Banshee

Banshee, in the folklore of the Irish and Western Highlanders of Scotland, a female fairy who makes herself known by wailings and shrieks, before a death in the family over which she exercises a kind of guardianship. This notion is woven into many folk-tales of rare pathos and beauty. A guardian spirit of the same kind occurs frequently in the folklore of Brittany. The name is supposed to be a phonetic spelling of the Irish bean sídhe, old Irish ben síde, 'woman of the fairies.'