of her only son, Rúadán, and that was the first keening ever heard in Ireland.
There is an account by Lady Fanshawe who stayed in the family house of the O’Briens during the 17th century. Lady Fanshawe was in bed when late at night she was aware of a woman with red hair and ghastly white face who mysteriously said, ‘A horse’, three times in a loud voice. In the early hours of the next morning, the lady of the house came in to see Lady Fanshawe, telling her that she had been attending to one of her O’Brien cousins who had died a few hours earlier, at the time the apparition had appeared. It is not clear what the banshee meant by her utterance, perhaps only that a mount was ready for the deceased to pass with the banshee into the Otherworld. (See Cyhyraeth.)
BAR YACHRE
In ancient Jewish myth, Bar Yachre took the form of a giant eagle-like bird. In a similar fashion to the Roc, it consumed herds of cattle and sometimes human beings.
BARGUEST
The Barguest is a native of Yorkshire, Northumberland and Durham. It takes a variety of forms, predominantly as a black mastiff with fiery eyes, horns and fangs, but also as a bear with glowing eyes and huge claws. Reports state that it drags a chain, or that it is wrapped in chains like Marley’s ghost in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, symbolic of the chains of sin. Specific Barguests appear around their own locality; for example, the one in Leeds causes all the dogs of the city to bark when it makes its appearance. It has been suggested that the name has been derived from the German bahrgeist or ‘spirit of the bier’.
BARIAUA
In Melanesia, among the Tubetube and Wagwaga peoples, the Bariaua are the fairies who live in the trunks of ancient trees. They occasionally borrow people’s canoes. If they are observed by anyone, they immediately disappear.
BARNACLE GOOSE
The Barnacle goose that migrates from the Arctic down into southern regions of Europe was a great mystery to medieval people. Throughout Europe, there arose many stories and explanations of where it could have come from when the colder weather brought it south. The most common legend relates that the bird was hatched from pieces of driftwood on which barnacles clustered. These barnacles were believed to be eggs from which they hatched. Another story says that they should really be called Tree Geese, because they hatch from trees that grow near the sea. As the fruit-like growths hang heavily, so the goose swims away into the sea. If they fall upon land, then they die. The Barnacle goose was the subject of many theological debates when it came to deciding whether it was fit to eat during Lent – the period when no meat is eaten. Clerics persuaded themselves that barnacle geese were really shellfish rather than fowl and so allowable fare for the Lenten period. Later, Christians took the Barnacle goose as a symbol of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, since it was born without procreation being involved. The Barnacle goose was also called Ephemerus.
BAROMETZ
In medieval Europe, the Barometz was thought to be a kind of animal-vegetable being, a native of far eastern parts. Sir John Mandeville’s Travels described it like this:
There grows a kind of fruit like gourds; when they are ripe, men cut them into two and find within them a little beast with flesh, bone and blood, like a new-born lamb without wool.
Legend held that the Barometz was a beast with long roots that allows it to graze in its immediate vicinity, but when its pasture was exhausted, it would die. Then the Barometz would be scavenged by wolves or harvested by men. It was said to taste like crab meat. The fleece was used to weave clothing and its hooves, which were made of hair, could also be woven. Sir Thomas Brown, in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646, wrote that:
Much wonder is made of the Boramex, that strange plant-animal…which wolves delight to feed on, which hath the shape of a Lamb, affordeth a bloody juyce upon breaking and liveth while the plant be consumed about it.
Other names of the Barometz are Chinese Lycopodium, Jeduah, Scythian Lamb and Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. Various suggestions have been made about the Barometz’s possible origins: some say it may have been a description of the cotton-plant or the woolly fern (Cibotium barometz) that grows in the Middle East and has been used to stop bleeding. Or it is possible that the legends are based on the then little-understood formation of the mineral travertine which is built up by calcium carbonate deposited through the flow of thermal waters over plant matter. As these deposits build up, so the branch or bush is slowly turned into living stone.
BARONG
In Balinese legend, Barong is a great dragon with protruding eyes. It opposes the plague goddess, Ranga, and keeps disease from the land.
BARUSHKA MATUSHKA
This beautiful horse was the mount of the Russian hero, Ilya Muromets. It is also known as Sivushko or Kosmatushka.
BASADAE
It was said that the tribe of Basadae lived in India. They were men, some with heads of dogs, some with one leg or just one eye, with skins so thick that arrows could not penetrate them. They could speak the language of the animals if they ate the heart and liver of a dragon, and could become invisible at will.
BASAJUAN
Among the Basque people of north-west Spain, the Basajuan is a trickster spirit in the form of a faun who teaches humans agriculture and the smithing of metals. Living high up in the Pyrenean mountains, he protects flocks of grazing goats and sheep. His wife Basa-Andre combs her long hair and calls to climbers in the mountains so that they fall to their deaths.
BASILIC
In French folklore, Basilic was a dragon that haunted the area round the city of Vienne, taking cattle and people. It had a stare that petrified all it looked upon. This state of affairs continued until the brave knight Fretard overcame it, confining it to a well. However, Basilic was said to emerge every 10 years and could only be overcome if someone saw it before it could gaze upon the onlooker. It attempts to rise to the top of the well and if it should succeed in emerging, then things will continue as they were before. This seems to be a local legend related to the Basilisk.
BASILISK
The original Basilisk of classical tradition was a small venomous serpent whose throat never touched the ground, with a crest upon its head that gave it its name. Basileus is the Greek for king, and this ensured that the snake was remembered as the king of all serpents. Everything about the Basilisk was poisonous. Its bite, glance, saliva and smell were all fatal. In addition, it could spit venom at flying birds. The venom of the Basilisk could rot the fruit on trees and pollute water. It was considered to be the cause of the Libyan and Middle Eastern deserts. Pliny described the Basilisk as a snake with white spots or stripes with
