(copyrighted --all rights reserved-- Llewellyn's Magical Almanac)
by Susan A Sheppard
Double,
double toil and trouble,
Fire
burn and cauldron bubble. Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
O, well done, I commend your pains.
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring.
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes...
From
“MacBeth” by William Shakespeare
Not all fairy tales have happy endings. Not all fairies bring goodness and light. Among the Irish and Scottish people there is a supernatural creature they call “the Banshee.”
The Banshee is an attendant death
fairy, one that brings an omen of doom to Irish or Scottish clans. It is the
Banshee that announces the death of a family member, usually over bodies of
water with her keening or caoine, a shrill crying for the dead. But the Banshee doesn’t just stay
near bodies of water washing out the grave clothes of her dead as it is told.
She also travels to the homes of those about to die, sometimes mounted on a
pale (at times black) steed or riding a black funeral coach with two, white headless horses
leading the way. There are various descriptions of the Banshee. The Irish Banshee is called Bean Sidhe in an older tongue. Depending upon what source you use, “Bean” means woman and “Sidhe” (shee) means fairy. But other sources say that Bean Sidhe is translated as “woman of the hills.” Some ancient lore says the Banshee can even be the ghost of a young woman who has died in childbirth, especially if she was not given the last rites of confession.
The Irish Banshee is said to materialize as a beautiful young woman with streaming auburn hair. She wears a green woolen dress with gray cloak clasped about her shoulders. She hangs out at rivers and waterfalls. Sometimes she is said to have white hair and a silver comb. The only hint that this beautiful Banshee is a messenger of doom comes from the fact that her eyes are blood red from crying for her Irish dead.
The Mid-Ohio Valley as well as West Virginia was settled predominantly of people of Irish and Scottish ancestry. Along with the Welsh and French, they shard ancient Celtic ties and are descended from clans. The Celts believed in unique forms of mysticism, such as sorcerers, witches, leprechauns and fairies, and not the least of them — the Banshee.
Stories of Banshee spirits went underground as Irish and Scottish immigrants moved into the verdant hills of the Ohio Valley and West Virginia. But the legend of the Banshee is not entirely forgotten, as you will see by reading the following pages.
Let us travel back to the shores of
Scotland on a blustery winter day in the year 1590. A group of women, known
later as the Berwick Witches, summoned their powers at the ocean’s edge. Over
the icy waters of the North Sea, King James VI and his new bride Anne of
Denmark made their way back to Scotland when their boat nearly capsized. Rumors
circulated that King James was in great danger from a plot or a curse put upon
him by the witches of North Berwick. This quickly caught King James’s attention, since he had always been fascinated by witchcraft. It wasn’t long until the "witches" were captured and put on trial.
One young woman, called Gilly Duncan, confessed under torture that she and other witches cursed the King, and was intent upon murdering him by chanting spells and evil curses. She also claimed that she and other witches were in cahoots with the Earl of Boswell, first in line to the throne after King James’s death, and they wished him dead.
King James had earlier written a treatise
against witchcraft. Wild claims about the Devil being intent upon murdering
King James were made and rumors flew. It was reported back to King James that a
group of Scottish witches had gathered at night near a castle in Edinburgh
where they fashioned a waxen image of the King. In front of a raging bonfire,
the witches passed the wax doll amongst themselves, chanting in unison: “This is King James the VI, ordained to be consumed at the instance of a nobleman, Francis Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell.” The witches’ poppet was tossed into the flames where it melted away instantly.
Were such dubious claims likely? It is
highly doubtful. Most of the women charged with witchcraft identified
themselves as devout Christians, and would not likely talk ill against such a
powerful and paranoid ruler.
The witches were later executed at Edinburgh’s Castle Hill. But it did not end there. In later years, Scottish witches were “brought to justice” at MacBeth’s Hill near the town of Nairn. Witchcraft had a strong hold in Scotland. Scottish rule executed 4,400 alleged witches. Only a handful of witches were executed in England and Ireland. Next to Germany, Scotland murdered more people during their witch trials than any other country.
