Hall of Crying Shadows
The Legend of the Banshee of Bunratty Castle
By Greg Patrick
“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”
― Bram Stoker
Around the turf fire blazing in the hearth of a cottage on a windswept All Hallows Eve, the wizened face of the Seanchaí the traveling storyteller was cast in fluttering crimson as the children gathered to listen spellbound to her tales.
“Come closer to the fire and I shall tell of the Banshee of Bunratty...” she beckoned.
Ireland 1590 a.d.
The moon shed its spectral glow on a circle of ancient standing stones enshrined
in a remote stretch of heath. Disembodied chants in an ancient tongue
haunted the air as runes began to glow in eerie blue along the monoliths.
A lone figure materialised as if restless shadows of All Hallows Eve were granted
form and face. A mysterious presence clad in a regal blue robe, her head cowled
appeared to glide rather than stride through the gathering mist towards the
clang of swords clashing and battle cries in Gaelic.
Her presence portended only one thing: that someone of the blood of the noble
families of the Gael was soon to perish. Her lips moved soundlessly it seemed
except ravens sensed that death was imminent and followed in her wake
In the punishing cold where old scars throbbed and last breaths and battle
cries steamed in the chill air the banshee approached.
She remembered when the night once called Samhain blazed crimson with
bonfires. The people of the land chose to forsake the old gods, and she was
relegated to mere myth, a story told around the peat fires to frighten children on All
Hallows Eve. Yet those of the old blood still dreaded the sound of her cry portending
doom.
The Lord of Bunratty was wounded gravely. he escaped under cover of darkness
and mist from the fury of battle. His bannermen helped him onto his horse while
kerns, redshanks, and Gallowglass covered his retreat to the last keeping the
enemy at bay with their great spath axes and claymore swords long enough for him
to reach his ancestral castle.
And there before him was Bunratty castle standing in proud lonely majesty glowering
at enemy in the mist appearing to float on a ghostly sea.
“Lower the bridge!” a bannerman cried sounding his horn.
The portcullis groaned open like iron fanged jaws.
Eager for the bounty on the Lord of Bunratty’s head some of the enemy closed in
only for to be cut down by a volley of arrows from the battlements.
“Make way! Make way!” bannermen cried out as hooves clattered across the torch-
lined causeway.
The Lord of Bunratty steeled himself to endure yet every jolt of the horse’s hooves
made the pain of his dagger wound worse. he maintained a lordly bearing
till the drawbridge closed behind him and he fell from his horse
into the arms of squires.
“Take him to the great hall! Make way!” the anxious steward commanded.
The Lady of Bunratty pleaded with the monks and healers as the people of the isle
once beseeched druids.
“The banshee has returned. Keep her at bay!” the lady of Bunratty begged.
The monks raised their hooded heads jarred from their chanting at the shrill blast of
a horn from the battlements. It sounded thrice.
"Enemies at the gates!"
A flight of arrows streaked from the walls and the enemy recoiled from the walls
of Bunratty. The keep would not fall to besiegers, but it might to treachery.
A darkly ambitious and jealous vassal long conspired with the enemy now showed
his hand. Meanwhile a black gyrfalcon glided to the beckoning black glove
of a traitor on a windswept turret of the castle. He unscrolled the message that declared
that the plot to overthrow the lords of Bunratty was underway.
In the bannered hall of the castle lord torchlight danced over the anxious faces
of the court, servants, and retainers as they awaited tidings of their wounded lord.
In the garrison a man at arms suggested a toast of mead among the retainers.
His lips lingered over the rim of his untouched flagon his eyes watching intently
as the others drank deeply. Moments later he left the corpses of the poisoned men
as he appeared at the castle battlements to signal the enemy army mustering
to storm the keep.
Meanwhile, in the shadows of the castle chapel the wounded lord of Bunratty
Was tended to by monks and healers as the lady of the Bunratty stood looking on
Her face a mask of regal composure. Yet her eyes betrayed fear as a bard strummed
his harp by his side and sang softly of great feats of arms. The lord’s face
Was deathly pale and his hands icy cold as he shuddered in pain. His wounds inflicted
by an assassin’s dagger may be mortal. Meanwhile in the castle’s bannered hall
The steward guided the young heir of the castle to his father's seat.
“You must reign in his stead as rightful lord and heir apparent, “the steward told him.
The new lord of Bunratty no more than a boy really affected an awkward lordly
confidence as the steward gestured him to his ancestral seat in the bannered hall.
“Where are his retainers? Why do they not attend to their lord?” the steward
demanded.
“I think not, “a sneering voice interjected.
Sir Fergus stepped into the light, unmasking himself as the traitor.
"Only ghosts guard his hall now and the succession has changed. Servants of
Bunratty kneel and offer humble fealty to your new lord!” Fergus proclaimed.
“Is this your knavish idea of a dark jest?” the steward demanded.
“No. It is me proclaiming myself the new Lord of Bunratty. There is a new lord
of the castle, and it is not this whelp of House O'Brien!” Fergus declared.
