I thought I heard the Banshee but it was a Fox with a cough

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Expunge your truncheon in the custard dungeon, you dusty, sultry altons. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. It's raining ferociously here in Limerick. After three weeks... Three weeks of solid fucking sunshine and incredible weather. The likes we haven't seen in years. But finally the rain is back. And I'm happy with that. I prefer the rain. You can trust the rain.

When the sun is out in Ireland, you can't really enjoy it. Because it's so rare. So when the sun does come out, it puts you under pressure. It's like, am I enjoying this properly? Should I go to the beach? should i be at a barbecue should i dry all my clothes you feel guilty about being indoors whereas when the rain is there you know where you stand with the rain the rain asks nothing of you

And the summer rain is beautiful because you have these thick clouds and everything is overcast. But there's a wonderful brightness and a freshness in the air. So bring on the fucking rain. But last night. Last night I was aware that the rain was going to come today. So last night I went out for. For a walk. A walk in.

The last. It's going to rain now for a long time. We're not going to see sun, I'd say, for another maybe five weeks. I've got no meteorological basis for that claim. I'm just... it's just the mood the mood of what Ireland is and we get punished we get punished for sunshine so it's going to be raining for a long time so last night I got a nice walk in

I got a lovely evening walk at sunset because I knew that tonight the rain was going to start. So I began the walk mindfully. My voice is still fucked, lads. As you know, I've had pneumonia last week. I'm not on the antibiotics anymore, but I do have a hoarse voice. My lungs and larynx have been ravaged. So I had a mindful walk. And a mindful walk means I don't listen to music, I don't check my phone, I actively avoid daydreaming or worrying about shit, you know.

worrying about the future, or being regretful about the past, I try and keep it to the present moment. By gently drawing my attention to all of my senses, the feeling of my feet, and the concrete as I walk, the quality of light, the peachy orange, evening sun, the slanty stuff, and how it makes plants and leaves. and trees look so wonderfully golden and green and then I take in the smells the smell of flowers that bang of chlorophyll the smell of green

Even the smell of petrol as a car goes past. I notice it all and I take it all in. And then finally I notice the sounds. The sounds of birds chirping and chatting in the evening time.

The optimism. Fuck me. The optimism of summer birds. I don't know what the fuck they're talking about, but when I listen to a cacophony... of summer birds in the evening i just get the impression that they're really excited about tomorrow that's what i reckon they're talking about i can't wait to get up tomorrow when the sun comes up and start roaring and shouting so i was doing this i was doing this walk

And the rule I'd set for myself was, I'm going to walk until the sun sets. And when it's actually dark, then I'm going to go home. I'm going to walk back when I feel that it's dark, when the sun has actually fucked off. Then I'm walking back. And what I was waiting for was that lovely moment. The lovely moment when the sun does fuck off. And then the birds all go quiet. So I did. And I walked home.

And there was that wonderful stillness in the night. And then I heard a weird sound. Like wailing. Not a woman wailing, but it sounded like a girl, like a child wailing and screaming. And it was difficult to tell the direction of it. And I stopped in my tracks. to listen what the fuck is this is this a person in trouble is there is there a child somewhere trapped or in pain or something this is a really a weird anxious

kind of scream. And I couldn't hear the direction. But one thing I could notice about the sound of it is that it sounded metallic. It sounded like galvanized steel. almost so i knew wherever this sound is coming from it's kind of indoorsy indoorsy with something metal and i was up on top of like a hilly area And it was near a road and everything, like it was civilization. And then I looked down to the left and there's an abandoned Celtic Tiger petrol station.

a petrol station that would have closed down probably 2007 and it's just abandoned and i think to myself that's the only place it could be coming from if it is indoors But I'm not fucking going down there. Not at night time. I'm not. I'd have to hop a fence. I'd have to walk through briars. It's really dark. I'm going to have to use the light on my phone. I'm kind of freaked out. I don't want to. I want to go home.

To be honest, I want to go home because I've been out walking for about an hour and five minutes. I want to go home. And then I hear the noise again. I hear the noise.

and it's like a wailing like a child wailing or crying but like not a child it's strange and I walk on and I go fuck it bollocks what if what if that is actually a child in trouble what what if and then i walk home and i'm thinking i can't even be sure if it's a person like it could be some weird bird or something or a noise that a heron makes at night time or something and then my mind went to a fairly dark place I thought about

Horrendous videos I've seen online over the years where if a person falls from a great height or if they're shot and their lungs are damaged or even severely winded the human voice sounds really fucking weird and i start thinking what if that's what i heard what if it's someone who's at their their lung punctured and they're seriously injured but what if it's a child and then i hear it again

