The Banshee's Comb

Oracle Card. Imbas Dispatch #40

Nov 17, 2025

A Chairde, Friends,

As we approach the new moon in Scorpio, I share a fitting oracle card from Celtic Dream Oracle: Ancient Symbols to Guide Your Modern Life on the symbolism of the banshee and her comb.

Banshee

Keywords:

Psychopomp, The Keen, Combing

Suit:

The Messengers

Symbol:

The banshee’s comb rakes the potent energy of her white hair bringing feminine order to chaos while discerning which strands of dead hair need to be released to the setting sun.

Lore:

When we think of the banshee, we may harbour images of a deranged, shrieking spectre, film memories from Darby O’Gill to modern horror, of being called a banshee ourselves as an insult for our emotional turmoil. Banshee is an anglicisation of the Irish words, bean meaning woman, and sí meaning of the hollow hills, fairy mounds, or Otherworldly dwelling, her name means, ‘woman of the Otherworld’ or simply, ‘fairy woman’.

She is the archetype of the harbinger of death, specific to Gaelic culture. It is her sacred sound, her keen, another anglicisation, this time of the Irish verb, caoin, to cry or lament, that prophesies the death of someone in the community. Before a person has passed over, her raise-cry will tell us that death is near. The goddess Brigid was the first woman in Ireland to raise this cry over the death of her son, Rúadán, which the myth tells us, ‘invented a whistle for signalling at night’. Night is death, the whistling is the keen, the feminine signal that tells the soul to let go, and guides it towards the setting sun, to the ancestors in Tír na nÓg.

The banshee is a psychopomp who escorts the soul to the afterlife. She is said to follow certain families, old Gaelic clans, and may have once been the guardian spirit of a family, not just a messenger of death. In early mythology, she appears not as one banshee but as 150 banshees who together carry off the warrior, Fráech after he is wounded by a water serpent. On hearing their keen, Fráech says, ‘This is the crying of my mother’, of Bé Find, the fair, blessed, ‘white woman’ of the Otherworld. How many ghost tales have we heard of a white lady, a legacy of our natural connection to the unseen realms.

Growing up my grandmother had me warned never to pick up a comb off the street in case it belonged to the banshee and she comes looking for me, which no one wants before their time. This served as a warning not to interfere with the Otherworld. The banshee is often seen sitting on a wall, combing her long white hair, not dissimilar to a mermaid on a rock with her magical comb. The comb, along with hair are symbols of feminine potency. The greek word for a comb, kteis, can also mean vulva. The Old Irish word, cír, means to comb, to rake, or a set of teeth. The banshee’s combing of her long, white hair is a feminine way of bringing order to nature’s chaos, death being the ultimate chaos. Just as the dark soil of the land, of the goddess, is raked to allow for new life to grow, for rebirth, after a spell of death.

When this card appears:

There may be an aspect of your life moving through a rite of passage that feels chaotic, unknown, painful or uncomfortable, as old ways die. This card asks you to comb through and discern the vital hair from the dead strands in your life as all of these strands take up space in your head (hair grows from the inside of the head out). This will help you to bring some order to chaos, not in a controlling knuckle-clenched way, but in a soothing, feminine, combing way. Let the dead strands go.

Invocation:

You might like to comb your hair, or rake your fingers over your head as you invoke:

‘I comb through the chaos. I know what is vital. I know what I must let go of. I release, I release, I release.’

Podcast: Samhain, Story & the Spiritual Dog

I was recently a guest on Mystic Dog Mama, a podcast by Dr Alexia Mellor, which explores our soul connection to our more-than-human kin, and to ourselves. In this episode we explored:

🌑 What it means to be a modern mystic
🔥 How Irish myth and folklore reconnect us to our roots
🍂 Samhain and the Celtic Wheel of the Year - and why this season matters✨ Simple, meaningful ways to honour the seasons in everyday life
🐾 The mythic role of the hound and how dogs guide us spiritually
🌙 Dreamwork, archetypes, and living with a story that supports your soul
💚 Re-centring the sacred in the ordinary

Brew your favourite Samhain cuppa and listen in or you can watch the recording on YouTube.