A Banshee Saved My Mother
The Death of Innocence in an Irish Village
Psychological Horror - Ancestral Stories
The blood of decapitated Irish stallions scattered the lush green fields, slowly turning them a dark British red. The Banshee wailed a terrifying scream, but only Mary could hear her.
“Just close your eyes, Cian, just close your eyes,” Mary whispered under the bedsheets as she cradled her little brother. The chill of the morning air swirled in their shared room as Bridget stood at the end of their bed and called Mary’s name.
“Around these parts, even the stones have a story.” — Father James
Ireland 1955
“You’ll be going to that dance, Mary. The boys will be there. You’ll be meeting the boys now. And be doing the dance. You’re in Ireland now, girl.” Mary’s father was filled with excitement. It had been his dream to move back to Ireland from London.
Mary’s father had grown up around Finuge in the southwest of Ireland before emigrating to England. While there, he married an Irish woman and raised two English children. Mary had spent her formative years being dressed up and paraded up and down Chapel Market. Her father had opened a bar called the Salmon and Compass and made a success of it. Mary had loved London, especially Islington, but now she was in a foreign land, living out her father’s dream of running a dairy farm. None of them had wanted to leave London, not even her much younger brother, Cian, who had to give up his pet monkey because of the move. Mary’s mother and father were true Irish, unlike Mary and Cian, who were only Irish by name.
“Mother, when is the bus?” Mary asked in her soft and refined English accent. She wore a white dress today and black shoes with a golden buckle.
“Bus? What would you be doing taking a bus here?” her mother said as she emptied the pan. “Tis only a mile or two up the road. You go past Heeney’s farm and past the graveyard. You’ll see the school then.”
This was Mary and Cian’s new routine.
Present Day
“Mom, I don’t need the full story. Just the outline. I’m trying to experiment with writing scary stories,” I chuckle down the phone.
My mother is in full story mode while recounting her famous Banshee story. The story her grandmother told her and shared with my little brother and me every Halloween.
“Ohh, I remember the song the Banshee sang, now — ‘Oh, I’m gonna get you!’” she jokingly cackles before bursting out into laughter.
I have to admit, I did too. Hearing it now at 36 makes me wonder how on earth such a story was ever considered scary.
“So ridiculous,” I say, down the phone.
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you grew up with no electricity in rural Ireland. These stories kept us in bed,” my mother’s soft voice seeped through the phone, “and you were the one who wanted me to retell it. It must have meant something to you if you want to hear it again.”
She was right. That story had stuck with me, but not because of the terrifying Banshee.
It was something else, I just couldn’t remember what.
“Alright, go on, but give me the short version. I gotta be at work soon,” I say as I lean back on my office chair and listen to my mother’s sweet and refined British voice.
Ireland 1955
Every day, Mary would be taking her little brother, Cian, to the local school, and every day, the boys would be scratching her white skin, dirtying her fresh white dress, and calling her names. She was just as Irish as the rest of them, but her distinct London accent made her an easy target for bored farmers’ sprog. Mary and Cian hated Ireland. As if transported through time, they somehow now lived in a different century. But she persevered, despite the telling-offs from her mother over the dirtied clothes and the pressure from her father to do more to fit in. Fit in? How could she? What would she be fitting into? Bad manners and atrocious grammar?
Every day, Mary would be taking her little brother Cian to school, passing the graves and the statue of Bridget behind the berry bush, and every day, the same thing would happen.
One day, as they walked along the bushes that overgrew onto the small road, past the graveyard, Cian let out a scream.
“Cian? What is it?” Mary asked.
“My leg. Did something hit it? A stone, maybe?” Cian’s bright blue eyes looked up at Mary as the wind ruffled his golden locks.
Mary looked around. There was no one about, and cars were a rare sight, unlike London. All that she could see was the brush, the graves, and the statue of Saint Bridget looking down on all of them. “It was probably just a bee sting. Come on, I’ll fetch you some milk at home.”
Mary was always so kind to Cian. She knew it wasn’t a bee sting.
So, every day, Mary would be taking her little brother, Cian, to the local school, and every day the same thing would happen, including Cian complaining about being hit by a stone in front of the statue of Bridget.
Mary soon grew tired of seeing little Cian cry so one day, she confronted the boys she believed responsible for her brother’s pain on the road home from school.
“It is you, Padraig, I know it is,” Mary whispered a soft and gentle shout through her polished Islington accent.
“Tis not me, Brit!” Padraig yelled back.
He was surrounded by other boys. Their clothes were ragged and dark green. Mary stood firm as little Cian clutched at her virgin white dress, his blonde locks fluttering in the breeze.
“I know it is you. I’m telling the headmaster,” Mary said as she turned.
She was about to make her way home instead of submitting herself to another day of torture. She decided her mother’s scolding was better than the priests and the boys.
“Father James? He’ll take the yardstick to the back of your knees,” Padraig laughed.
Another boy stepped forward and said, “Why would he listen to a Protestant? You’re lucky you’re not tarred and sheared!”
Padraig looked at the boy and smiled, then shot Mary a look as he took out the stones from his pocket.
Mary began to step back, “Cian, let’s go home.”
A gentle woosh rattled the berry bush.
She turned and walked away, but the boys followed.
Mary could hear their steps gather pace, so she and her brother began to run. She decided to take a shortcut. She took her brother through the field of brave Irish stallions and grass-fed cattle.
The muck and shit stuck to her white dress and shoes and soon, she could go no further.
A gentle woosh rattled the berry bush.
The land had her and Cian, and soon, so did the boys. A brown oasis quicksand. Her and Cian were damned.
As the others held her down, Padraig grabbed little Cian.