And I go I can't be sure what that is. Fuck. I can't take that risk so. I climbed the fucking fence. Which I wasn't very good at doing. I climbed the fence. and now i'm walking through old concretey tarmac it's it's a field but no one's gone near it since 2007 so it's a field but

The ground is concrete and tarmac that's grown over for ages, which is a very unnatural feeling when there's not a lot of light. It feels a bit like... do you know when you step on an escalator you step on an escalator and the escalator isn't working and your body expects to move and it doesn't and it feels you feel off balance it felt like that because

My feet are clearly touching grass. So it feels like a field, but underneath me it's solid. It's fucking tarmac. So it was a very strange feeling in the dark. and and then there was other bits where the tarmac had worn away so i nearly fallen into little tiny fucking holes and that being sure of my feet and the farther i go i'm getting away from the street lights from the road now and it's getting really dark so i take out my phone

And I pull out the torch and that makes it a bit better, but makes it freakier. Because when you shine a torch in a dark field, you start seeing things in the shadows. So my heart starts racing now. And then I hear the noise again. louder because i'm and i'm like yeah it it sounds like someone hurting a child that's the noise and it's definitely in that petrol station because i'm getting close to it

And the farther I go into the field, the more I freak myself out because then I start thinking. That's when you get it. It doesn't matter how old I am, how rational I'm being. I'm now into the...

depths of a fucking field in the middle of the night with nothing but the light on my phone and I start freaking myself out thinking it's the banshee it's the banshee and someone I love is gonna die And I'm hearing the banshee wailing. And I'm reading a lot of folklore recently. I'm reading all about banshees and fairies. And every single story. Every single story.

is a person walking by themselves at night time then they see or hear something in a field and they make the crucial mistake of being curious and trying to find that sound and then they get disoriented and are never heard from again so rationality out the window now and this these are the thoughts that i'm thinking and i start to really freak myself out because a couple of weeks ago is when i watched the blair witch project

I just threw it on. I hadn't seen it in years. I watched the Blair Witch Project. And it didn't, it wasn't that scary when I watched it now. But when I was a teenager and I saw that film, fuck me, did it frighten me? So all of that now starts to come back. And I'm feeling really anxious now. And I've got my hand up. Like I don't want to see what's in front of me. I'm freaking myself out. Really freaking myself out.

But I can't turn back just in case a person is hurt. I can't turn back. And then I get about, I'd say, 25 feet from the petrol station. Now it was a very clear night as well. Very clear night. So the moon was out. So it wasn't pitch dark. But as I walked closer to this abandoned fucking petrol station. Abandoned 20 years.

So like, horror film shit. As I get closer to the petrol station, it's really dark there. Because the forecourt is still intact. So that's completely dark. So I just, there's no fucking way, camera phone or not. i'm not walking into the space of the petrol station so i stop and i hear the noise again and it's like yeah that's coming from inside the petrol station my ears aren't playing tricks on me

There's something inside there, wailing. I'm freaking out about the fucking banshee. And I think, what am I going to do? So I wanted to shout. i wanted to shout out hello i wanted to shout because if there was a person or anything inside in the petrol station i'm like 20 feet away i'm not going in to where it's dark i'm 20 feet away

I want to shout because if something's in there, maybe they might shout back. But I got that feeling that you get in a dream, you know, when you're in a fucking bad dream and you can't scream. I kind of got... that feeling like i could shout i could but it just something was like no i it's like my body wouldn't let me do it so i think what am i gonna do

And I look down on the ground and there's loads of pebbles. There's loads of pebbles and rocks. So I go, okay. So I get a decent sized rock. And I think, what if I throw this rock?

up onto the roof of the petrol station or the forecourt which is made of metal if i throw this rock up there then it'll make a loud bang let's see what that'll do so i get a rock and i throw it into the air and i miss it and then i get pissed off at myself because i used to be brilliant at throwing rocks when i was younger then i get a second rock and i don't throw it this time i lob it i lob it into the air and it comes down and then

tuds onto the roof of the forecourt and makes this giant fucking metallic thunderous thud rock was about the size of a tennis ball just goes boom like that and then i hear a

A sudden noise like a scarper. And just in the corner of my eye, running out of the area of the petrol station and into the taller grass, I see the brush of a fox's tail. it's a fox's tail and i just get this lovely sense of relief i'm like thank fuck it was a screaming fox that's what it was just a fox thank fuck it wasn't a little

A little child in pain. It wasn't a banshee. It wasn't a ghost. It was just a fox. Everything's okay. And then I turn around to go back to the road. Back to civilization.

