This Paranormal Life - #230 The Legend of the Banshee

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

When an Irish seer foretold the death of James I, King of Scots he didn't take the warning seriously... Not long after, he was assassinated in the sewers of his monastery. Was this strange woman a fortune teller? A psychic? A Wizard? Or was she actually a legendary creature from Irish folklore known as THE BANSHEE.  BUY OFFICIAL TPL MERCHwww.thisparanormallife.com/storePatreonpatreon.com/ThisParanormalLifeYouTubeyoutube.com/thisparanormallifeTwittertwitter.com/ThisParaLifeInstagraminstagram.com/thisparanormallifeSecret Society Facebook Pagewww.facebook.com/groups/thisparanormallife/Edited by Kami Tomanwww.tomanedits.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music: www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can vampires drink the blood of animals? Is the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz a zombie? I mean, he wanted brains. All these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal case,

tale, beast, claim, monster, goblin, fairy, demon, and come to a conclusion at the end as to whether or not it is truly paranormal. My name is Roy Powers, and across from me sits the one and only Kittles Grittles. Good evening, Kittles. I don't think anyone's ever told me that before, but I'm glad to be here and glad to have a new nickname. It really beats most of the ones I grew up with any examples of those just so we can uh shit shit okay uh i don't know things like that okay well i apologize for those years and years ago so i don't think we need to bring up any uh any bad blood from the past but you called me

rory poors and i didn't appreciate that either so interesting to note before the podcast uh when we were trying to come up with that question about the tin man from the wizard of oz we couldn't remember who wanted what from that movie it's hard to remember i thought the tin man i thought the tin man wanted brains i couldn't remember what the scarecrow wanted skin it's because they all need everything they're all so bad they all need new brains heart and minds i mean one of them wants courage that's pretty ambiguous you can't really just gift that in a bag some of the others are like i want what did the scarecrow want we do we shouldn't get a knife on this movie because i hate it so much wait what did he want more hay one of them wanted a hat no uh brain one of them wanted a yankees cap they were sold out everywhere um one of them wanted a brain

uh the the lion was a uh rat coward and he wanted courage that's the easy one to remember and the scarecrow wanted a friend love another a female scarecrow we could bang i don't remember pinocchio we wanted to be a real boy or some shit hey siri there's no way sir he's gonna what did the scarecrow from wizard of oz want i'm on a forum here and uh there was an ad placed directly under the question that just said directly under the question that just said Bitcoin wallet. I was like, he wanted a crypto wallet? There's no way. He wanted Shiba, Shiba coin.

Oh my God. I'm so sorry, guys. Usually we get right into the podcast, but we really can't until I figure out what's wrong. Last week, you lambasted me for the entire episode for ranting too much. I think I wanted to tell a quick anecdote about my holiday. And you were furious. This is important.

Stating that people's reviews recently had been bad. Saying that we had been rambling too much. Yeah, but this is important. Now you're stressing me out. And I just googled straw man, what he want. And of course that didn't come up with any results. Of course. Because he's not a, He was a scarecrow.

A straw man is a different thing. Wait a minute. The scarecrow... Oh, I f***ed this. The scarecrow wanted a brain. The tin man wanted a heart. And the lion wanted courage. So, uh...

Alright, well... Do you have an episode today? We're getting to it, alright? It's just... You gotta nail the intro to these things because you know what it's like people just tune out if they're normally it's the point of the intro that we we don't answer those questions our story today begins way back in 1437 when james the first was ruling as the king of Scots. Now, James was a pretty ruthless king, arresting and sometimes straight up murdering his enemies. Yeah, whenever we say king shit in 2021, we don't usually mean the shit that King James of Scotland did. No, this is a much more brutal approach.

Today, king shit means like being a boss about your business in the streets, looking after your family and loved ones. Yes. And winning and succeeding in your aspirations in life, not arresting and beheading your enemies. Publicly executing your foes. While enjoying life as king, he began spending huge sums of money on palaces and various other luxuries. Well, that's kingshit. That's some kingshit right there. sums of money on palaces and various other luxuries. This obviously started to piss off a few influential characters, one of which being the Duke of Athrol. But what were they gonna do

about it? They were peasants, and James was a king. A mighty king. In February 1437, King James was staying at Friar's Preacher's Monastery in Scotland, fulfilling his kingly duties, but mostly playing a lot of tennis. So much tennis that at one point he ordered that the sewers of the monastery be partially blocked to stop his tennis balls from getting lost. One night while at the monastery, and I'm going to go ahead and assume it was some sort of glorious banquet where everyone's eating and having a good time, King James was approached by a mysterious Irish woman. Now, seeing someone he didn't know in the monastery was strange enough, let alone a mysterious traveler. I'm starting to think the bodyguards aren't doing their job if mysterious travelers are able to get that close to the king.

