained what happened and he had a very guilty look on his face and he said yes, you saw the O'Brien family banshee. Oh, we had someone in the castle. One of our family was dying last night, but we didn't want to bother you because we knew you wouldn't stay, so we put him in another part of the castle and well, he passed away last night. The banshee that you saw was from a few hundred years earlier.
Speaker 2:There was a prince or you know, the young heir, baron or whatever, of the O'Brien family. He fell in love and he married the local girl, a peasant. Now, back then it was not like a Hallmark Christmas movie. If you were a nobility, you did not marry the common people and he brought her in and they were legally married. No one could kick her out, but the family just gave him pure hell. How could you disgrace the family by doing this? You're supposed to marry the daughter of this baron over there so we can get an alliance. No, you had to fall in love. Well, finally he got tired of all of the nagging and he had his young wife drowned in the moat. Now, personally, I think marrying beneath your station that's not as bad as murdering your wife. But maybe it was a little different back then.
Speaker 3:What a solution a little different back then.
Speaker 2:What a solution. How about from 1879, right here in Cincinnati? Wait what, yep? Oh, you don't have to be in Ireland. So long as you are of the family an Irish family, pure through and through and your family has a banshee, it doesn't matter where you go, the banshee will come and see you. Well, they had a guy named Mr Gaylor and he went into the city hospital and he said can you give me a tour? I said, oh, okay, Well, usually we don't do this, but they took him around and he was impressed. They said why exactly did you want a tour? He said well, I heard the family banshee the other night and I know I'm probably going to wind up here, but your facilities look great, I'll be seeing you soon. He walked out.
Speaker 2:They never saw him, but they did see a banshee in animal form. Okay, a black cat suddenly appeared in the hospital and everyone loved him. You know the janitors, the doctors, the nurses, attendants, everyone had their little black cat pet. But then they noticed something very weird All of a sudden at night the cat would just go crazy, run around in circles, screeching and such, and as soon as it did that someone in the hospital would die and they had to remove the body, and this happened like a dozen times and all of a sudden that cat was not quite as popular as it had been before. Finally, the cat just left of its own and nobody was in the least bit sorry.
Speaker 3:That's amazing, Because you hear about cats who will detect people who are about to die because of some metabolic shift or something like that and go cuddle up with them. But the idea that it was screaming specifically the cat was screaming like a banshee.
Speaker 2:I heard another animal type story of this and I could not put it in the book because I've read it years ago. I mean, over my lifetime I've read so many books. I think the name of the book was called Passing Strange but I haven't had time to dig it up. But there was a family in New England Irish family, maybe they were in Boston and it was just a regular suburban family and one day a German shepherd dog appeared and everyone in the family is playing with the dog and having a wonderful time, except the grandmother. She was from the old country and she saw that dog and she wanted nothing to do with it and finally the dog just left of its own accord. And as soon as it did they got word that a close relative in Ireland had passed away and the grandmother said you idiots.
Speaker 3:That was a banshee, so it visited the family completely on the other side of the world.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, yes, when you hear the banshee or see it, you don't know if it's coming for you, someone in your immediate family or someone in the more extended family extended family Okay, I do have a rather humorous Banshee motif. Now. You too may have been told this when you were little, that if you see a belief, the most treasured possession of a banshee is her comb. And sometimes she's a little careless and she'll drop it. And if you grew up in Ireland and you see a comb on the ground and you happen to be with your grandmother or something it'll be, don't you dare pick that up. That could be from a banshee.
Speaker 2:And there is a folk motif which talks about a drunken Irishman I know that's an impossibility, yeah, never heard of that. Coming home from the pub one night and he sees a banshee combing her long hair, which is what they are often seen doing. That's why they scream so much and he says well, now that comb, that'll be something to show the boys back at the pub. So he sneaks up behind, grabs the comb, goes running off to his house Look what I got. And of course the banshee is not happy with this and she starts to chase after him. And he gets home just in time and slams the door and locks it, and then she takes what's called a beetle, which is what you use to pound clothing, the old-fashioned way to wash before uh, you know, west point and such, and she throws that beetle at the house and it crashes and everything shakes, Dishes are falling and breaking, and here comes the family, down the step, saying okay, what mischief are you up to today, and why is somebody shooting off artillery in the front yard? Well, he said, look what I got.
