When a member of a very old family is about to die, the Bean Shide [sic] or fairy woman cries. Sometimes the Bean Shide sings hymns. The person who is going to die never hears the Bean Shide.
One morning a man was going to a fair in Ballygar, and he saw a woman dressed in white silk, sitting on a rock in a field some distance away from him. He, thinking that it was a farmer's daughter he was looking at, said "Tis early you are out." The woman looked at him, paused, and then began to sing a beautiful hymn. The man still thought that it was a farmer's daughter but he thought that she had gone mad.
He stood watching her, and all of a sudden, she burst into a wild cry and vanished. The man grew frightened for he then realised that it was not a person belonging to this life he had seen.
He went to the fair and when he came home he heard that the daughter of one of his neighbours was dead. Then he knew that it was the Bean-Shide he had seen.
In other places a coach comes up to the door at midnight and stays until the person is dead. Then it goes away. Sometimes a "ghostly funeral" goes from the house of the dead person to the graveyard. It is often followed by women who cry and wring their hands over the coffin.
When the "funeral" reaches the graveyard it fades away at the spot where the person is to be buried.
From the National Folklore Collection UCD.
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