Well, it's banquet night. You know, everyone puts their feet up on banquet night, even the guards. This woman took him aside to speak to him privately. How can I help you, my dear? Let me guess, you saw me on the court earlier and want some tips on your backhand. Well, I'm sure I can serve up some advice. The woman replied, you will die soon. King James didn't know how to respond. Oh, fan of a bit of trash talk, I see. Very good. The Duke of Athrol is coming. He will spill your blood. Now, it's not every day that a stranger predicts your death.

But King James didn't really take the fortune seriously. Um, okay. Thanks for that, you f***ing weirdo. But one night, not long after the Irish seer had warned him of his fate, the door to his chamber burst open. King James leapt from his bed. What is it, Dennis? Dennis screamed. My lord, the Duke of Athrol, he's attacked the monastery. He and his forces are- Oh my god, f*** me. He's been stabbed, by the way. It's an audio medium, so I have to really make sure people get that across. Sorry, let me get involved.

Tell my wife and children I... So, yeah, that's kind of the theme. It was a very painful death. Run! I like to think he's f***ing six foot five five beard down to his waist. He's the manliest of all men. And as soon as he's like, flee, my Lord, make for the man. Oh, owie.

Knowing that he didn't have long to escape, King James started smashing through the floorboards of his room where he leapt down into the sewers like a frightened rat. He's a master of the sewers. But in a cruel twist of fate, the exit to the sewers had been blocked just like he'd asked days earlier. No way. With nowhere to run, his enemies caught up with him. Please, take whatever you want.

Do you like tennis? I have several courts. They're all yours if you spare... Oh! Oh, me! No one could have predicted this would happen. Dennis was right! It hurts!

It hurts! Die with some dignity it's it's so funny because it's such an abstract noise but i can just picture this spear going through their chest so vividly i like to think um if i were ever in a situation where i had to lay down my life for the greater good i would resist every urge to make an embarrassing noise on the way out. You know, there's a bomb about to go off and I'm like, get out of here. Get the hell out of here. I'll jump on top of it.

And I jump on top and I'm like, remember me. Remember me as a hero. And then it detonates and I go oh all they're gonna remember is the scream that's all they're gonna remember not all the shit that's why you have to try and make as manly a reaction as possible you have to be like hugh jackman and wolverine or something you have to be like huh that actually smarts yeah yeah as you get a javelin through your eyeball. Yeah, or tell someone you're going to see them in hell. I'll be waiting for you in hell, brother. And then you get stabbed and just go.

Do it quietly if you have to make any noise at all. Wait until everyone is out of earshot before you scream like you know you want to. Now, as you can tell, i've had to slightly just slightly dramatize the retelling of this story was any of that tennis shit real the tennis part of the story was entirely true okay this was actually how the king of scots died he had he had told the people to build blockades in the sewers days before he tried to escape through the sewers. It's actually a really funny story. You can read about it online on the BBC. But yeah, the fact that it took place in 1437 means, yeah, I had to jazz it up a little bit.

But the tennis part is 100% true. And there's another important part to the story. there's another important part to the story a part that if true could prove the existence of a paranormal creature known as the banshee oh interesting long time coming on this paranormal life the banshee we've had it emailed in as a suggestion to the podcast email account this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com. And you're right, this is a long time coming. You see, although she didn't scream or appear in a ghostly form, many people believe that if this Irish seer really did warn the king about his assassination, it could be one of the earliest recorded encounters with the spirit known as the Banshee. Now before we get ahead of ourselves, let's explain what a Banshee is. The brief description that I'm sure a lot of people will be familiar with is a ghost

or a spirit that appears as a woman, sometimes combing her hair. The apparition usually appears before someone is about to die, and it lets out a harrowing scream the cry of the banshee so the idea is that if you hear the cry of the banshee it's likely that someone nearby or someone that you know is about to die it shows up there's a little cry a weird creepy cry and then once you hear that you're like shit i think my uncle just died yeah because he's been sick for a while and i just heard a ghost scream better facetime the family group chat to see if everyone's still there doing okay uh in some legends they say that the banshee can only cry for five major irish families i have heard this that's very it's a very interesting and lesser known fact about the banshee yeah because you know we we both grew up

in northern ireland uh both attended heritage class which we've talked about uh which briefly did cover the banshee that's right um and i don't remember that ever being a part of it. I always felt that it seemed like a more old timey perspective on the Banshee when there was less diversity in the country. Right, right. And it kind of made sense. There only were a handful of kind of major family names. I can't think what they might be, but, you know, Jesus Christ. Oh, I've got them right here. It's the O'Neills, the O'Briens, the O'Connors, the O'Gradys, and the Cavaners.