Because I've walked a good bit into this field where the old petrol station was. And I turn my back to the petrol station and start walking away from it towards the road. And then when that happens, even when the danger is gone... everything's okay there's a rational explanation for everything that act of walking away from the petrol station just do you remember when you were remember when you were a kid and you're walking home at night time

When you're like 11 or 12. And you're walking home by yourself. And it's night time. And you just start running. You just start running. And you're telling yourself. Come on you're 12. There's nothing to be scared of. But like fuck that. And you run as fast as you can just to get home. That just took over me. That feeling came back and took over me. Because I just turning my back. Turning my back on...

The blackness of that forecourt at the petrol station. Turning my back on that just felt chilling. And I ran. I ran really fucking fast. Which was ridiculous, because who the fuck... who's gonna haunt a celtic tiger petrol station that got abandoned during the last recession some a ghost holding a breakfast roll dressed like ronan keating

getting haunted by a defaulted mortgage but it was it was an interesting experience especially in the context of having done a mindful walk where i'm checking in with everything to have become so overcome with childhood panic knowing full well as well this is completely irrational why are you running away from the petrol station what if someone what if someone saw you but i'm like fuck that

fuck that i'm getting back up onto that road i'm getting back up there to where those street lights are but i'm not that it was definitely the fox it was without a doubt it was it was the fox because It's because it was the metallic sound. So it was the sound of the fox who had been either in the forecourt and that was the sound of its voice hitting off that metal roof or it was inside the building itself.

But that's the noise that the fox was making. A strange, lonely yelp. A long... I thought it was a little girl. I thought it was... a girl of about 11 or 12 that's what it sounded like who was in pain but if i hadn't investigated that noise and got to the source of it I'm fairly sure I'd have. I don't know what the fuck I'd have thought about that, but I'd have a banshee story. I'd have to say to you, I think I heard the banshee.

Because it fits, it fits the template. You're walking home alone by yourself and you hear a ghostly wail in the distance that chills you. And then you go to bed terrified that someone close to you has died. And then in the off chance that someone you do know does die, you can say, I heard the Banshee, I heard the Banshee, and they predicted that person's death.

So when I got in home after my walk, I immediately went researching the Banshee. And what I went researching was... Here's the thing. Most... Irish people listening to this podcast now. Most of you are going to have a Banshee story. A lot of people have heard the Banshee or said they heard the Banshee or that their parents heard the Banshee.

And they might follow it up with a story about, and then my grandmother died. But it's very common. Very, very common. Now, do I believe in the Banshee? Do I believe that there's a ghostly woman in the night who...

cries and foretells people's death no I don't I believe that it's a deep part of Irish culture and superstition and I believe that we will hear things in the night time

and then wrap a story around it. We will hear noises and make that the Banshee. So I researched, what do people hear, what do Irish people hear when they think it's the Banshee? And the answers that I found were, it's usually... a barn owl sometimes a sheep or a lamb and a fox a vixen specifically foxes when they have coughs a horse fox wailing in the night time is often what people hear and they attribute to the banshee so i went scouring the internet looking for audio clips of screaming foxes

Until I found something that sounded like what I heard. What I heard coming from that petrol station. And I found this recording. It's a vixen with a cough. Calling in the night. And if you're thinking. You know, I overreacted and I did, I overreacted and freaked myself out when I went down into that petrol station. But I'd ask you, if you heard this, if you're on your own and you heard this.

And you definitely know it's coming from a fucking petrol station in the dark, an abandoned petrol station. If you heard this, you'd shit your pants too. So this is a recording of a female fox with a cough. screaming in the night time. heard that. I heard that. Mine was a little bit more childlike. I heard that in the night time. Coming from a long abandoned, darkened petrol station.

And what made it more, what made it more terrifying is like I said, I identified, because I've got ears on me because I'm a music producer. I identified that sound against galvanized metal. And that made it terrifying because it made it real. Because I could have just thought, oh, it's someone in their car and they're playing something really loud or someone's watching a scary film and their window's open and they have a...

big speakers what I heard was that sound definitely against vibrating against metal in a small space definitely from that abandoned petrol station over there in the dark so it was chilling it was chilling and the realness of it was why i had to check it out just in case it was a human in pain

just in case I had to just go fuck imagine if that was an injured person or an injured child and I chickened out and then tomorrow i find out they're dead so i had to go and check it out and it was it was a fox it was a female fox most likely with a cough maybe she has a nest in the petrol station i don't think foxes have nests a den

in the petrol station and she has little pups or maybe you know she's an urban fox so she's smart enough to know that petrol stations the bins behind them have loads of food but she's not smart enough to know that here that one's been abandoned since 2007 fuck off maybe that's what she was screaming where's the sausage rolls where are the hash browns you cunts but when irish people hear the banshee

