A variant or dialectal spelling of banshee, the Irish supernatural woman whose wailing foretells death.
Variant of banshee, from Irish bean sídhe (woman of the fairy mound). The ben- spelling variation reflects different transliteration choices from Irish Gaelic to English.
Banshee/benshee spellings show how Irish folklore was Anglicized—Irish 'bean' sounds like 'ben,' so English speakers had multiple ways to spell the same Irish word.
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