Speaker 2:And the wife looks at him and says, oh, my mother told me to marry, well, but no, I was in love, I had to pick the village idiot. So now, what are they going to do? They have a very angry banshee who wants her comb back. So, naturally, being good Catholics, you go to the priest and the priest said first thing, you've got to give that comb back, but don't under any circumstances touch her, or let her touch you Okay, alrighty circumstances. Touch her, or let her touch you, okay, all righty. So they figure it out when she's outside pounding on the door, they take the iron tongs from the fireplace, they put the comb in the tongs and they slide it under the door and all of a sudden it's like you have a great white shark at the other end and they pull back two iron rods. She got her comb back and she took half of the tong with her and now he has something to show the boys down at the pub.
Speaker 3:I didn't know there was a type of fairy that could touch iron. That's a surprising twist.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. Iron spirits, fairies, ghosts, demons cannot touch iron. That is why, if you go to an old cemetery, it is surrounded by an iron fence.
Speaker 3:It is surrounded by an iron fence, not necessarily to keep the people out, which it wants to do, but to keep the spirits in.
Speaker 2:Maybe this was one of the goddess banshees that doesn't have to follow the spirit rules. Maybe it was Aene or Cleona.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. There's not just one banshee, then Every family has their own banshee.
Speaker 2:Oh, specific families, right, yes, it has to be a certain specific family, and there are actually lists of this One of the books that I researched for this by modern folklorist Patricia Lyslott. She has the complete list in the back and I give a lot of the names in my book. We see Devereaux. Is there? Flynn O'Brien, of course, that we spoke of.
Speaker 1:So this is a good reason to not be Irish.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're not going to get away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't just not be Irish Now.
Speaker 2:Becky and I, we would have to worry about an entity known as the Weissefrau, the White Lady. The White Lady and this is from Germany, and there are plenty of beautiful Gothic tales of this lady in white gliding down the chambers in the evening. You're sometimes holding a candle and when you see her you know that someone in the family is going to die. Oh, that reminds me of a story right there.
Speaker 2:One of the most famous of German families is the Hohenzollern, where the Kaiser was from during World War I. This was his ruling family and his family had a Weißfrau who would announce their deaths. And one day there was one of the princesses of the family in I believe they were in the Neuschlaß that was in, might have been in Austria and she was fixing her hair in the mirror and trying on a hat and she saw out of the corner of her eye someone was walking. She figured it was one of the servants and she just asked what time is it? And suddenly she heard this ghostly voice say it is 10 o'clock, my love, and she turned around and dressed all in white. There was the Hohenzollern Weissefrau and within a few days she was dead.
Speaker 3:So Weissefrau is equivalent, basically the German banshee.
Speaker 2:Oh you find death messengers all over the world, and I'll give you one that you might see in Oklahoma.
Speaker 3:Okay, La Llorona Ah yes, you've heard of her.
Speaker 2:The weeping lady, the Mexican version of the Medea myth. Well, if you hear her, that means that someone either you or someone in your close family is going to be dying soon.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. Well, Stephen, thank you so much for sharing all of this. Stephen has written multiple books and, as you can tell, is incredibly knowledgeable about folklore from all over the world, especially when it has to do with Harbingers of Death. Cry is recently released. I believe we will have links to all of Stephen's books on our website, in our show notes and in the description below. So, stephen, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:This was lovely. I'm so glad we got a chance to talk to you Well thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:I hope I can come on after the next book. We'll see you again shortly. Yeah Well, thank you very much for the interview today. And Hainted Loves, what do you think? Would you answer the door if you heard one, two, three knocks? Because I think you probably have a spooky day.
Speaker 1:Homespun Haints is hosted by Becky Kielimnik and Diana Doty and produced by Homespun Haints is hosted by Becky Kilimnik and Diana Doty and produced by Home Spun Haints Media LLC. Editing and music by Becky Kilimnik. Show notes by Diana Doty. If you have a ghost story and you'd like to be considered as a guest for this podcast, please visit our website at homespunhaintscom. Slash submit.