‘I turned on the television. I began hearing a horrible atonal moaning/singing from outside the house. It ranged in octave from a low octave moan to a high octave shriek. But it wasn’t ‘noise’. It was musical. I’ve lived in rural areas all my life. Even spent time in the deep woods. No animal sounds like that. I can’t prove it. I didn’t look outside. I didn’t want to. I had a grandfather (the Irish one) sick with cancer. I knew what it was. Hearing a banshee was bad enough. To see one? No way. My grandfather died a short time later.’ ‘A hollow, moaning ‘song’, horrible to hear, but not unmusical. It made me want to look outside. I wouldn’t. It moved around the outside of the house, as I went from room to room. The range was from baritone to soprano. But it was one voice. I had to drown out the sound with the television. It helped, but didn’t entirely block it. It was almost as if the sound were in my head, but I was definitely hearing it with my ears, hard to explain.’ ‘It seemed sad. I always imagined the banshee as angry. But it wasn’t. It was sad. I think it’s possible that she may not be called upon again. The family name may not carry onto another generation.’ ‘While I’m not sure that a banshee is technically a fairy, the stories are usually grouped into the fairylore, so I thought you might be interested.’
§302
Michigan, US
2000s
Female: Age 21-30
occasional supernatural experiences
inside a private house
12 am-3 am
no duration given
on my own
you had just woken up or were just about to go to sleep
no fairy mood reported
loss of sense of time, profound silence before the experience, hair prickling or tingling before or during the experience, a sense that the experience was a display put on specially for you, unusually clouded memories of the experience, a sense that the experience marked a turning point in your life