If the names of “Duncan” and “MacBeth” sound familiar, there is a reason. It has long been thought that King James held great influence over William Shakespeare and was even responsible for Shakespeare’s unflattering portrayal of Scottish witches in his play “Macbeth.” James supported the works of Shakespeare, whose famous plays came about later.
King James was certainly one of the most literate of all British Kings and Shakespeare’s Macbeth was written only seventeen years after initial royal paranoia about the Berwick witches, a long enough time for the imagination to fodder and take certain liberties with the actual story.
North of Aberdeen, there is a haunted place called the “Forest of Marr.” It is believed this is the area where some of the Scottish witches escaped. As they went underground, the women’s occult powers grew. It was conjectured that the ghosts of the executed witches eventually became Banshee spirits known as the "Bean Nighe" and continued to roam the countryside bringing death to the Scottish Clans who backed King James or were responsible for their persecution. From that area of Scotland to Wood County, came a family named “Marr.” Some have said that their lives were marred by the earlier witches’ tragedies. And now we begin our first tale moving from the dark reaches of Scotland into the even darker reaches of West Virginia...
Marrtown
Banshee
On certain lonely, moonless nights in
the Mid-Ohio Valley, under a sky littered with stars, riding over the hills of
Marrtown, there appears a shrouded figure on a white horse— one that is known
as “the Banshee of Marrtown.”
Marrtown was once a small farming
community southeast of the city of Parkersburg. The family of Scottish
immigrant Thomas Marr settled Marrtown in 1836. Thomas later married a local
woman named Mary Disosche whose family owned a local brewery. The Marr family
brought to America many of the ancient beliefs and superstitions from their
native land of Scotland, where a belief in banshees, witches and ghosts
remained strong. The daughter of a widow, Mary Marr was an autumn bride,
considered to be an ill omen among the Scottish people. In years to come, Mary
would lose six of the eight children that she bore. Only two would carry on the
Marr name. Times were hard for Thomas and Mary Marr but they did not lose their
dream of a better life, pouring their energies into a simple tract of land that
is now Marrtown.
Soon, a picturesque white farmhouse stood against shadowy woods thick with sumac, milkweed and blackberry brambles, framed by a sweeping green valley. To the west of the Marr homestead was a steep hill that ran directly into the Ohio River. To the north was Fort Boreman Hill, where Union troops camped during the Civil War, and where a Pest House housed locals and soldiers who had contracted typhoid fever, small pox and other diseases.
The years of the Civil War, as for most, were
not happy ones for the Marr Family. They lost two of their children to typhoid
fever. From their front window Thomas and Mary witnessed small clashes that
turned into bloody battles between Yankee and Confederate soldiers. There were
public hangings on nearby Fort Boreman Hill. As the Civil War drew to a close,
marauding soldiers from both sides stole freely from the Marr family, making
off with what food and stock the family had put away for themselves.
Shortly after the Civil War, the Marr family’s Scottish brew of bad luck appeared to come to an end. Thomas landed a job as night watchman at the toll bridge that crossed over the Little Kanawha River from lower Parkersburg to the road leading into Marrtown. Mary would stay home to tend the farm and children. Still, there were ominous hints of what was about to unfold.
On a cold February night in the year 1876, Mary sat by the front window awaiting Thomas to come home from his job. Earlier, Mary had awakened suddenly and was eager to see her husband. The middle-aged woman heard footsteps coming up the road. She stood up to peer out the window. But instead of Thomas, a white horse loped up to the front gate of the house and then stopped. Sitting atop the horse was a rider whose face was covered by a tattered veil. It looked to be a woman. Alarmed, Mary moved from her chair and walked outside into the frigid night air. The rider, dressed in the threadbare clothing of a beggar, remained silent.