Mary screamed, “No! You can hurt me. Me! Not him! He’s just a boy!”
Mary’s face was as wet and red as a swollen heart as Padraig took out a razor. He grabbed Cian by his golden locks and began to shear him.
The gentle woosh rattled the berry bush.
Mary screamed and wailed.
Terrified crows squawked and took flight as Cian’s golden hair fell onto the muddy soil.
When they were done, they turned to Mary.
“Sure, you’re a Protestant, aren’t you? What good it be doing you to scream? Sure, there not be any of your churches around here.”
A gentle whisper wooshed from beyond the berry bush.
Padraig paused, looked at a pile of cow dung, and grabbed a hefty glob.
The other stallions followed suit.
They stepped forward and began lathering Mary in warm dung and mud, and then violently stuck her brother’s locks onto her shit-ridden face as her gentle tears fell onto the emerald soil.
She closed her eyes and dreamt of London.
“Woosh!”
A terror wind cut across the bastardized field. Cold.
The cries of the boys, the stallions, and the cattle were short-lived.
Like when a man catches his last breath.
Mary looked up and could only see red, headless stallions, cattle, and her brother lying on the field.
The blood felt better than the mud, for it was warm.
As it congealed, she looked around, panting, terrified by the silence and the death.
“Cian. Cian, get up. We must go,” She grabbed her brother, and they started to run.
Wails reverberated through her young skull as she made her way back home. Wooshes and the cut of the breeze followed her.
Trees fell, and the heads of Irish livestock were taken as Bridget ghosted above the death of Irish lies.
‘Woosh!’
The rolling, lush fields of the countryside were now awash with the blood of their bounty.
If Brehon law had still been around, there’d be nothing left to trade.
The sky turned an evil gray when Mary and Cian burst through the farm door and into their room.
Beneath the sheets, she whispered, “Just close your eyes, Cian, just close your eyes.”
The breath of Bridget was cold and wet.
Like a beautiful corpse, the children heard her as she wept.
“Cian, can you hear that?” Mary whispered into Cian’s ears, but he just shook his vandalized head.
Mary could hear raspy and painful whispers.
She gained courage from somewhere not even she knew and peaked beyond the satin sheets.
She had to know what it was.
She had to know if it was the statue.
At the foot of her bed, the specter floated. A young, beautiful, sad, tarred, and sheared lady in Irish gray.
The evening sun now shone through the gray and reflected off the blood-soaked hills and fields, illuminating her in a red and orange hue of death and revenge.
A lady now fully in red.
The Banshee reached out a gentle, withered hand and tenderly caressed Mary’s bruised and dung-covered face.
Mary was captivated by The Banshee and her terrifyingly gentle eyes, yet she did not have a fear of her.
All that she could do was cry in weeping relief as the sun’s illumination grew stronger and the mud, dung, and blood were taken by The Banshee and placed with all the other sins of the land onto her once virgin white dress.
Mary, as if spared by the druids that were now long gone, let out a sigh and fell into death.
She dreamed of London, Cian’s locks, and a gentle lady, eyes heavy with innocent regret.
The birds chirped, and the morning milking had the cows rattling towards the parlor as Mary’s father whistled his way out the gate.
Mary stretched out and then shot upright, panting in terror.
She looked around and saw Cian still asleep in his nightdress. His golden locks shimmered. Back, restored, peaceful in his bed.
“Mary! Time for school, my love!” Mary’s mother cried out. The hustle and bustle of the day began. Mary lay back on the pillow and let out a sigh of relief.
‘Just a dream,’ she thought in relief.
On the way to school, in her beautiful white dress with Cian clutching her gentle and delicate hand, they passed the grave and the statue.
Mary had never given the statue much notice.
All she knew was that it was meant to be of some Bridget.
Mary took a moment to look upon it and read who this Bridget was, but the engraving on the stone had been vandalized with the word “Whore,” and “Brit licker.”
It seems that whoever this Bridget was, she was no longer considered a Saint by the villagers.
Mary jumped the small wall to the graveyard, plucked a tiny flower from the grass, and placed it at the feet of the tarred and feathered woman from her dream.
A gentle woosh rattled the berry bush.
If the natives would not cleanse her, then Mary would.
It seems even the weak attacked the weak.
As the school bell rang, Cian said, “Let’s go, Mary. Father James won’t be happy if we’re late.”
Mary smiled and began to follow little Cian when a specter caught the corner of her eye.
She glanced at the field of stallions, cattle, and dung from her dream and saw the silhouette of a headless Irish horse grazing in vain and regret.
Present Day
“Jesus, Mom! That's a pretty good story!” I said down the phone to my mother.
“Oh, Pete, those stories used to terrify my little brother and me during those dark winters on the farm,” I hear her catch her breath.
“I know, I remember that farm and Granddad. I’d say it was fierce hard for you moving from London to Ireland, Mom.”
“Oh, Pete, it really was. Especially for Kevin. He was so young when we moved and was bullied a lot for liking tennis and his accent.”
My mother’s voice is rife with nostalgia, but not for the farm.
Her heart, even now, is in London, on the bustling streets of Chapel Market.
Suddenly, even though I am thousands of miles away, I can sense the sadness in her voice and ask, “That Mary girl sounds an awful lot like you, Mom.”
“Oh well, you know… We all put a little bit of ourselves into these silly stories,” she whispered through her beautiful, refined English tone that hid the memories of the envious Emerald Isles. Even now, she misses the hustle and bustle of Chapel Market.
Maybe one day, we’ll go visit the place that made her so gentle.
I have been Peter William Murphy, and that was “A Banshee Saved My Mother.”
That's a fantastic story! The repetition makes it so creepy somehow, engaging and catching!