The Ban Sidhe (The Banshee)

The Ban Sidhe *

I could tell from the howling of the “ban sidhe” last night that this morning’s storm was likely to be a bad one. The copper strip insulation around the doors and windows of this 1910 vintage bungalow buzz and moan with the slightest breeze - so the cacophonic din that joined the mournful chorus above the chimney, kept me up from 3:00 a.m. to 6:30. I didn’t get much sleep. It started snowing at 8:20 and by 8:50 (when I was driving to the library) visibility was down to half a block.

I almost picked off the first lady at the very start of the voyage. She was bundled and wrapped to the bridge of her nose - utterly oblivious to my approach as she stepped blithely in the path of the car. She would have made a considerable impression too as she outweighed the tiny Saturn by several stone.

My second target was not so well fed as the first – nor as well prepared . She must have left the house before 8:00 a.m. as she was painted in dark blue spandex, emblematic of her street gang which I recognized immediately as The Avenues Health Spa Trotting Club and Temperance Society. (They have a very strict dress code.) She stood at the crosswalk in front of the Library with her arms firmly planted in the classic Super Hero pose – hands on the hips. If she had raised one arm she could have performed “I’m A Little Tea Pot” and the thought occurred to me of how difficult it must be for street mimes at this time of year.

The woman’s dark apparel made her difficult to see. But in this snow storm, even “The Pink Lady,” who was want to trot by my house each morning during the summer in the same grotesque flamingo suit, would have been hard to pick out in the falling snow. To be accurate about this, the face of the pink lady, could never be seen in a snowstorm at all as it was perpetually painted in zinc oxide to protect her skin from the ultra-violet rays of the sun. I do not know she wears zinc oxide in the winter – in fact the Pink Lady has not run by my house in many months and I sometimes wonder what happened to her.

The teapot stepped into the crosswalk against the light in front of my car and then, thinking better of it, stepped back onto the sidewalk where she began jogging in place – a jaunty lass accidentally abandoned from a recent touring production of “River Dance.” Then as her arms left her side and they began circling from the shoulders – Rocky Balboa in training yet again!

Since these brief encounters, I have been pondering the frailty of life and the utter pointlessness of overindulgence in either exercise or eating. Either woman had an equal opportunity of ending up in the trophy case of unwitting casual victims slaughtered each day as a tragic if necessary consequence of modern transportation.

A Poem:

The man who said clean living pays a bonus in longevity

And rose at dawn to work each day

Abstaining from all levity

And going on his cautious way avoiding what was risky

Got his reward on the grill of a Ford

In the parking lot at Kamiski

• Ban Sidhe (The Banshee) In the Irish language the word “ban” means woman. The word “sidhe” means “wind.” So the “ban sidhe” is “The Woman of the Wind.” In addition to wind, the word “sidhe” can mean “spirit” and “breath.” In Latin its closest equivalent would be “espiritu,” a word that can also mean spirit, breath and wind. In American Indian languages there are similar words that combine the meanings of breath, spirit and wind. It is a common belief in many native American cultures that there is a little whirlwind in side of each of us that keeps us going. When we stop breathing (lose the wind) the spirit is said to have left us. It is the same in Irish mythology where the Ban Sidhe ( banshee) the keening woman spirit of the wind heralds the approach of death.