You have my heart At least, for the most part Cuz everybody's gotta die sometime We fell apart Let's make a new start Cuz everybody's gotta die sometime, yeah yeah But baby don't cry...y...y...yyyyyy...
Well, since I'm interested in the actual mythology, I just want to throw out what Banshees are actually supposed to be:
In pre-Christian Ireland, funerals were conducted by having women perform a type of melodramatic mourning song called a keen (or "caoin" in the older spelling). Because it's really hard to do well, they had professional song-mourners called "bean chaointe" (pronounced "ban-keen") who would be hired to perform funerary rights, and traveled to wherever there was need for their services. Hence, the appearance of bean chaointes signified many deaths in a locality, and they were obviously associated with death and loss.
However, the greatest kings and heroes and those of the bloodlines of those kings and heroes weren't mourned by just regular humans. Instead, the faeries ("sidhe", pronounced "shee") would send their own bean chaointe to mourn the deaths of those of bloodlines tied to the fairy kingdoms, called "bean sidhe" (pronounced, you guessed it, "ban-shee") to perform funerary rights. Because they could get news of the death faster than mortal men (or even outright forsee their death), they would appear to perform funerary rights even before the family received word of the death of their son fighting in foreign lands, leading to them being "ill omens" associated with death.
The stuff about necromancy and connection to a totally different pantheon is obviously all junk Kenkou is making up on his own.
Incidentally, if you read The Ancient Magus's Bride, Silver Lady is a former bean sidhe whose family she mourned entirely died out until she had to find a new purpose in life.
The stuff about necromancy and connection to a totally different pantheon is obviously all junk Kenkou is making up on his own.
Incidentally, if you read The Ancient Magus's Bride, Silver Lady is a former bean sidhe whose family she mourned entirely died out until she had to find a new purpose in life.
It's always nice to see some real information about these things Kenkou likes to butcher for his stupid fetishes.
