A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter B

Banshee

Folklore
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A female spirit from Irish myth whose wail foretells death in a family

Detailed Definition
The banshee’s mournful cry is an omen of impending doom, tied to specific Gaelic lineages. In poetry, she embodies grief, ancestral memory, and the inevitability of death, frequently invoked to evoke melancholy, fate, or the supernatural’s intrusion into the mundane.
Example
Example in poetry:
The banshee’s wail features in Irish elegiac poetry: "Before the news arrived, the banshee keened at dawn"; Poets use her as omen of personal loss: "Her cry not loud, but deep—a thread of grief through midnight air"; In modern verse, she symbolizes inherited trauma: "My grandmother heard her too—that same thin note of family doom"; Her presence blurs myth and memory: "Was it wind in chimney cracks, or banshee singing for my kin?"
Additional Notes
Banshee: A female spirit from Irish and Scottish Gaelic folklore whose wail foretells death in a family. Often described as a washerwoman at riversides or a veiled woman with long hair. In poetry, she embodies grief, ancestral memory, or the inescapability of fate. Related to the bean sí (Irish) and caoineag (Scottish). Avoid stereotyping—her role is mournful, not malicious; effective in elegiac or gothic poetry.
Other Meanings of “Banshee”
Also Known As
Bean sídhe Banshie Banshee wail Banshee Witch bansídhe
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