What they're probably hearing is that. A vixen at night time. Or. I've never heard an owl. But apparently. Barn owls can do a screech. That's quite chilling. And. certain lambs can make noises too and that's what people hear as the banshee and every family in ireland has got their banshee stories like you won't find

The Banshee stories are interesting because they've survived, you see. No one talks about fairies anymore. No one's scared of fairies anymore. But we're still, even as rational adults, We're all still a bit wary of the Banshee and it's because when you hear a sound like that and you think it's the Banshee, what happens is you immediately think of the people you love.

When you hear that noise and you're entrenched in Irish culture and you grow up with these stories, when you hear that noise, you think immediately about the people you love the most. and you think of the loss and you wonder fuck where are they oh my god are they in a car crash is my partner in a car crash is my mother in a car crash has something terrible happened To someone I love. And I think that's why. We still hang on to the Banshee. Because. It triggers your fight or flight.

It triggers your fight or flight. You hear the noise and now you're thinking about a person that you love dying and you can't confirm it. Because they might be in a car crash. That's completely possible. So then we get... flooded with the emotion of fear and anxiety. And as soon as that happens, we will interpret our environment to confirm our fears. So you're not thinking,

Maybe it's an owl, maybe it's a sheep, maybe it's a fox. You're just immediately entertaining ghost. Or for me, it was either that side of the banshee... or a child being injured. I didn't think that's an animal. That's an animal. This is fine. There's most likely a rational explanation. I wasn't going there. I was going into catastrophe territory. It's either a ghost or a child actively being murdered. Two of the most unlikeliest outcomes. What is it? It's a fucking fox.

Of course it's a fox. You're in the middle of a city. There's loads of foxes. Of course it's a fox. Or it could have been a cat. Could have been a screaming cat. Of course it is. Could have been a crow. Of course it is. The anxiety wouldn't let me go there.

Because I'm already thinking about people who I love dying. Every town and village has its own banshee story. Like the big one we have in Limerick is... There's a bridge. Thoman Bridge. Very fucking old bridge. Could be 800 or 900 years old. It just comes out of King John's Castle. But on this bridge. If you look over the side.

at the far end of it if you look over the side you can clearly see there's five scratches looks like a hand scratches in the stone now they've been there for fucking years these five scratches now someone probably put him there with a chisel two three hundred years ago we don't know what they are but the story is that those scratches in the stone of the bridge that there was a fella

about 150 years ago called drunken teddy and he was into all sorts he lived in in thomengate and he was into all sorts drinking riding gambling the whole shebang he lived an absolute life of

And one night, really laid on his own, he walked across Thoman Bridge to get home and he met the Bishop's Lady. And the Bishop's Lady was... a banshee i believe at one point she'd been a woman a woman that the bishop was having an affair with and then the bishop had her killed because people were going to find out that they were having an affair

And because the bishop had her killed, her soul didn't have any peace. So then she existed forever on the bridge as an angry banshee, as a woman who'd been terribly wronged in her life. and now she's stuck on this bridge as an angry banshee so anyway this fella tady drunken tady he's walking home one night and there's no one else around

And the bishop's lady appears on the bridge. And she starts wailing. And then she tries to drag him into hell over the bridge. And he grabs onto the bridge as best he can. And he grabs onto the bridge so hard that his fingernails scrape into the stone. And he manages to get away. And then he never drinks again. He never gambles again. And that story, that's part of limerick fucking folklore.

Everybody knows that story. It's just beside the treaty stone. And when I was a kid, when I was like 12 or 13, and I'd be hanging around near Thaumann Gate with my friends. If there was a thick fog, you often get a thick fog around the Shannon River. If there was a thick fog, none of us would go near that bridge in case we saw the Bishop's Lady.

combing her hair because that's what we were told and that's what someone's granny that's the story that they would have that when the fog comes out at night time on that bridge just where those nail marks are and you can see them today you can go to them today just where those nail marks are we were always told when the fog is out if you look at that spot where the nails are you'll see the bishop's lady she's green

and she'll be combing her long hair and if she starts singing when you see her someone you love is gonna die and it's it's a wonderful story it's a brilliant story and obviously it's a lot of harsh and it's a brilliant story

But it had a grip on us. It had a grip on us. And grown men, grown men would run across the fucking bridge if they were drunk, terrified of meeting the bishop's lady. And it was like... like this story three four hundred years old could be longer but men who drink too much men who were out on the lash or out too late that story would keep them in check they'd run across thoman bridge terrified

Okay, let's do an ocarina pause now. Because I want to get into this. Support for this podcast. Wait, no. What do I do? Ocarina pause first. I'm going to blow into a bottle. I'm after losing all my ocarinas. I've misplaced them all. I'm gonna blow into the top of a bottle of water you're gonna hear an advert for something I'm just gonna drink the water because I need it I'm gonna drink I'm going to drink this water and you're going to hear an advert.

Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Hannah Berner, are those the cozy Tommy John pajamas you're buying? Paige DeSorbo, they are Tommy John. And yes, I'm stocking up because they make the best holiday gifts. So generous.

Well, I'm a generous girly, especially when it comes to me. So I'm grabbing the softest sleepwear, comfiest underwear, and best-fitting loungewear. So nothing for your bestie. Of course I'm getting my dad, Tommy John. Oh, and you, of course. It's giving holiday gifting made easy. Exactly. Cozy, comfy, everyone's happy. Gift everyone on your list, including yourself, with Tommy John and get 25% off your first order right now at TommyJohn.com slash comfort.

We live in a culture obsessed with dieting, weight loss, and exercise, and that can make eating disorder behaviors easy to miss. But the reality is eating disorders are serious mental illnesses that take a major toll on your health and your life.

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Visit equip.health to learn more. That's equip.health. Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

We live in a culture obsessed with dieting, weight loss, and exercise, and that can make eating disorder behaviors easy to miss. But the reality is, eating disorders are serious mental illnesses that take a major toll on your health and your life.

But recovery is possible. Eating disorders are more common than you might think. Chances are you know someone who is struggling with one. Or maybe you're struggling yourself. If you're concerned about an eating disorder in yourself or a loved one, I want to introduce you to Equip. Equip is a fully virtual, evidence-based eating disorder treatment program that helps patients achieve lasting recovery at home.

Every equipped patient is matched with a multidisciplinary care team that includes a therapist, dietician, medical provider, and mentors. And you get a personalized treatment plan that's tailored to your unique goals and challenges. Equip treats patients of all ages and all eating disorder diagnoses. It's covered by insurance and there's no wait list. If you think that you or a loved one could be struggling with an eating disorder, don't wait to get help.

Visit equip.health to learn more. That's equip.health. Hannah Berner, are those the cozy Tommy John pajamas you're buying? Paige DeSorbo, they are Tommy John. And yes, I'm stocking up because they make the best holiday gifts. So generous. Well, I'm a generous girly, especially when it comes to me. So I'm grabbing the softest sleepwear, comfiest underwear, and best fitting loungewear. So nothing for your bestie. Of course I'm getting my dad, Tommy John. Oh, and you, of course.

It's giving holiday gifting made easy. Exactly. Cozy, comfy, everyone's happy. Gift everyone on your list, including yourself, with Tommy John and get 25% off your first order right now at TommyJohn.com slash comfort.

I'll have to do it silently because I don't want any of you getting misophonia I'm shaking water look I have a kazoo I can't play the kazoo with the remnants of a chest infection. Look, that was a pause of some description where you would have heard fucking adverts, alright? 405 episodes we know the crack at this stage support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the patreon page patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast if you enjoy this podcast if you listen every week

If it brings you mirth, merriment, entertainment, whatever. This is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living. I'm only able to deliver this podcast every week and put in the research and writing because it's my full-time job. So if you are a regular listener, please consider becoming a patron. Fund this podcast directly. That's what that means. Fund the podcast directly. If you can afford it.

all i'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month but if you can't afford it don't worry about it listen for free you can listen for free because the person who's paying is paying for you to listen for free so everyone gets the exact same podcast And I get to earn a living. It also keeps us. Means I'm not beholden to advertisers. Advertisers can fuck off. They want to advertise. They have to do it on my terms. But they have no say on the content whatsoever. Because.

I never want to make a podcast episode because I think it's going to be popular. I just don't want to think like that. I want to make what I'm passionate about. That's what fucking works. That's why we're here almost nine years. Not because I'm trying to go viral or to make podcasts that I think people want to hear. So if you are becoming a patron, try to avoid using the Patreon app.

on an iphone because apple will take 30 so do it on a browser please unless you're in america because they're after reversing that now in america just the other day apple lost a court case And that was considered unethical. So in America, you can actually join on the Patreon app if you want on an iPhone. And Apple can't take 30% anymore. Hopefully Europe will follow. Gigs. England and Scotland.