As bitter winds gusted, Mary pulled
her woolen shawl close. Mary asked the rider what she wanted. There was no
answer. Plumes of icy air billowed from the nostrils of the white horse. As
Mary repeated her question, rider and horse inched closer. The aged woman sat
stiffly in her saddle. Underneath the gauzy veil, Mary saw that the woman’s
eyes radiated an eerie red glow. After a few moments, the woman on the horse spoke. “I am here to tell you,
Mary Marr that Thomas Marr has just died. Say your prayers, Lady. I bid you
well.” Rider and horse turned abruptly and galloped away. Mary collapsed onto the front stoop.
Through tears, she watched the shrouded woman and her horse vanish entirely
just as they reached the bend in the road. Within the hour, a man who worked
with Thomas came to deliver the dreaded news. No one knows for sure what happened to Thomas Marr that fated winter evening. Some say that while working at the toll bridge Thomas was shot by an assailant’s bullet then fell and drowned in the Little Kanawha River. Others claim that it was the cry of the Banshee that startled Thomas into meeting his end in the river below.
In years to come, the Banshee did not
abandon her Marr clan just yet. The ghostly rider continued to make other
visits to the family. Mary Marr lived to be ninety years old. Such advanced
years were an exception for the time. As Mary lay as a corpse in the parlor of
her home many years after her husband’s death, family members heard the
rattling of chains in the attic. Others claimed to hear the shrieks of a wild
cat near the house around the same time.
A few years after Mary died, one of the Marr descendents had his arm cut off in a tragic accident. As family members sat up with the boy, they heard snarling and growling sounds on the porch. When the women went outside to see what is was, the stoop where Mary met her Banshee was covered with blood as if a terrible struggle had taken place.
What has become of the Banshee of Marrtown? It is said she still rides, giving dreaded omens to those of Scottish Blood. Not Scottish or Irish, you say? You would still be wise to avoid Marrtown on certain still, dark and moonless nights…
The Banshee of Center Point
Banshees aside, if you have ever had the opportunity
to fly over West Virginia and the Mid-Ohio Valley in a small plane, you may
have noticed the foliage below appears as dense and electric-green as that of a
rainforest, an excellent place for harboring fugitives but terrible for your
sinuses!
In a time where most of the wilderness in the U.S.
is vanishing, West Virginia is still “wild and wonderful,” as the slogan says.
But what kind of “wildness” may mean something other than what the travel ads
claim. Native American tribes were afraid of these lands. The Shawnee Indians
were especially spooked by the lands east of the Ohio River and avoided it as
much as possible. The Native Americans did not make a habit of settling into what
is now West Virginia believing cursed by ghosts and strange beasts. There is a community in a remote part of Doddridge County called Center Point, a place that is now a virtual ghost town. Center Point is typical of small mountain communities reclaimed by the woods. The village used to have a post office and the Ross Country Store, but that is all but gone. A craggy, brown creek courses through lush foliage with leaves as big as mud flaps. Modest white houses cling to the sides of hills with sloping yards made muddy by children at play.
In Center Point, there isn’t much for children to do
other than chase each other with sticks or head for the creek in search of the
little brown clots with pinchers known so familiar to West Virginians as
“crawdads.”
And…Unless you were a seven-year-old girl named
Pearl White who loved to play in the woods, one who dreamed of flapping her
arms and flying away like a bird, a place like Center Point could be pretty
dull. But there was plenty for Pearl to do. She had drive and imagination. She
wasn’t worried about the Black Flu. Sickness happened to people older than she was
and Pearl was invincible. Why, she almost knew how to fly already!
It was near dusk in late summer. Pearl was staying
with her Grandmother at Center Point on the farm while relatives traveled to
Pennsboro to help those already stricken by Black Flu. Like so many of the flu
victims, Pearl’s young, unmarried uncle had taken sick but appeared to be doing
fine. His flu didn’t seem to be much worse than a chest cold. It was odd how
the Black Flu preyed upon those in the full bloom of life. Many victims that succumbed
to the Black Flu were young, only in their twenties and thirties. But Pearls’
uncle was in good spirits, sitting up and talking as the day wore on.
