Story 1
This story is about the beginning. About my life before and how I became what I am today. It started out just like every normal day for me...
Just like any other day I woke up early to go to the local village. It was roughly a half an hour walk away from our little secluded cottage. I did not mind the walk though because It provided me with a breath of fresh air away from my huge family that included my mother, father, and five other siblings. Also, I loved the walk through the forest around our little home. There are many different folklore stories of the creatures that people believe reside in this forest. The two that have held my attention are the pooka and the leprechaun. While I walked through it I would imagine all the nice little creatures and wonder what life is like for them. Like is the little hare I saw earlier a pooka since they are shapeshifters? Or is there a leprechaun out here somewhere causing mischief?
Once I arrived at the village I always set off to get the list of things that my mother sent me to retrieve. My time in the village usually lasted about three hours. This was due to all the people that I would converse with while there. Everyone knew each other due to how small the village was.
On the way back home through the forest I could not help but feel like something was different this time around. I just pushed it to the back of my mind and went back to thinking about a different mythical creature. This creature resides in the sea just beyond this forest and is called a merrow. They are certainty fascinating to think about. That was until something caught my attention... I thought I could hear what sounded like a girl singing. That could not be possible though since no one lived out this far besides us, so I just continued on. I watched as birds flew from tree to tree and bunnies scurried across the forest floor. Being a little tired from all the walking I decided to stop and rest at the bottom of a tree.
While sitting there I once again felt like something was off, so I got back up. Looking around the forest I could not see anyone but I heard something. When I listened closely I could hear someone yelling "LAOISE" as if trying to find me. There should have been no one out there looking for me though since my family knew where I was. So I headed in the opposite direction of the voice... which led me farther from my home. I heard the person's voice getting louder which could only mean that they were closer to me. That frightened me and made me take off running. I was watching behind me which was the biggest mistake that I made that day... somehow I ended up running straight into the person I believed was behind me. It was the priest from our small church in the village. I relaxed realizing that I knew who it was and did not have to be scared.
Next thing I knew I was standing in the forest, not with the man that caught me. I thought maybe I had imagined it and when I turned to leave I saw something on the forest floor. When I crept closer to it I realized the thing on the ground was me. I had been murdered... I was in absolute shock and did not want to believe it. I ran over to the creek and looked at my reflection... I looked totally different. I had snow-white hair compared to my usual light brown hair. I was also super pale, almost translucent, which made the blood running from my eyes look even scarier. The last thing I could see that was different was that I was wearing something completely different than what I died in. I was wearing a white flowy dress. That was when I realized the one folklore creature I forgot about in these forests was the banshee... the weeping song I had heard was being sung just for me... warning me of the tragedy that was about to happen. I was now the same as the creature that tried to warn me of my pending death... a banshee.
Author's Note: For my first chapter in my storybook I used chapter one from the banshee by Elliot O'Donnell and used a page on the banshee from Wikipedia. Since it is over just the topic of the banshee I took different sources to go through and choose to help write my story. The plot, setting, and the human characters are all made up by me and there are topics just taken from the sources. From O'Donnell's book, I made sure to take the banshee character and introduce her as a harbinger of death by making her part of how Laoise's story of becoming a banshee. Also from this story, I took how he said the banshee is only heard and not seen. Laoise heard the banshee weeping/singing but never saw her. From the Wikipedia page, I decided to use parts of the description of a banshee. In the page it talks about them having long hair, wearing a gray cloak over a green dress, and red eyes from weeping or they may be white with red hair and a ghastly complexion. I made it to where my banshee had long hair, red eyes, ghostly complexion, and wore white. I kind of combined parts of each of the descriptions. I also used the assumption that a banshee is someone who has died young which was on the Wikipedia page.