I think it's two weeks away. Where am I going? Bristol, Cornwall, Sheffield, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, London, East Sussex. and fucking norwich all right those gigs are nearly sold out don't miss out on those gigs if you can come along they're gonna be fantastic i've got cracking guests i cannot wait where am i looking forward to most

Oh, I've got my tongue hanging out for York, I have to say, because they've got a very good Viking museum in York. Jarvik, as it was known. Really looking forward to York. Then... September Derry lovely gig coming up in Derry come to that and then Vicar Street Dublin so every town and village and city has its its banshee stories and its local banshee

And the Banshee, what it means is, Ban is woman. And she is the mound, the fairy mound. So the Banshee is the woman of the fairy mound. So she's of the fairy, she's of the fairy people. She lives in the other world. Again, going back to that Irish mythology, pre-Christian, before eschatological, end times Christianity. you have a belief system where linear time doesn't exist. So what you do have is the parallel world, the parallel dimension of the other world where the fairies live. And...

Things can come out of the other world or you can enter the other world through certain points. Either through the mist, through sites of holy wells, sacred wells.

are through fairy forts and fairy mounds so the banshee she's the woman of the fairy mound she exists around this portal this portal to the other world and she exists in a place where time doesn't exist in the parallel reality and in the parallel reality of the other world in irish myth all knowledge exists infinite everything so she knows when people in this reality are gonna die and what i find so beautiful about the story and the myth of the banshee it's the musicality of it the banshees wail

is a form of call and response song that transcends space and time. And what I mean by this is, the Banshee is actually, it's like two sides of a coin, but we've lost one side of that coin.

One side of that coin is gone and forgotten. The Banshee had a counterpart in this world, in this mortal reality. And that counterpart was called a Keener. There's a very specific type of traditional Irish singing called caning. And it doesn't exist anymore. It's more than just singing. A caner was a... a woman right a woman in irish society whose job was to mourn professionally at funerals now this is an ancient tradition pre-christian and this practice of keening

It died out in the late 1800s. It stopped being a thing. So you had these women. They were usually poorer women. And if somebody died in the community... and and the thing is it didn't matter whether this person was rich or poor if someone died in the community this woman was hired and she would turn up at the funeral And she mightn't even know the person. She mightn't even know the person who's died. She'd turn up at the funeral. In this act of great performance, she'd be completely disheveled.

She would act out the extremity of human grief. Anger, wailing, sadness, tears. And her role appeared to be like... almost a conductor of grief. She would lead the way for other people. She'd set the tone for how to cry, how to wail, how to roar. And she'd enter like an altered state, an altered state of grief. And also she'd be allowed, and she'd invite everyone who was bereaved to join in with her. And that was a keener.

That's what a keener was. But she would also sing songs, keens, which were laments for the dead.

but they were very different to other types of Irish song. We're talking about an art form that doesn't really exist anymore. We're lucky enough to have a few recordings from the 1930s. Of what keening songs were. But also some of the women. Who were keeners by profession. They were reluctant to. They wouldn't perform these songs. Outside of. a funeral. They could only engage in this performance if a corpse was present and to sing a keening song outside of the context.

of a dead person being there would have been strange it would have been really strange so they were reluctant to record it or to even pass these songs on so a lot of the the art form and the songs we don't have them anymore we don't have them anymore. Like, it's been said that Dolores O'Riordan from the Cranberries, who was from Limerick, it's been said that her way of singing, she had a really, a breathy...

A strange breathy way of singing. You'll hear it in the song Zombie. And it's said that that comes from Keening. I hear it too in a singer called Elizabeth Fraser. She was in... a band called Cocteau Twins and she has that same breathy way of singing that Dolores O'Riordan has and I often wonder if she's coming from a Keening tradition because they would have had it in Scotland too.

well i know that scotland had banshees so if scotland had banshees which definitely does it probably also had the tradition of keening only a few actual keening songs exist that you can listen to And again what makes it so strange and unique and different to other forms of Irish music is, melodically, it contains almost what you'd call melismas. It's a bending of notes.

It's almost North African. And there is, there's the fringe theories, the fringe theories of Irish origin, where some of the songs... and artworks and craftworks of the west coast of Ireland in particular share a lot of similarities with songs and artworks from the likes of Algeria in North Africa.

and we don't know why we can't explain it and one theory is that Irish we either come from North African people or we had a huge amount of contact with North African people via the ocean which is if you go from Algeria up, you're going to end up in Ireland. But keening died out. The practice of keening at funerals died out. We don't have a lot of the songs, a lot of the music. A lot of it is lost.

A huge amount because of the famine. We lost half the population and with that you lose traditions and cultures. Colonisation too. This is an indigenous tradition. It would have been hugely looked down upon.

by the british it would have been seen as savage particularly during the victorian era you'd have to assume it was one of the things that was outlawed during the penal laws but i'm going to play for you now one of the few recordings that exist of a Keening song in the Keening style of singing and this was recorded in 1951 up in Donegal and it was a woman called Kitty Gallagher singing it.

And the song, I think it's called Lament for a Dead Child. So this is a caning song specifically for the funeral of a small child. And it's sung in Irish and the lyrics are... My child infant, what will I do? You're gone from me. I've been left alone after a year. I'm alone. That there is one of the few recordings we have of what Keening was. And when you listen to it and the shifting of the notes, you can hear what I'm saying when it sounds...

Arabic, North African. It's different to other Irish music. It's in its own league because it was a very separate thing. It was music with purpose that was only sung.

In the presence of death. By a keener. By somebody who... I don't even think we have words to describe what the fuck that was. I'm using words like... performance they perform grief they're a performer that's hired but it's more than that it's something it's something deeply spiritual that we don't really have language for anymore because we live in a different reality and when I say

Banshee and Keening they're both they're two sides of the same coin and all we have left is the Banshee but we don't have Keening anymore what I mean by that is so these women these women who's they were often poor whose main subsistence was keening at funerals being professional grievance performers they were terrified of becoming banshees when they died. They were terrified that they would end up somehow trapped in a perpetual keen in the other world.

And that superstition tells me that they believed they were doing something magical. Like Puchín Makers. And I've explored this in my short stories and in podcasts. Puchín, which is Irish moonshine. the puchin makers believed that when they were making this strong alcohol distilling it because they didn't understand the science

They believed that they were stealing this spirit from the fairy world, from the other world. And by stealing this spirit, that they would be targeted, that the fairies would come and kill their children or replace them with changelings.

and because of this the butcheen makers used to they'd dress their kids up in the clothes of different genders so if they had a little boy they'd dress the little boy up as a girl if they had a little girl they dressed the little boy up as little girl up as a boy to confuse the fucking fairies because puchine makers thought that they were fucking with the fairy world and that there'd be retribution. Well, the keeners, the women who sang at funerals, they obviously had a similar belief.

That something that they're doing, that they're in communication or taking some power from that parallel reality, the other world, and that the punishment might be that they would live forever.

as a banshee, that they'd be trapped in the other world on a fairy mound, forever singing their lonely, lonely song. And that's what I mean when I say, you're talking about call and response you have call and response in irish music you have a lot of call and response in african music and african american music the blues gospel but you can view the banshee

and the keener as call and response the banshee exists in the other world and she calls she calls into existence a person's death or she forewarns about a person's death the banshee because also too if you look through the folklore the banshee doesn't just wail she also keens now i'm not putting this stuff out of my arse i'm using solid academic sources specifically i'm reading the work of

Patricia Lycett who is a legendary Irish folklorist and she'd be the authority on banshees. So a lot of banshees who lived on a fairy mound or whatever and who you would hear in the night time because remember I said Every town, every village, every family had their own different banshees. A lot of banshees were legendary keeners. There could be a banshee that you hear in the night time.

and she was a keener from 300 years ago who existed in this reality and then ended up in the other world with the fairies trapped as a keener to warn us So the Banshee begins the song. The Banshee begins the song and says, this person's gonna die. This person's gonna die tonight. If you can hear this, this person's gonna die.

And she calls out that song. Then the person dies. And then the keener is at the funeral. And she's keening that person's lament. She's responding. So that there is call and response in music. Except. it transcends space and time because the call is coming from the other world and then the king herself she could turn into the banshee and just to give you this is a folklore quote from

This is an interview with a man, and I think his mother or grandmother was a professional keener. This was her job. And he said the good keeners were asked to go to the funerals.

and this fella says his mother she had to go and sometimes she'd hate to go and do her job but you couldn't refuse it if you were a keener you could not refuse the funeral and the reason that she hated to go is that as she got older she said god help me if i'm turned into a banshee when i die so this woman who spent her life as a professional keener as she got older

fear was i'm gonna be turned into one of these banshees when i'm dead i'll be living in a prison on a fairy mound and i'll never be able to escape i'll have to cry into the night for eternity and then there's another report from waterford and they interviewed someone in waterford who knew about keeners or who had met a keener in their time and this person said that only the keeners who didn't carry out their duties

ended up as banshees so once you became a keener and this was your job if someone came to you and said my brother's dead my dad's dead my son is dead will you keen If that Keener was to refuse, then she would be turned into a banshee. So it's almost like the women are locked into it. And you'd have to assume too, maybe they had some gift. Like I'd love to know how would a woman become a keener? How was she picked? Because that there sounds like a gift. When the person can't refuse.

