I'm not sure if I'be posted this particular Banshee story beofre ~ so if I have I apologise.
But it's worth a second read because the creature was seen by two witnesses ........

'It all began in the early hours of a Wednesday morning in August 1998 when Freda Piers, a 44-year-old housewife of Saltney, Chester had difficulty sleeping. Freda usually had no trouble getting to sleep, but on this balmy morning at 2 a.m. she became restless, and insomnia began to steadily set in. Freda therefore left her snoring husband and went down to the kitchen to make a coffee. She turned on the radio and for about a minute she listened to Magic 1548, a Liverpool-based station. She was just about to tune into the MFM radio station, when the disc-jockey Jon Jessop urged listeners to go and look out their window to see if there was any sign of a lost snow-white terrier named Brandy, because its owner was frantic. Freda dimmed the lights, opened the window blinds, and gazed out at the moonlit close. She then heard a low howling sound which sent a shiver down her spine. The DJ then said that the terrier had been lost in northern Liverpool, so Freda realised that there was no hope of the dog being outside of her house in Saltney. She took a quick look through the gaps in the blinds - and saw a hooded figure in black standing across the road. The figure looked like a monk wearing a black habit and cowl. What's more, the figure seemed to be the source of the uncanny weeping, and it was looking up at the bedroom window of the house opposite. Red curtains were drawn in this window and a faint bulb burned behind them.

Freda telephoned her best friend Eunice, who lived next door to the house where the strange figure was lurking. After some twenty or so rings, a bleary-eyed and grumpy Eunice answered her phone, and Freda told her about the figure in black standing in the neighbouring garden on the lawn. Eunice took her cordless phone to the window and peeped out. She told Freda that an old white-haired woman was looking up at next-door's window with a sorrowful but demented look, and she appeared to be crying. Eunice was so frightened at the sight of the deranged old woman, she hung up on Freda, dialled the police and shook her husband awake. Eunice's husband, Kevin reluctantly hauled himself out the bed and took a look out the window. He too saw the eccentric old woman in black. He opened the bedroom window, despite his frightened wife's pleas not to, and he shouted down to her, 'What's wrong love?' The creepy-looking woman failed to reply, and continued to stare up at next door's window and started to make a bloodcurdling howling noise.

Freda, meanwhile, was attempting to awaken her husband Sam from his slumbers to tell him about the crazy old woman on the other side of the close.

A police car zoomed to the scene with its roof-light flashing. Eunice and Kevin were distracted from looking at the old woman by the blue flash of light from the police car, and when they glanced back at the lawn, the nocturnal visitor had inexplicably vanished, in what must have literally been the blinking of an eyelid. Two policemen rushed from the squad car with high-powered torches and flashed their beams across the garden where the mysterious figure had stood. Eunice felt so stupid and confused at the woman's vanishing act, she withdrew from the window and pulled her husband back too. Seconds later, out of burning curiosity, she chanced a peep through the net curtains and the blinding beam of a police torch singled her face out at the window. Eunice had no option but to lean out the window and admit that she had rung the police because of the strange prowling woman.

The police listened, then knocked on the front door of Eunice's neighbour. A middle-aged man came to the door not long afterwards and invited the police in. About fifteen minutes later, an ambulance roared into the close. The ambulance men hurried to the house next door and were admitted in by the policemen. By now, Freda, Eunice, and their husbands were standing on the pavement near the house that was the cynosure of all the activity. Eunice and her husband recalled that an Irish couple named O'Brien had recently moved into the house.

About fifteen minutes later, the covered body of Mrs Obrien was taken to the ambulance on a stretcher. Later that morning, Freda and Eunice heard from neighbours that Mrs O'Brien had died in her sleep. Her husband Pat had awoken at 2 a.m. to the sounds of someone crying outside in the distance. He had tried to wake up his wife Philomena to tell her about the strange sobbing sound, but Mrs O'Brien failed to respond, and wouldn't wake up. Mr O'Brien panicked when he felt her neck and got no carotid pulse. She felt cold, and Mr O'Brien realised his wife was dead.

Mr O'Brien claims that his own mother's death 25 years earlier was foreshadowed by the wailing of a banshee, and has no difficulty accepting that a banshee cried for his late wife in the early hours of that warm August morning.'

Hammy x x x

Oh pooh .......... I have

*kicks self*

sorry - please ignore this post

Why should we ignore it, Hams? It's a quite splendid post. I'm sure Teddy will enjoy it.

And far better than those...`do U C scary gosts, dude?', type threads.

I've read it again, and it's as disturbing and fascinating now, as it was the first time. And not a single mention of any boxes, either.

I don't want to ignore it either Hams.

I gots a question tho'.......Why are banshees seen as ominous or scary ? As I understand it, they do not actually cause people to die but merely appear when this is going to happen, in much the same way as some people claim to have been visisted by deceased loved ones when close to death. OK they may not be the most pleasant thing to witness but that doesn't mean that they are " evil spirits ".

Will stop before I start rambling lol

I think its because people view the unknown as scary, and and ghosts/banshees etc are linked to death, which the majority of people are scared of.

*climbs out of toybox and scrawls with big blue crayon*

I phoned my irish cousin Teddy mc paddy about banshees.
In Ireland there is another explanation for banshees, in some parts they say a banshee is a little woman who washes her clothes by the side of a river and if you catch her she gives you three wishes.

I like this kind of banshee better, dont you Hammy

*Dresses in Indiana Teddy outfit complete with extra extra large butterfly type net*

Am off to find me a banshee, I gots wishes that need granting...

Coming Hammy??

Ooohhhh goody!

I have heard of this type of Banshee Teddy, and it's also the Scottish version. Sometimes she is seen washing blood from clothes ....... if you see this it is best not to ask her who the clothes belong to ........ if you catch my drift .... or should that be Dreft ?????



C'mon Teddy!

Hammy x x x