My mother's family is Irish, so my grandmother would tell me stories about my great-grandfather from Ireland. They were small stories, like how he had a musical ear and could play almost any instrument. I've always been fascinated by the paranormal, so I often asked if he'd ever encountered anything unusual. Her memory was vague, so she asked her sister Mary, who recalled his banshee encounters in County Cork, Ireland.
My grandmother relayed what Mary remembered from their father's childhood tales. A banshee, for context, is an Irish myth—a ghost that protects an Irish family for eternity, revealing itself only when a family member is about to die. Since it can foresee the future, it knows who will pass away. It mourns under the moonlight with cries that sound like the wind, appearing to a family member (preferably not the one destined to die), grieving deeply as it considers itself part of the family.
When my great-grandfather was a boy in Ireland, he would ride home on horseback through the fields after school dances. Occasionally, his horse would stop dead in its tracks—animals can sense things humans cannot. He would urge it to trudge on, but it wouldn't budge.
Then, he would feel a ghostly chill and hear the banshee's wail. Aunt Mary recalled him saying the banshee's cry was the worst sound. After the wailing and eerie presence passed, his horse would move again. That was all Mary could remember.
Since my great-grandfather had seen and heard banshees, I've begun to wonder if our family has one. But it's not just because of him; my mother had an experience too.
When my mother was nine, she woke in the middle of the night and looked out the backyard window. Glittering in the moonlight, she saw a woman weeping. My mother heard her cries, which she described as wind-like (she told me this before I learned that banshee cries often resemble the wind). The woman was floating above their swimming pool, her appearance inexplicable—she looked young yet ancient, with fair, flowing hair. After watching for a while, my mother lay back down and fell asleep.
About one or two weeks later, my mother's grandparents died within the same week. Coincidence? I wonder if I'll ever see one.