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HALLOWEEN

(1948)

An elderly widow from the quaint Irish village of Ballycarnon invited a woman reputed to be a Romany gypsy with a keen sixth sense, into her cottage to tell fortunes on Halloween night.

It was typical Halloween weather. Wind howled and whistled down the chimneys of the little red bricked terraces and thatched cottages of Ballycarnon. It blew and twisted and stripped trees of their drying leaves whisking them swirling into gutters, crevices and ditches. On the hills, the village children had lit Halloween bonfires to ward off evil spirits, and their rhyming filled the air. Everyone knew that the veil between the worlds was thinnest on that night and that spirits from the Otherworld were let loose upon the world through the Sidhe mounds. Spirits came running and riding out on ghostly horseback eager to wreak havoc on the world.

The gypsy settled herself beside the big open hearth, taking her crystal ball from a colourful canvas bag and setting it on an old oak occasional table. She breathed deeply, eyes rolling back into her head as if concentrating or entering a trance and dramatically announced to all gathered that the spirits were churning.

‘Milk?’ I mischievously wondered, but stifled a giggle and grin.

The widow Maloney was in a gloomy, contemplative mood. On Halloween, some years ago, she had heard the bloodcurdling wail of the Banshee, keening on her rooftop.

‘Is it me she’s came for?’ the widow asked herself, quivering with fear, ‘or is it my husband?’

The Banshee continued wailing late into the night. Even so, they went to their beds to try to sleep. She stuffed her ears with cotton wool to drown out the noise. In the morning the woman awoke with her husband no longer beside her. She saw a worrying shadow on the window blind. A dark shape set against the pallid sunrise. She raised the blind and there was her husband, swinging from the gnarled old sycamore tree at the end of a thick sisal rope. He’d gone mad through the night listening to the Siren-like wailing, and had hung himself. The Banshee had carried his soul off to the Otherworld. That was just what she had came for.