One late August evening drew in a bit more somberly
than before. The indigo of twilight was soon upon them. The night was clear.
There was not one cloud among the stars. Flickering lights studded the evening
sky. Pearl counted them as the Big Dipper, the belt of Orion, the North Star
and dreamed of flying to all of them. Center Point was small, but the world was
still hers.
Pearl’s grandmother was in the process of taking her
granddaughter to the outhouse one more time for the night before retiring to
bed. As darkness enclosed, the clip-clop sound of horses’ hooves sounded up the
road. The trot was slow and measured. Whoever it was didn’t seem to be in a
hurry. They looked around to see a rider on a horse. Grandmother thought,
perhaps it was the mailman paying a late visit. After all, the Black Flu had
taken its toll on Center Point. Many people had died. Mail could arrive at just
about any time of day or evening.
Pearl and her grandmother paused to watch the rider
and horse make their way toward the farmhouse. Crickets sang in the shadows. It seemed strange how the figure sat erect on the
horse and was enshrouded in pale, fluttering rags almost like a mummy. The
horse itself was also pale like a ghost. The gender of the rider could not be
made out either although something told them it was a woman.
Pearl’s grandmother recoiled but still the little
girl ran to meet the figure on the horse anyway. They sauntered up the front
walk. The sun was entirely gone, the world left in shadows. The rider tugged on
the bridle and the horse stopped. In later years, Pearl would say that she was
so close to that Banshee’s horse that she could feel its hot breath on her
face.
Yes, those of Celtic blood called this creature a
Banshee. Pearl and her relatives were of Scottish descent and this is a classic
way that the Scottish Banshee appears, always as a shrouded figure.
And yet, on that fated night in Center Point the
Banshee spirit issued a warning. She pointed a bony finger at Pearl’s
Grandmother and proclaimed in a rasping voice, “One of yours is to die this
very night!” A keening cry split the evening’s stillness. Banshee and horse
instantly vanished.
Shaken and left in shadows, Pearl and her
grandmother hugged each other. But there was no time to think about the
terrible thing that had just happened. Already sounds were coming from the
house, sounds of someone struggling for air. It was Pearl’s uncle.
The two ran inside just in
time to realize that the young man’s lungs filled with fluid. Blood foamed from
his nose and mouth. This was the usual way people with the Black
Flu died. Grandmother knew it. There was no saving him. Within moments, Pearl’s
uncle had drowned in his own blood. After the death rattle, all became still,
except for the sound of horses’ hooves galloping away. It was then something
squalled like a wildcat in the distance. 
Despite the evening when she witnessed her uncle’s
terrible death from the Black Flu, Pearl White grew up and she did learn to
fly. She became a pioneer in the field of aviation and was the first woman to
parachute out of a plane. Pearl was a member of the famous “Barnstormers,” a
name given to pilots who performed dangerous stunts. Pearl performed her stunts
all the way from the Pennsboro Fair in 1935 to the movies in Hollywood,
California.
In her life, Pearl White feared very little. In
fact, as a young woman she was attracted to danger. When she was just at the
age of sixteen, men would strap Pearl’s body to the belly of a plane, go up and
then swoop down so she could pick up small objects off the ground. She broke
her back one time, and that was at Ravenswood, West Virginia in 1935 and yet
she came back.
It was strange how in later years, Pearl was often
afraid to sit outside on her front porch at her modest home on upper Juliana
Street in Parkersburg. There was something that disturbed her... the oncoming
of night.
Pearl was not afraid to be strapped to a plane and
fly through the air. She was not afraid to jump out of one as a teenager. After
meeting up with the Center Point Banshee as a small child the only thing Pearl
White was ever afraid of — was the dark.
Variations of these articles were first printed in Llewellyn's Magical Almanac and on the Haunted America website. You can also read these banshees stories and other tales of the paranormal in Susan's book "Cry of the Banshee" which can be ordered through West Virginia Book Company. Here is the link:
Susan A Sheppard
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