Jon Solo Sebastian 09/26/2025:

Have you ever heard high pitched screams in the dead of night? It sounds like it’s calling for someone or something, but then it shifts from the scream to a low demonic growl or howl before changing again to melodic weeping; like a tragic song sung by the lady of the night. Some might refer to this hauntingly beautiful night song as the land of the dead calling for its next resident.

The Banshee of Irish folklore is the night weeper, but is she a vocalist in the darkness trying to ease the passing from life to afterlife, or is she up to something more sinister? Some say she works for the Grim Reaper. Some say she is the Grim Reaper—or at least one of them. There are differing theories as to who the Banshee is, and what or who her night songs are sung for. In pop culture, she’s typically depicted to be an evil entity, and is often a boss type of enemy in video games. Could she be misunderstood? Is it that simple that she’s sent to sing and soothe the soul as it moves to the next phase while also soothing those in mourning?

What is a Banshee?

When I think of Banshee’s, I’m taken back to one of my all-time favorite video games—The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I’ve mentioned the game a few times in my other articles, and I have to say if you’re a gamer and have never played it, you should give it chance. The Witcher 3 banshee’s stick pretty close to the Irish Folklore, but while they’re singers in the night in folktales, they’re enemies you do battle with in the video game.

Within the lore of the game, they are women who have suffered some sort of wrong doing or traumatic experience that ended with their death. They’re left trapped between the land of the living and the land of the dead. They shriek and howl, which can be thought of as a song calling out ill omens of inevitable death. While you battle different versions of them in-game, they aren’t actual death-dealers in Irish folklore.

A Banshee of Irish folklore is a female spirit, likely trapped between the land of life and afterlife, who is like a harbinger of death. Some tales refer to her as a woman who had been murdered or perhaps died while giving birth. She wails, shrieks, cries, and howls to warn a family of an impending death in the family. Sometimes, her cries are heard as a notification that someone afar has passed away. “The banshee also is a predictor of death. If someone is about to enter a situation where it is unlikely they will come out alive she will warn people by screaming or wailing.” One thing is certain—the songs and cries of the Banshee lead to some form of bad news.

I wasn’t able to find an answer to this, but I have to wonder: Is she destined to roam the earth for eternity calling out the deaths of others or as a warning of inevitable doom, or does she finally get to rest at some point? She’s not considered evil, so she shouldn’t even need to seek redemption, but she should be allowed to cross over at some point.

What does she look like?

The image from the video game shows a fairly grotesque demon-like woman. While some tales describe that appearance or something similar, Banshee’s usually take on other less horrifying forms. They’re almost always wearing dark grey hooded robes or cloaks, but sometimes they’re wearing elegant gowns. They either appear as young attractive women, wealthy older women, elderly fragile women, or the more decaying-like version in The Witcher 3.

The Origin of the Banshee

“It is unknown precisely when stories of the banshee first were told, but they can be traced back as far as the early eighth century. It is believed they were based on an old Irish tradition where women would sing a lament to signify one’s passing. This too was referred to as keening. As many keeners accepted alcohol as payment, which the church frowned upon, many have speculated it was these keeners who were punished in the eyes of God and were forced to become banshees.”

It’s difficult to prove their existence due to rare eyewitness reports, but most sightings are described similarly, which gives it a leg to stand on in the question of being real. Furthermore, the folks who have seen a Banshee, claim she looks like one of the descriptions I mentioned above, and that they disappear into a cloud of mist the moment she realizes she’s been spotted.

What happens after they claim to see her or hear her gives me a sense of confirmation of her existence. Days or sometimes several weeks after a Banshee sighting, family members of the witnesses who have a clean bill of health suddenly pass away, drown to death, or are killed in an accident. I don’t believe in coincidences, so it makes it real hard to argue against the Banshee being real when you combine sightings and hearing her with a sudden death.

The White Bluff Screamer

During my research, I found a chilling story about a Banshee in White Bluff, Tennessee that I wanted to share before wrapping up this week’s Creature Feature. As I read about it, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the story of the Bell Witch of Tennessee. The stories are similar, but probably not connected. The White Bluff Screamer is more of a Banshee, but sounds a bit murder-y, so anything is possible. “The story goes that almost every night as the family laid down to sleep, they were awoken by an ear-piercing shriek. After several nights of enduring the sound, the man decided to hunt down the source of the noise. As he followed the shrieks of the creature it led him back to his own home, where, inside, he found his family killed. The White Screamer is believed to be something much like a Banshee from Irish folklore, who follows around families and whose shrieks foretell death.”

If you’d like to learn more about other Banshees, please check out my piece on The Banshee of the Badlands I wrote last year.

Click here —-> Banshee of the Badlands. Also, please let me know if you have any Banshee stories—I’d love to hear about them!