“Stand down craven!” declared the seneschal of the castle Sir Cormac, drawing a rapier.
He was fiercely loyal to the House O’Brien of Bunratty. The seneschal kissed the hilt
of his sword as he drew into fighting stance to face his adversary defiantly.
“No man present is unaware of your prowess as a swordsman.
Perhaps you will best me. Alas I cannot chance a cross of blades with thee,”
the traitor hissed.
Fergus took up a different weapon. He winked insolently as he aimed a crossbow.
The seneschal looked down in shock at the crossbow bolt lodged in his chest.
It punctured his armour to a collective cry of anguish from the servants.
He fell back to slide down against the wall trailing blood.
A weeping scullery maid cradled the seneschal’s head. She cursed his slayer
in Gaelic.
“Where is your chivalry churl?” she screamed.
“Hold thy tongue or I will run thee through wench! “Fergus threatened.
“The keep will be overrun anon. Swear fealty now and be spared!” Fergus
announced.
The seneschal saw her then. The Banshee of Bunratty.
She was beautiful almost angelic yet terrible to behold, gowned in shimmering
green and bathed in ethereal radiance. She appeared translucent by the filtering
moonlight. Her impossibly blue gaze was cold as sacrificial blades.
“Please do not take my lord! “the seneschal pleaded.
There was an alien sadness betrayed in the banshee’s voice as she confessed.
“I am not here for him. I am here for thee. Did your mother not tell thee? The blood
of true lords and ladies flows in thine veins. And alas thine valour this eve will not go
unsung guardian of Bunratty,” the banshee said melodiously.
“Who are you talking to you deranged fool?” Fergus sneered.
The usurper could not see the banshee, but she could see him by his true nature:
morphing into the caricatured vision of a loathsome plague rat to her eyes,
sporting the smile that oozed winning charm and treachery.
Fergus envisioned himself seated on the castle’s throne, the seat of the lords
of Bunratty framed by majestic prehistoric antlers. He leered at the tantalising
and intoxicating vision.
Then the banshee did the unthinkable.
“On your knees all of you. Witness the slaying of his line and fall to your knees and
swear fealty and give me homage!” Fergus proclaimed.
The usurper turned and his sinister shadow was cast on the lord’s heir and his lady
in waiting.
“Hold thou faithless cur! Stay thine sword! “a voice declared harshly.
Fergus turned and almost dropped his own sword in shock.
The seneschal rose his shadow cast gigantically and his eyes fierce smoldering
into his assailant’s eyes. The once mortally wounded man now seemed to rise
with a surge of impossible strength, thoroughly revitalised.
“What dark witchery? How is this possible? Are thou a revenant?”
“I am Sir Cormac of Bunratty seneschal to the Lords of House O’Brien. As I
stand this castle will not fall to traitors!”
“You are mortally wounded. This will not take long, “Fergus replied yet his eyes
betrayed fear as he saw himself mirrored in his foe’s blade.
“En garde!” the seneschal roared.
“Through the postern gate my lord “the lady in waiting whispered to the young lord
while the seneschal distracted Fergus.
The seneschal pulled the crossbow bolt from his chest and snapped it like a twig.
The blades crossed and crossed again, more and more fiercely till they were sparking.
The clash of swords resounded though the hall. The shadows of the fighters were
cast on tapestries and mounted stag heads by the wild torch light.
The traitor’s gloating smile disappeared as the once hopelessly wounded
seneschal drove him back with superior strength and swordsmanship.
A desperate attempt to pull a torch from the wall to thrust at the seneschal’s face
only set a tapestry on fire.
Fergus recoiled as he saw the dark silhouette of the seneschal advance on him
against a background of flame.
“I yield!” Fergus squealed.
“In your own words no quarter,” the seneschal snarled.
Fergus parried thrice and overextended his hand only to have it severed at the wrist.
The gauntleted hand and sword clanged on the flagstones.
Hysterical screams ceased as the seneschal swung his sword in a shimmering arc
severing the traitor’s head. With his enemy slain whatever surge of unnatural
strength left him and the seneschal swayed, staggered, and fell to the cold flagstones.
“Mary and Brighid what possessed him?” a squire exclaimed.
She did. The banshee entered his mortally wounded body and lent him
an immortal's strength. She was a proud noblewoman of the faerkind who wielded
a sword of celestial fire against the warriors of the Fir Bolg, Fomorians, and Milesians
until the exile of her storied race into the hollow hills. The last clash for Bunratty
Was never a true duel but an execution.
The seneschal looked sadly at the gathered scullery maids of the household,
the pages, and squires that he tacitly thought of the family he never had.
It was then the banshee shed the mortal form she possessed like another skin,
vainly shuddering with the vain disdain of an immortal for the mortal kind.
As she did do the artificial vitality left the seneschal. He shuddered spasmodically
and violently as he sank to the ground.