Those are the five families that allegedly have a banshee. Whereas I would imagine in the modern day, people focus less on that fact because there's just, I'm guessing, more surnames around and less people with those five names. They do say that if you were to marry into one of these five families, you then also get banshee privileges. That's not a privilege. I guess it kind of, I mean, there's no real con to the banshee. Oh, I guess if it's just letting you know what's happening. Yeah, it's a pretty it's just letting you know what's happening yeah it's a pretty spooky way of letting you know but the gist of it is basically someone showing up and be like yo by

the way your granny just died see you later and then fading out into the mist of the that's the bro she that's the the ban he yeah that's the the the bro ghost way yo what up boo dude uh your grandpa just fell down the stairs see you later can i grab a corona from the fridge you're the sentence your grandpa just fell down the stairs shouldn't be followed by peace did you push them come come back here explain is he okay wouldn't count on it why do you think i'm here brother granddad so that's one thing to consider you know even if like us you are of irish heritage okay maybe the reason that you've never heard a banshee cry before is simply because your family doesn't have a banshee it seems kind of uh it's kind of cruel that that's the only way to get a banshee because in my head

it's like a pokemon right and it's like you can if you're if you're rich enough you can have a pokemon and it'll kind of just hover around warn you when someone dies but i don't i'll never have one unless i marry one of these families it It also makes us wonder, are there other cryptid style Pokemon with these kind of abilities? Like, do the O'Pars get like a frog that turns up and tells you when you're out of bread? I wish that would be amazing. Now, obviously, those are just kind of the bullet points of what a Banshee is. But its history and folklore is a little bit more complex than that as far as i can tell their first mention was at least 650 years ago in the writings of ireland's chief historian of the 14th century a legitimate

historical document describes three banshees that warned the commanders of the irish army that many of their number will perish if they go to war wow a batch notification yeah i guess that's so true like do they have to scream like 3 000 times if if the o'grady's are going to war with the o'connors right that's a lot of that's a lot of deaths on the table i mean that's an interesting one because at that point, can you offset the premonition? If the Banshee, if the night before the war, you're sitting down with your commander, O'Grady,

and you're like, you know, O'Grady, I have a really good feeling about this battle tomorrow. I think we're going to wipe the floor with the cavernous. And you hear, on second thought, what if we can work this out with words? The banshee's like, no, I can't take it back. Yeah, you could. It's like having a banshee on staff.

So something like having a fortune teller. I guess this is pretty useful, actually. Yes, yes. I mean, this is the thing, you know, they're quite creepy looking. By definition, at its core, it is a floating ghost woman that screams in the night. But they're delivering useful information. It's like if your, I don't know, UPS driver was a clown. And he only delivered at 3 a.m.

And he had a hook for a hand. It's like, okay. I still want my Amazon packages. Yes, but you're delivering this in a very scary way, sir. Please come back in the morning. Scratching the glass? You need to sign for it. I agree. If my favorite burger restaurant was staffed only by creepy ghost ladies, I'd still probably eat there.

They're delivering good food in a spooky way. As I said, they can appear as young women, old women. In some stories, they can even shapeshift into animals. Since those early writings, the banshee has been a huge part of Irish folklore. In fact, in 1893, the Irish Times published a piece entitled, Where Has the Banshee Gone? I guess implying that its appearances had died down recently. gone. I guess implying that its appearances had died down recently. When the piece came out, it was met with a huge

wave of replies from the public basically saying, it's gone nowhere! Dozens of people wrote in, all retelling their recent encounters with the creature. Dozens of banshees wailed into the magazine. One reader wrote, I do not believe

that the banshee's cry is not now heard in Ireland. I most distinctly heard it about five years ago, previous to the death of my dear brother. He was ailing at the time. It was 12 o'clock at night. I was up with him watching in case he required a drink when suddenly I heard an indescribably mournful cry. He doesn't say it, but presumably that mournful cry was linked to the passing of his brother. The letters kept pouring into the newspaper for months. Another reader called Minnie McKeown wrote, My father heard the banshee cry 40 years ago for a great aunt of mine,

or should I say, before the death of my great great aunt it was at an early hour of the morning the banshee was then said or supposed to be a little woman one of the more curious stories came from a man known only as pip the fiddler a trustworthy source all right well don't insult him yet because maybe that's his life, maybe that's his family profession, his fiddlers. An uncle of mine was very ill, so my father and some country neighbours were staying up with him all night. About twelve o'clock, my uncle suddenly sat up in bed and pointing towards the window exclaimed, Ah, you're there there poor thing you are just then they all distinctively heard the mournful wail of the banshee he died the next day that's creepy maybe you didn't already believe in the banshee you're gonna after that it's um that's that one is particularly terrifying there's

something really scary about looking after a relative who is ill. And, you know, maybe at the end of the day being like, you know, he's doing a little bit better today. We've been giving him his medicine. His fever's going. And you turn around and he's pointing at an open window saying, there she is. The bringer of death. Okay, Granddaddad sit back down uh that one's alarming to me because i uh once shared a hotel room uh with a friend and he suffered from like sleep paralysis

i might have mentioned it on the podcast before but this caused him to wake up in the middle of the night sit bolt upright like in a horror movie and stare into the corner of the room as if he could see the banshee oh my god like this but he was obviously dreaming seeing something that i couldn't but it didn't stop it being terrifying that is so scary i mean we're seeing a lot of similarities in these stories usually there's a loved one who's fallen ill. The family hears a cry or a scream, or in some stories sees the banshee in full form, and then their family member passes away.

I mean, we both grew up in Northern Ireland. Did you ever have anyone that had a story like this? No one in my immediate family, to my knowledge, ever heard the banshee i do have a memory that potentially someone in my extended family had heard it i know for a fact members of my extended family have claimed to have their own family omen whether it's like a fox always appears outside the window or you know a mouse is always seen in the house the night that someone died whatever it is oh that's with death as well yeah so i think it is pretty alive and common that families feel that they have their own omens i mean that's a lot nicer to find in a mouse in the house

yeah than a screaming ghost uh what about you uh no i don't think so i mean i uh i don't have a huge family history in. Uh, but, you know, lived there for long enough to hear a lot of stories from, uh, friends and family and lived there long enough to hear a lot of banshee whales. It doesn't take long. I lived there long enough to lose a lot of loved ones, but no, I've never, I never met anyone who claims to have heard the whale of the banshee. My experience with the Banshee and my, because we really haven't talked about on the podcast, but I have a genuine fear of Banshees that stems from in my childhood. My dad used to show us this movie that we were way too young to watch.

The movie is called Darby O'Gill and the Little People. And it's, I believe it's a movie set in Ireland. way too young to watch. The movie is called Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Okay. And it's, I believe it's a movie set in Ireland. Sean Connery is in it randomly. And, you know, I think it's a love story, but one of the points of the story is that the father of the female love interest lost his wife years and years and years ago.

And he claims he heard the banshee before she was taken away okay and at some point in the movie his daughter falls and becomes injured and that night he hears the whale of the banshee again and it's like shit that's the that's the same whale i heard when my wife died all those years ago. And in the movie, it's a very old movie, but there's some very early days visual effects that they used to bring the Banshee to life. It's the scariest shit you've ever seen in your entire life.

I've seen horror movies now that are less scary than watching that Banshee haunt Sean Connery on the Irish Hills. Don't f***ing laugh because this is scarring this banshee this is hereditary on crack my friends the vfx granted they were worse but somehow even more terrifying because of it this is and picture this this is i'm watching this in between spongebob and fairly odd parents yeah it's a weird tone to set for the family movie night yeah you know spongebob is is laughing in his high-pitched squeal and my dad's like you think that's a squeal where do you hear

that cry of the banshee boy and he pops in an old vhs of darby o'gill and the little people i mean i'm just gonna have to i'm just gonna have to show you the clip that's the best way to do it i'll play the audio on the podcast because the audio is terrifying and we can just you can describe how genuinely terrifying this this is i looked this up uh the other day before the podcast to just see if it was as terrifying as i thought it was everyone in the comments is like was commenting being like this f**k anyone else up for the rest of their lives and everyone's like yeah yeah it did there's a weird uh age where like you can kind of comprehend these kind of weird abstract spooky concepts and they really mess you up like i remember i remember being a kid around

that age and reading about you know this kind of ancient egyptian lore and how like when you die you know whatever the ancient egyptian god of death you know meets you and rips out your heart and puts it on a set of scales and yeah it's way too heavy you get sent to hell i was just like what yeah they're just rattling no one told me this. And you spend every night for the next three months worrying about the day of judgment. Furiously Googling how to appease Ra. All right, check this out.

