ABSTRACT
Few folk beliefs have survived in Ireland with the same tenacity as that of a supernatural female being connected with death in certain families, and popularly called the banshee. She is known by a number of names, however, and here she will be referred to by the generic term ‘(supernatural) deathmessenger’, since various strands in the traditions about her which are
important in tracing her origin, are specifically linked to the different names by which she is known-and the question of origin is of importance in attempting to find echoes of the land-goddess in the modern folk-traditions of the death-messenger. Some few tradition-bearers and commentators have occasionally looked to fairylore and ghostlore to explain her origin, tending to view her simply as either a fairy woman, or just a restless female spirit in some way connected to the family for which she forebodes or proclaims death (Lysaght 1996:43-6, 49-50). Both fairylore and ghostlore, as well as other tradition complexes such as that concerned with the human keening women, have indeed influenced aspects of the supernatural death-messenger tradition. However, closer analysis highlights folk-perceptions and traits which point to another, and quite different, complex as the most likely main source of the supernatural death-messenger belief. Certain core elements seem to indicate that the supernatural death-messenger of folk tradition can be related-in cultural terms-to various goddess-figures who play such an important and prominent role in early Irish mythology. What are these core elements, and how are they to be understood?
