Opes | 
Mooney. ] 2 2 [Oct. 19, i 
flowing white drapery. The Bean sighe is generally anonymous, like the 
Puca or Leprechén, but a few of the more noted ones hav special names. 
Thus the Bean sighe of the O’Neils, the ancient royal race of Ulster, is 
called Maoveen. She frequented their ancestral seat, Shane’s Castle in 4 
the County Antrim, where it is said that ‘to hint a doubt of the existence 
of the Banshee of the O’Neils would, in the estimation of their people, 
be tantamount to blasphemy.”’* The cry of the Bean-sighe, which has ‘ 
been likend to the sound of the caoine, resembles the mournful sighing 
of an autumn wind, tremulous, rising and falling, and audible at a great 
distance, while something human runs through all the tones. At times 
she seems to clap her hands while wailing, like the women around a 
corpse. The cry is usually heard by all those in the hous, but in some 
cases is distinguishd only by one specially gifted. A few instances wil 
illustrate this belief. The first, from Hall’s Ireland (iii, 106 note), wag 
related by an old school-master concerning one of the MacCarthys, once 
a ruling family in the south of Ireland : 
““*My father’s family,’ said he, ‘were ill of ‘ ‘the sickness’ ’—so the 
fever is commonly called—< his neighbor, a poor widow, one MacCarthy, 
had her son sick also; my father went to her and begged her not to 
screetch when the life left the boy, for fear of frightening my mother. 
She promised that with God’s help she wouldn’t. Well, at midnight we 
heard a scream—a loud and sorrowful and awful scream : we all heard it ; 
and my father went out to the widow to complain that she had broken her \ 
word. He found her at home: she said her son was dead, but she hadn’t & 
crossed the doorway, keeping the grief in her heart. So he went home- 
wards, and again he heard the voice ; and he followed it for above a mile: 
and at last it left him at the north end of a stream.’ ”’ 
The Bean-sighe sometimes givs warning of the death of a relativ in 
another country. Of this we have an instance in the work just quoted (iii, 
page 108 note), related by a respectable woman who solemly averd its truth : 
‘“When a little girl her father and mother had gone out to a wake and 
had left her, along with her younger sisters and brothers, in care of thé : 
house. They were all, four or five in number, gathered round the fire. 
Suddenly they ‘heard a melancholy cry, as of a woman approaching the 
house. They ran to the door, supposing it might be the daughter of the ee 
deceased person, who was coming to borrow something for the wake ; but, 
to their great dismay, saw no one, though they still heard the cry, passing 
as it were by them and down along on their right. Upon their father’s 
return they told him what had occurred. ‘Don’t mind, girls,’ said he, 
* Mr. and Mrs. 8. C, Hall, Ireland, Picturesquely Illustrated ; Its Scenery, Character, 
etc., iii, 104, new edition, New York, n. d. (about 1850). This is one of the best general 
books upon Ireland ever written, as the authors wer wel acquainted with the country 
and thoroughly understood the character of the people. It abounds in valuable folk- 
lore material. Although stories of the Bean-sighe ar common among the people, I 
have chosen rather to give these published instances on account of their typical char- 
acter and in order to call attention to the work quoted. 