The Banshee! Wow, so we are seeing a real old era of visual effects. It's a little bit like Ghostbusters VFX actually. Yeah, that like phantom imagery that kind of floats. It's, oh god, even that noise gives me chills. They've done a great job. Papa, I'm scared again. With the tools they had at the time. I want to watch SpongeBob.

I'll give it to you. If I saw that at the age that you saw it, that would have messed me up too. I was too young. I was frankly too, not even to experience that but to even learn that a creature like this exists in mythology yeah it's too young to put that pressure on a child there's some stuff that you know you ease kids into it you're like hey do you know every december there's a big jolly man that gives presents and in easter there's a little bunny and

let me tell you about the tooth fairy my friend you ease up you don't start with there is a ghost lady that screams at night and floats in through your window when someone's about to die and you can't like unbake the cake right it's like when you tell kids that santa is real they believe that for years. Yeah. And then eventually they stop believing it. You can't just show them the Banshee and then immediately say, oh, don't worry. It's not real. What do you mean?

I'm invested now, I believe. And at least the other ones did something nice, like gave you presents or chocolate. The Banshee just exists to tell you someone's gonna die which don't don't tell a child that don't show a child that yeah i don't even think that that movie is like a horror movie it's like a normal movie like rate pg rated pg for everyone yeah i mean it reminds me of uh i've talked about it on the podcast before i think whenever dracula

came out the original bram stoker one, I want to say, whenever it was in cinemas, there was a huge kerfuffle about it because the rating agencies were like, this is the most f***ed up thing to ever be committed to screen. This is beyond an 18 movie. It needs a new category.

We need to ban it forever. I think that movie today is like a 12 or something that's so funny isn't it i remember when uh the saw movies first came out you must have heard this as well i think they were like urban legends but it was like the first saw movie came out with the second one and uh used to hear stories would be like i heard on the first night there were people vomiting in the aisles people were like blacking out in their seats because it was just like pure smut it's like it's fine it's like a like it's an all right movie it's pretty gory i'm like i was 12 years old blacking out vomiting in your living In my Spongebob pajamas. Oh my God. Keep away.

Keep away. Yeah, so that's my vivid. This is why this is a case that's close to home for me. Right. As we mentioned earlier, some stories talk specifically about the Banshee brushing their long white hair with a silver comb to the point where in some parts of Ireland,

it's actually considered bad luck to pick up a comb from the ground just in case it belongs to a banshee. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Wow. Imagine that. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, it's not something you really see on the ground much these days. Normally you see plastic bags and bottles of fanta uh littering

the floor not silver combs i would be suspicious of a silver comb yeah you don't have to worry that you're going to pick up the banshees bottle of buckfast on the street sure or like i don't know spring-heeled jacks used condom oh god but a silver comb is a very unique accessory that yeah, you would be a little bit hesitant of. It's also funny to think that the banshee can lose shit and she's somewhere in the spirit world going, where the did I put it? Yeah. Yeah. That is kind of weird, isn't it? Unless it's an intentional thing, like a trap. But then this is where the conflicting information comes in. In some tellings of the story, it's a privilege to have a family banshee. In others, they're like, keep away because she might eat your brains. Wow. Other times she's set in combs as traps. Sometimes she's just losing combs. As I said, you know, with stories this old,

there's a lot of different versions of the the creature i'm really imagining finding that comb is a lot like finding the death note in death note right right you've now got a banshee companion oh floating around you as long as you live talking to you no one else can see it like shut the f**k up whoever's hair you comb dies yeah within 24 hours There's potential there for sure. I guess the biggest question is, do people really believe that these things are real? Really believe it? Well, yes, is the short answer. Absolutely. In Ireland, especially amongst the older generations,

true belief in the banshee isn't a weird thing at all. People wouldn't even blink twice if someone was like, yeah, I heard it as a child. Yeah, I heard it when so-and-so passed away. I actually found a compilation of Banshee stories from the elderly residents

of North Tipperary, Ireland. Interesting. Some real on-the-ground shit. So I thought what we could do is listen to some of these stories and make our own conclusions as to whether or not we think there's some real truth to them. Fascinating.

Now, I will say the accent is pretty heavy in some of these stories. And there's no subtitles on a podcast, so good luck. So yes, to our more foreign listeners, I wish you the best of luck. And to our Tipperary listeners, welcome home, brother. But at home, as you say, if you pick it up off the road, there's a man, she came at 13 hours a night and knocked on the window for the comb. For the comb? I'll be honest, I'm not getting a lot of this.

