A localized form of the caoineag, the Highland Banshee, which belongs to Argyllshire, Skye and some of the neighbouring islands, and was attached to the Macmillans, Mathisons, Kellys, Mackays, Macfarlanes, Shaws and Curries. The name means 'wailer', and she has a peculiarly loud and lamentable cry, rising at times to a kind of scream. Sometimes she beats clothes on a stone like the Bean-Nighe. She has been described as a child or a very little woman in a short green gown and petticoat with a high-crowned white cap. It is not certain whether she is like a banshee in having no nose and one monstrous tooth, but her habits seem to be the same. Lewis Spence gives an account of her in The Fairy Tradition in Britain (p.47-48), and there is a story about her in Macdougall and Calder's Folk Tales and Fairy Lore (p.215). In this tale she wore a green shawl for mourning and served the Mackays. One wet cold night she was keening softly outside the door, and a compassionate member of the family put out a plaid for her. She was thus laid like any brownie, and has never come back to mourn for the Mackays.

[Motif: M301.11]