Samhain draws nigh. Just in time for the occasion, I found a darksome tale on the Book of Faces. Jim FitzPatrick, Ireland’s greatest living artist, posted today on his FB account this uncanny experience from over sixty years ago (edited very slightly by me):

"Oiche Shamhna Duit. Happy Halloween.
This is a pencil drawing, digitally coloured by myself.”

”I have had one real Banshee encounter and a few dubious ones later.
By age 17, I was living with my mom and an old landlady, Mrs Cummins, a real countrywoman from Leitrim who was doddery at this stage but corpus mentis, sound as a bell. She called me into the front room one morning and told me 'Frank is dead !' and wailed real keening sounds.
Now Frank lived in America so I said ‘how did you know' and she told me she had heard the banshee that night.

My flesh froze and every hair on my arms stood up, same with the back of my neck. The reason was very simple: I had been awoken around 2 in the morning by a ferocious racket outside my upstairs bedroom.

My first reaction was that someone was tormenting a cat, so I threw on a coat but before I left the window I realised there was no sign of a cat. I had a clear view and I opened the window to check, then this weird keening racket started up again. I was playing a game next morning and wanted to sleep but now the screeching/keening just got louder.

I hate to admit I really did think it was a cat somewhere in the garden or laneway next door. Nope nothing, just wailing that really freaked me one helluva lot, so I threw lumps of coal at the general direction of the sounds. I admit I was a bit scared and spooked now by this unearthly wailing when it all just stopped.
Silence.
I was weirded out, tired and slept ok with weird dreams. A day after that conversation Mrs Cummins received a telegram from New York.
Yep, Frank was dead.

Sin é an Sceil. ["That is the End" in Irish Gaelic]"

An eerie tale and that's a fact. I do not judge either way. Many are the visitors to Ireland who have reported otherworldly things while there, to say nothing of the natives like Jim. I, myself, had a fairly mysterious experience while visiting the ruined abbey on the Hill of Slane, not far from Castle Dunsany.

From all indications, the banshee is a phenomenon that has been believed in by the Irish Gaels for thousands of years. Anecdotal evidence of its possible existence, like Jim's, is abundant. Similar incidents of clairvoyance have been recorded across the world. Even Robert E. Howard once wrote of the strange case of Josiah Wilbarger, wherein there are clairvoyant dreams and the death of his sister. So, who knows what happened that Irish night when Frank Cummins died in far-off America?

Jim was kind enough to color his incredible drawing and make it a Halloween gift to us all.

Happy Halloween! Or, as they say in the Gaelic, Oiche Shamhna Duit.