And this woman one time, the man, she knocked and she got the comb and she put it in her tongue, through her tongue, and left it out to the window like that and the tongs were caught in two. Whoa! She had the comb and then the banshee came back for the comb. So the banshee knocked on the window

looking for the comb. The woman picked up the comb with tongs, seemingly because she knew it was the banshee, put the tongs out the window so that she didn't have to, like COVID style, didn't have to make contact with the banshee put the tongs out the window so that she didn't have to like covid style didn't have to make contact with the banshee right and then the tongs were sliced in two i didn't get any of that i heard the tong part and then why would she pick up the comb if she knew it belonged to the banshee as well oh shit i know who that. I know who that is. I know who that is. That was coming. Fair play.

Fair play. What? Her arm was cut off? I think is he saying if she had put out her arm? I don't know. Okay. Okay. Right. The tongs are cut in two. Right, the tongs are cut in two.

I heard my brother saying that before my father died, he was coming home from somewhere one night and he heard the banshee. And he said, that's a sign of something. And he told me that a few nights after a week, a few days after his father died. Straight up banshee story there. Straight up banshee story there. Straight up banshee story. Before somebody would die, you'd hear three knocks.

There'd be nobody there. So you knew there was somebody going to die. That's a creepy one because it seems connected to the banshee, but it seems even creepier because that feels a lot more likely to happen to you. That's probably happened to everyone. A knock at the door, you go to, or at least you think it's a knock at the door,

you go to open the door and no one's there. Yeah. So for full context, we're rattling through interviews with a number of different pairs of old. All old, all very old. All quite old members of the Tipperary community retelling their stories of Banshee encounters. And this one, which is, is that an old man, an old woman or an old? That is two old ladies. That is two old ladies retelling a slightly

different version of the Banshee story where it's knocks at the door three knocks at the door which has opened up to be no one it's funny it's something i can kind of relate to more when i hear this thinking back to being in ireland like whenever i'm in london i think if my door knocked on any given night and i went to the door and uh and opened it no one was there i wouldn't give a shit i would assume it was a amazon delivery guy that buzzed the wrong door yeah uh but you know whenever i lived in northern ireland on my own and it would be stormy and you can hear the waves crashing outside the wind beating your door and then you just hear a weird ominous noise they're like weird who would be calling it this late hour and you go and it's just a pitch black pissing rain night uh i i've been there i've been standing there in the doorway for sure yeah you know people in the city they're too busy to experience the

paranormal i think we've talked about this before head down iphones up to the face they don't realize that ghosts and paranormal experiences are whizzing by them every day, 24-7. Whereas the people who live a lazy life in Tipperary, they're ready to experience these paranormal incidents. Absolutely right. I remember at home, we were going down the road one evening for the cowboys. And I found a comb on the ground on the road and I picked it up. And my father said, you should throw away that he said don't bring that home

because that might belong to the banshee you know it's like that guy was trying to cough to cover up the name banshee because that could belong to the banshee also how many

we've heard like three stories of people picking up combs now. It seems weird that one, this is a place where that many combs are being dropped. But two, this is a place where people specifically know not to pick up combs

if they're found. Everyone knows. And everyone is picking up the comb. Everyone is trying to pick up the comb. Picking up a comb is a bad idea to begin with. It's just unhygienic. Even a normal comb would be wild. It could have nits or bugs or lice in it.

Nits. I haven't heard that word in years. There was an old woman in our road. And the banshee cried. And this old woman died and some of these people have got like four stories yeah like multiple stories there was this tree in in a farm you know in field and the children used to go out there and play and the next day they went out and there was a whole lot of combs there. What? Multiple combs.

And the mother said them are the banshee combs. Take them back and put them where you got them. How could there be this many combs? That is suspicious. That is paranormal.

They're supposed to be there still doing their hair. Banshee or not that's a paranormal amount of combs. Wait, what did she say? So the banshee are hanging out together all brushing each other's hair?

This is bizarre. And that happened at Curtain Cross. Who was there? The banshee was there? The banshee. Banshee, yeah. Oh, just to be clear.

Oh, we're still talking about the banshee? It's like, and she was there combing her hair. You mean the banshee? Yep, the banshee it's like and she was there coming here uh you mean the banshee yep the banshee yeah yeah i mean thanks for including the video i think it's a good example to people of just how like daily life this is for people in ireland well look that's why i wanted to include it is because you know sometimes we include a video with the podcast to serve no other purpose than to laugh at it of course um but that was not the purpose of this video once

you watch it and you hear these people talking about the banshee and their experiences it's so casual it's such a it's such a everyday thing for them that it just makes it so much more plausible and so much more realistic that these people are like like yeah i don't really care if you believe me or not um i heard it uh i heard it in 1947 i came back in 1938 you you heard it didn't you susan i heard the banshee yes it's it's just a normal thing it's just part of their life and their childhood and their history the only other topic in recent memory i can think of that would rival the kind of daily life presence of the banshee would be lat yerona if you remember yes and it's an incredibly similar legend from i think it was south america right yeah uh and yeah i mean i seem to remember that came to us via people emailing us who had family members who claimed to have heard it.

Yeah, yeah. It's just one of those ones. Yeah. I mean, this idea of a creature or a cryptid or a ghost that shows up to warn people of a death or a disaster is pretty commonplace. I mean, we've even seen it before in our investigations. I think some people think that's what the Mothman did. That's right. He would turn up before bad events. So it's kind of cool to investigate a case like this that's so close to home. Well, despite encounters with the Banshee being such commonplace in Ireland, there may be a reason why neither of us

have ever experienced it before. And it's something that we've never really had to deal with with any of our other investigations before. But there's evidence to suggest that in recent years, the banshee has gone extinct. No way. Yeah. Like the toto. Which I love the thought that a ghost can be extinct. The last banshee died off. An endangered species. There's no more. Wow.

I found a report from the Irish Mythological Association that claims that banshee sightings are down by 100%. Between 2004 and 2014, there were exactly zero confirmed sightings of the banshee. Sure. Depending who you talk to. But no official confirmed sightings of the Banshee. Sure, depending who you talk to, but no official confirmed sightings, I guess. Yes.

I don't know if they went to Tipperary, a.k.a. Clearly not. Combe City. I don't know when that video was taken, but I'm not sure everyone in that video is still with us. I know. So to be fair, maybe there's less sightings these days. That's a very fair point. I can only assume that when those old men and ladies were growing up, Tipperary was like the U.S. town from Grease the musical, where on every street corner someone is combing back an Elvis Presley hairstyle.

That's the only explanation i can think of as to why there are so many combs because combs were like the iphones of the olden days at one point right like everyone had a comb yeah in your pocket yeah flip combs comb your hair i want to put this out to the paranormal nation listening in uh after listening to this episode keep an eye out if you see a comb in the street maybe send us a picture let us know if you think it's a banshee comb it's very true you see a silver comb that could be very interesting there's not very many other cryptids that um leave a calling card yeah that's kind of what it is isn't it it's like a little unique

little little bit like uh if you see used condoms don't don't talk to us about spring hill jack or whatever the it's from a monster but not a paranormal one this news that the sightings are down 100 has been obviously welcomed by the banshee safety authority an organization that is only mentioned on one website on the whole internet but their spokesperson sean mcneil commented saying we're delighted with the reports for many years we've been trying to eradicate not only this malevolent spirit but any malevolent irish mythological creature this it seems cruel the banshee arguably hasn't done anything wrong no it's just giving you a heads up it's it's a it's a spooky butler that works for irish

families to just give them a little ping when someone died yeah it's weird you don't need to eradicate it it's extreme language deal with some some of the other little things i'm pretty sure in one of our stories we said fairies steal babies and zap them into another dimension. Yes, Sean. Sean, get on that. Like, Sean, 12 more babies went missing last week. You need to get on this. And he's like, another comb was found yesterday.

Get on world hunger. Get on real murderers. That's, to be fair, that is not the responsibility of the, quote, Banshee Safety Authority. Okay, well, they need to rebrand. The BSA has one priority, all right? And it's the Banshees. So that just about brings us to the end of our investigation. You know, obviously, these cases are always kind of difficult ones, like fairies, like goblins.

We're talking about a creature that exists from mythology. We're talking about a creature that exists from mythology. And even though there are some contemporary stories, our researcher Amy did find even some stories from Reddit posts of people claiming that they had heard the Banshee crying. But not a lot of Banshee sightings. As we know, they're down 100%, which is pretty damning. That's a pretty damning amount of percent to be down. And being down 100 100 to zero means that

in 2004 there might have just been one which wouldn't be good either yeah banshees are like the anti bigfoot bigfoot's turning up every other week in some form in some news report true imagine if we were like yeah we haven't seen bigfoot since the 70s we saw him smoking weed in one of the u.s national parks in the 70s and he's gone off the grid he's off the map that would be worrying i would think that he's probably dead that there that wasn't weed that was maybe crystal meth and he died in some sort of bear trap but he pops up all the time we hear the the stories all the time. So for this to be a creature that hasn't appeared in front of humans in that many years,

