AEG - Banshee as laundress redux

Stephen Hoy · 30 Apr 2009, 15:15 · from 2009-April.txt.gz

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From: stephenhoy at yahoo.com (Stephen Hoy)
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:15:45 -0500
Subject: (urth) AEG - Banshee as laundress redux
In-Reply-To: <43866923-D8FC-4898-B4EA-A9C3B5879A2C at goosemoon.org>
Message-ID: <NGECKNKNFCCKJFJGAFLHCENADMAA.stephenhoy at yahoo.com>

Not long ago, Allan Anderson asked:
<<< But here's my question: at the cast party, someone tells Cassie she
looks like she's seen a banshee. Aren't Banshees often seen washing
bloody clothing, as a death omen? Is that the mountain's laundress? >>

Allan's question prompted me to review some discussions we've had on urth-l
about AEG's banshee. For example, Henry Eissler's reply to Dave Tallman (16
Oct) and Tallman's reply to Eissler (18 Dec).

The word 'banshee' derives from a Gaelic term for 'faerie woman'
(alternately 'faerie washer-woman', if we start with the Scots' version).
One aspect of the banshee legend is the familiar figure of the
washer-at-the-ford.

Let's take a closer look at the text and see what else may turn up. Here's
the banshee / Grey Neighbor exchange at the cast party:
----------------------
   Palma smiled, and brushed an invisible yellow feather from his lips with
a manicured and be-ringed paw. "She has heard the banshee."
   "Seen it," Cassie said, "and I think I'm going to be going out with it in
a day or two."
   "Why Cassie!" Norma was grinning. "You always seemed to so hetro."
   "English speakers," Palma lectured her smoothly, "are invariably deceived
by the second syllable. It merely conveys that banshees are to be numbered
amongst the Grey Neighbors."
   "I'll be damned if I've got the foggiest idea what that's supposed to
mean," Norma said, "but doesn't Cassie have a gray neighbor right now?"
   "She's talking about me," Margaret whispered.
- AEG p64
----------------------

Strictly speaking, Cassie and Palma are incorrect. A banshee is a female
figure (the first syllable describes a 'woman'). However, Palma's wordplay
on the second syllable is on point. Despite being homonymous with the
pronoun 'she', the term 'sidh' indicates a member of the race of faeries or
fallen angels. 'Grey Neighbors' is a common conversational euphemism for the
'sidh'. I imagine Wolfe's larger point in this exchange is to alert the
reader to the idea that at least some of the fantastic characters in AEG are
'sidh'.

It's not a great leap to infer that Margaret is a Grey Neighbor. Her surname
Briggs (bridge) is just a step away from Ford / Ferry, recalling the
washer-at-the-ford. She later styles herself "an expert seamstress and
laundress, and a discreet companion." (p54) 'Discreet companion' fits a
bain-sidh, who follow a family's progress through generations without
detection, except when a family leader dies. Also from this description on
p54, we might reasonably infer that Margaret Briggs is the un-important
laundress-spouse of the sentient mountain mentioned almost in passing by
Chase during the hike to the mountain's altar (p41).

Margaret-as-Banshee does not preclude a Margaret-as-werewolf theory, because
another idea in Gaelic myth is that each 'sidh' has a particular animal form
in addition to its human form. This in turn leads to other speculations
bandied about that Margaret and Cassie are the same entity, either displaced
in time, or a clone one of the other, or infused with the same spirit, etc.

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