That sounds like she has some type of gift that made her a keener and she's the only person that can be asked. If you can't refuse, then what she's doing is... spiritual or magical to her it's it's not of this world she's not she's not performing she's not singing at a fucking funeral there's something deeply spiritual and magical and gifted going on here as far as

the community are concerned so we don't have that anymore we've lost that but we still have the banshee we still have the banshee and it used to be two sides of the same coin the banshee in the other world and the keen are in this world And they called and responded. And in the middle someone died. And we'd have lost it because of the famine. Literally entire communities disappearing. And when the community disappears, the knowledge disappears.

I mean, we see this in real time with fucking... I've had David Keown on this podcast twice, and he's bringing back the ancient tradition of Irish stone lifting. So he's... finding a tradition that was once part of our culture but we lost it because of the famine like entire villages died people died and this thing got lost but he's able to look at folklore and literally dig up a stone

he can dig up a stone that's what makes that beautiful but with this you can't songs die if no one records them songs just die so sadly we don't have a lot of this and

a huge amount of the stuff that's written about keening is from colonizers it's from british people from a distance watching irish funerals in a state of confusion this would have been greatly shamed by english colonizers too because

This thing started to emerge in England from about the 1700s onwards. And it really took hold in Victorian times. It was called muscular Christianity. And muscular Christianity was... a type of Christianity that focused less on compassion, forgiveness, asceticism, and instead focused on masculinity. and being big and strong and working hard and that these things became virtuous within christianity and from muscular christianity i mentioned last week you know i was talking about

Modern concepts of masculinity coming from Darwinism. Well, that Darwinism led into this muscular Christianity. So from muscular Christianity you get... what's considered to be good and virtuous and christian are big strong men who don't show emotion and then by the victorian period this is where you get your british your stiff upper lip and then this stiff upper lip

it bleeds into British colonization. So now, British colonizers, they start to view expressions of emotion, crying in particular, as the sign of a savage. of a lesser inferior race that needs to be conquered even fucking like charles darwin himself he wrote in 1872 he had a book called the expressions of the emotions in man and animals and he wrote

Savages weep copiously from very slight causes. A New Zealand chief who'd be a Maori, a New Zealand chief cried like a child because the sailors spoilt his favourite cloak. by powdering it with flour so british colonialism starts to to be a conqueror to be christian to be close to god is to not show emotion To show no emotion is to control your emotions and to grieve loudly, to cry, to weep. This is the behavior of a savage. You need to be civilized now.

So that attitude impacted everywhere the British colonised, including Ireland. It's where you get the, I mean, British funerals still. I don't know about working class people, but... Posh English funerals. Very sanitized affairs. I mean, who fucking died there recently, was it? The queen. Like, the fucking queen. The English queen. Like... there was no emotion at her funeral no one was to show emotion posh english funerals they're they live like loads of time isn't there like a week or something

before the person dies and you have the funeral so that the bereaved have time to get the tears out of them so that you're not showing it at the funeral and what's considered good and virtuous is to go to the funeral of the person you love and not show any emotion like i remember lizzie getting praised because she didn't cry at diana's funeral you know what i mean so that's that british

stiff upper lip the stiff upper lip which which bleeds into this the manosphere the manosphere that i spoke about last week this idea of the alpha male the alpha male expressing everything through anger and having no space for vulnerability or sitting comfortably with uncomfortable emotions. You can trace that to the British stiff upper lip and colonialism and muscular Christianity.

which is a bizarre name but in victorian times they had a crisis of masculinity when cities started to become a thing society worried that men were getting less manly so this muscular christianity stepped up where christianity stopped becoming about charity kindness goodness asceticism which is denying the body food fasting and then it becomes to be christian is to be a patriarchal man who is full of muscles and doesn't show emotion that's muscular christianity

and it greatly informed English colonialism. And they would have viewed they were colonising Ireland. They would have viewed Keening as utter savagery. What the fuck is this? there's a woman you're hiring a woman to perform the entire spectrum of grief to exaggerate grief to wail to rip her hair off to rip her clothes off what the fuck are you doing you savages

So that would have definitely impacted that tradition. And all we're left with is the banshee. The fox with a cough. Alright, that's all I've got time for this week. I promised you a guest this week. I do have a very, very special guest, a dream guest, but they had to cancel at the last minute, so we're hoping to reschedule for next week if we can. In the meantime, rub a dog, blow a kiss at a swan. and misinterpret the wails of a fox with a cough. Dog bless.

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