does that make it more believable or less believable? You know, there's something quite realistic about that. There is. And, you know, I know we were joking about it, but it does also clearly link into this kind of Banshee citing age gap

where there doesn't seem to be anyone under the age of 50 who's claimed to have heard it and that suggests any number of things but to me maybe primarily is that the banshee is a figment of culture and a culture that's dying out at that yeah very true it's kind of like that peter pan movie hook where you can't see the magic if you don't believe in it so the reason that peter pan can't be magic anymore is because he's a grown-ass dude with like kids and responsibilities but then when he starts to believe in the food he can like eat the magic food and all that kind of stuff. Maybe that's the case with the Banshee. All of these people who grew up believing in this fairy tale are the ones that can see it. But nowadays the kids, they got no interest in it. So they couldn't even hear the Banshee if it was screaming in their ears.

Which sounds sad that we don't believe the magic, but maybe this is some magic i don't mind not believing yeah i guess so i believe in the the magic of disneyland because mickey doesn't turn up in in the night to warn me that my loved ones are gonna die yeah and if he does i'm not letting him in there's a reason why the most magical place on earth is disneyland and not north tipperary where there's combs aplenty so yeah it's it's a tough one i think um look i think we're being honest with ourselves i don't want to do a disservice to the the wonderful people of ireland and their beliefs because i really appreciate how passionate they are about this story but i think from my investigation today and the evidence that i could gather i don't know i'm not fully convinced just yet that the the banshee truly does exist i completely agree i think uh i would love i would

love a video some some footage some photos anything yeah maybe that would push us over that line maybe more of my loved ones need to die and we'll figure out once and for all that's that's too far um thank you for listening to this week's episode of this paranormal life i hope you enjoyed it as much as we did it's always a blast when we get to go back and investigate our roots in the comb capital of the world ireland whenever we go home i bet we're gonna start noticing 100 more combs i'm genuinely worried that maybe we just haven't noticed i mean i'm not it's like when we told people about stairs in the woods and a lot of people started seeing stairs in the woods after that so be careful with the combs guys last week we mentioned at the end of the episode that we have an exciting update and

that is that we have brand new this paranormal life t-shirts available in our merch store this paranormal life.com holy shnikes that's right do you like the galactic 12 have you wanted to join the team once declared the most powerful adventurers to ever exist of course you do that's why you need to head on over to the store, the link of which is in the bio of this very episode. It couldn't be easier, folks. Click the link, check out the store and take a peek at some of the t-shirts that we have on offer. We also have chompies now available in black. That's right. One of our favorite designs in a whole new color way. And as Rory mentioned in last week's podcast, we really love the Galactic 12

artwork. We hope you do too. And it's got even a little bit of Ebon language peppered in there. And if you, if you miss the backstory behind all of that, we did a two-part series on, on the Ebons and planet Serpo back in the day. So check it out and grab yourself a Galactic 12 t-shirt. That's a really great idea. Definitely go back and listen because those were two great episodes. To celebrate the Chompy's t-shirt

being released on a black shirt, we are also releasing limited edition boxes of Chompy's cereal in full black color. The cereal is black. Black is coal. Some people are going to say that has to do with the industrial fire that took place at the factory chompy's warehouse the chompy's warehouse um and some people will say it's literal pieces of coal it's dirt because the because the it burned

up in the fire charred along with several employees they're going to say that that was all that it's not a promotional thing that we're just making the best out of a bad situation but those people would be assholes but not not entirely wrong sorry I should have said wrong that was the right one yeah of course they're wrong

it's a lie it's a lie what they're saying and it's bad and they're assholes for saying it because chompies is we've said this before on the podcast chompy's if you try hard enough is 100 edible and as if coal is such a bad thing we we heat our homes with coal they put charcoal in toothpaste now i think it's true and face masks uh yeah not that sorry not that it is cool not that it is cool but you know what happens when you crush coal it becomes a diamond just like chompy so crush it with your teeth because you

when you crunch that morning brunch cereal you get the taste of an ice icy cold clean diamond not that it's coal it's not it's just it looks like coal and has a consistency of coal and yes if you really want to you can also use chompy cereal to heat your homes this winter so check out the store check out the new t-shirts as you know bonus episodes are available on patreon.com there's nothing left to say folks except to uh to sing us out with a banshee whale thank you for listening to this episode of this paranormal life what we'll see you next tuesday Thank you.