Meanwhile beyond the crenulated bastion of Bunratty castle
a punishingly chill wind swept in extinguishing the red flickering smiles of turnips
carved as jack o lanterns. The gust intensified putting out the torches of the enemy
in succession just as they were about to set fire to the thatched dwellings of the folk
who lived in sight of the castle. The wind took on an eerily human cadence as it rose
like a ghostly battle cry.
A blind wisewoman tending to a wounded lamb looked up.
“Hark! She cries! The banshee, ancestral harbinger of imminent doom to the lords
of Bunratty and their noble house!”
The messenger of death began her lament softly as a whisper like a caress of cold
fingers shuddering through the seneschal’s soul.
Her keening was often described as a wail. It may have been so to mortal ears
yet there were words to the banshee’s song uttered in an ancient sacred tongue
forbidden to mortals. It would drive them mad or be fatal if they heard it much less
try to sing it and yet the seneschal did so. His lips moved silently as he dared sing
with her in duet. The banshee had never heard a mortal attempt it in centuries.
The seneschal watched with transfixed eyes as a vision unfolded
like a living tapestry. He saw knights and ladies pass across the sky
against a background of stars before beckoning him to follow.
Meanwhile in the castle chapel the Lady of Bunratty beamed at faint words.
“Do not put me in my grave just yet wife... “
The Lord of Bunratty yet drew breath.
In defiance of convention, his lady laughed and wept as she held his face tenderly.
Suddenly a lordly coach drawn by pale plumed horses driven by a headless
coachman appeared. The phantom horses stomped impatiently as it drew reign
before the seneschal’s ghost. The coachman beckoned with a skeletal hand.
“One moment please “the seneschal implored the coachman.
“My lady. I thank thee,” he said in homage to the banshee.
“It was nothing to me,” the banshee answered.
“But it was everything to me my lady,” the seneschal replied.
He offered a courtly bowed before boarding the coach just as his mortal
form took a last shuddering breath.
It was then that the rain fell in the way of these lands. A sudden torrent
hailing the banshee in the cold tears of all those she called to the last dark horizon
over the centuries. She suddenly turned to meet blazing green eyes.
“Well met Aoife daughter of Cormac. Lady of Bunratty,” the banshee said formally.
“Be gone! You will not claim him!” the Lady cried.
A rebuke burned at the banshee’s lips for the insolence of mortals, yet she relented.
The Lady of Bunratty raised a crucifix in a trembling hand believing it would ward
me off. The banshee only smiled patronisingly.
“Thou mistakes me entirely mortal. I am a praise singer to lords not some lowly
assassin. I am not here for your good lord tonight. Farewell Lady of Bunratty.”
In aftermath the seneschal’s cold hands were solemnly enfolded on the hilt of his
sword, a banner of the O'Brien clan draped gently over him as he was borne by
retainers from the hall amid lamentations. The bard led the procession strumming
his harp and sing a dirge bearing the guardian of Bunratty in torch-lit march
as the banshee watched from afar.
The banshee had to remain detached, but it was not above her vanity to say she
was not unmoved. Meanwhile something changed in the young heir of Bunratty.
"The enemy has retreated my lord," a retainer reported.
"Not quickly enough. My horse and my armour! We will pursue and ride them
down! Our swords will be red with their craven blood ere dawn,” the young lord said.
The Lady of Bunratty appeared, and the retainers stood down dutifully.
"Stand down fool boy. The banshee has wept for enough of our blood tonight
already. The Lord of Bunratty yet draws breath and he has summoned you to his
bedside."
As the seneschal took a last shuddering breath the banshee glided
to the battlements aloof from their keening. Warriors of a rival clan reinforced
by Elizabethan English pikemen and knights marched on the castle. Their onslaught
met a flight of arrows felling two knights as the rest fell back. Their onslaught met
a flight of arrows. Torchlight danced fluttered crimson on morion helms, armour,
and shields as they eagerly awaited the order to storm the castle.
The banner of House O'Brien unfurled defiantly just as the enemy commander
paced his ranks like a caged wolf impatient for carnage. He smiled with a predatory
thrill as the drawbridge began to groan open.
"Prepare to storm the keep! No quarter!"
The enemy commander’s smile faded at the jarring sound of the drawbridge halting
its descent. The overthrow of the lord of Bunratty had been thwarted.
The retainers of Bunratty castle stood impassively arrayed on the battlements.
Suddenly a knight doffed his helm and a chorus of ecstatic huzzahs erupted
from the defenders of Bunratty.
"He lives! The lord of Bunratty lives! Fall back! Herald! Sound the retreat!" the
enemy commander ordered. The besiegers lowered their banners and skulked
away into the darkness.
Numb to the sensations of cold the banshee lingered under the shocking rain as if
hailed in the cold tears of the bereaved. She was immune to the elements but not so
the enemies of Bunratty. The hapless besiegers screamed as the rain lashed down
on them as if hastening their retreat.
Meanwhile cascading crimson hair turned silvery pale as the banshee doffed her
cowl. Cock's crow was almost upon her. She had lingered too long in the mortal
realm. A portal appeared before her like a reopened wound, and she faded back
into the depths of eternal darkness and legend.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment