From the "Questionable Christian Content" Files: Banshees

There are a few things in my book that, as a work of Christian fiction geared for kids, I fully expect to take criticism for.  The first being the Banshee of Leeds Hurst Castle.

By including the element of a ghost in my story, am I saying there are any such things as ghosts?

Of course not.  Read the book.  I would also have to be saying that there are gargoyles who can speak, think, and move around, just like people.  I would also have to be saying that a grudge is a small venomous animal that can be held.  I would also have to be saying that portals exist, and that one could travel to the dark, creepy underworld simply by standing in an antique chest.  I would also have to be saying that Shenanigans are green, furry creatures, usually small, that go pinging around in the trees, and that lawyers in Wiggle Pointe do not wear shoes.  Have we gotten a bead on what fantasy is, yet?

We need to get a much firmer grasp of what fantasy is, and Christians who think that other Christians don't read ghost stories are fooling themselves.  Christians read Harry Potter.  Even Christians that formerly denounced--unread--the entire series came to love the books after having read just one of them.  Why?  Harry Potter is not unchristian.  The list of moral lessons taught in all seven of those books is longer than my arm.

Not a single Christian child raised in the church, raised in a home that kept moral order and a moral code, that believed in God and God's teachings ever finished any Harry Potter book believing in magic.  It was only those whose grasp of reality and sanity were already being held together with bandaids and bailing wire who ran off into the woods believing they could turn rodents into goblets by waving a stick in the air. 

It's not the 'what,' but the 'how.'  The banshee in my story teaches a very solid lesson in Christianity.   If the message is good and pure, then a banshee is as valid a vehicle in Christian fantasy as any other.

Would anyone read my book and then think for one second that I believe in living gargoyles?  Then why would anyone think that I 1) believe in ghosts, or 2) am trying to suggest the ridiculous notion that ghosts exist?  Wouldn't either you or I have to be bananas, crackers, and nuts?

The banshee, as it turns out, was never to be hated and was only once to be feared.   

This is FANTASY.  It's the lesson taught, not the tools used.  As fantasy, it is reasonable and logical to presume that imaginary elements would be not only present but rife in the story, and like it or not, all kids are drawn to fantasy.  Have been since the beginning of time.  And it's increasing.  We, as writers of Christian fiction, can either write stories to sate those interests while promoting God and His teachings, or we can reject them out of hand, and continue to lose our own children to the world and its 'culture of death' by the literal thousands.

1) Read the book
2) Form an opinion

In that order.

What binds the banshee to earth (to the world and the worldly), keeping herself away from the son she loves and God Himself?

Worry
Anguish
Hate
Need for revenge
Sorrow
Despair
Doubt
Torment
Rage/anger

"Sorrow and torment wore deep on her face like callouses."

Will not all of these things--each and every one--bind you to earth, keeping you away from God?  His message?  His love?  You bet your butt, they will.

Constantine tells the story of the banshee--how the castle was overrun, and her son Euric was found in the moat.  Constantine tells the kids how she got this way--why Pandora never left the castle, even as it is now, more than a hundred and fifty years after the attack, now lying in ruins in the middle of Bedlam Gulch. 

"That's horrible," said Fidget.  She looked out into the trees, this time not with fear or disdain, but with empathy and sorrow."  

What finally releases the banshee, allowing her to go 'home,' as she finally floats upward?

The letting go of everything that appears on the list above.  This final release is symbolically shown as the antagonist (no villain is 100% evil, which is why we fail to see true evil time and time and time again) turns lose seemingly millions of fireflies.  Yes, the antagonist does a good deed.  Pandora's son, Euric, used to venture outside the bailey--the castle walls--to catch lightning bugs.  As the Stormy Petrel--the antagonist--releases the fireflies, it dawns on the kids why Pandora has been in self-imposed exile in the gulch for going on two centuries.

"Euric's fireflies.  Even I can see what's going on now," said Mickey.  "How come Pandora never figured it out?"

Constantine shrugged.  "She wasn't trying to figure it out."

See list above!

The lightning bugs began swarming around Pandora.  She stretched her arms out wide, closed her eyes sweetly, and relented.  They carried her gently upward in a spiraling cloud of brilliance and light.

"So all she ever had to do was follow the fireflies?" asked Fidget.

"She wasn't looking for fireflies," said Grigori.

See list above!

Mickey stood gazing at Pandora as she floated steadily upward until finally she disappeared altogether, and all the lightning bugs darted and danced, and merged with the stars in the sky.

See list above again--are these not the very things all Christians must let go of in order to get closer to God?  To find peace? 

Solid Christian lesson.  Solid.  Bullet-proof.  And it's all taught with a ghost.  Whether we face reality or not, it won't change the fact that all children, including Christian children, are hungry for fantasy.

We can either take them there, without losing them in the dark recesses that swallow them up in secular fiction--particularly fantasy that is written for children--or we can keep watching these same children leave the church for worldly things.  If we're lucky, some of them will come back to the church, but in what condition?  Beaten, battered, and broken.

How about we just work all the harder to not lose them in the first place?  There's nothing out there.  Nothing.  Not in that world.  Fantasy, in and of itself, is not an evil thing.  How often did Jesus Himself use fantasy in parable?

At this time of year, do you--as a Christian sitting around your television set with your Christian family--watch A Christmas Carol?  Was that story even written as Christian fiction?  And yet Christians watch it--it's back-in-the-day black and white entertainment considered wholesome, and it's absolutely dripping with morality and the Christian worldview.  Maybe you left the room at all the wrong times, but check it out: there's not just one ghost in that story.  There are three.

It's a Wonderful Life.  Ever watched that movie?  Another Christmas film--we eat it up.  TV stations run that movie, some as a marathon, at this time of year.  Is Jimmy Stewart's character in that film not every bit of a ghost, walking around disembodied, watching how life would have unfolded in his small hometown had he never lived?

I know another Christian fantasy story that features a witch--The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Geebs, it's even in the title:  witch.  Another taboo in Christian fiction, and here's CS Lewis himself using a witch in one of his stories.  Anyone out there know of any Christian fantasy using ghosts in their stories to good ends?  It's like anything else--it can be used for good or evil.  

Ghosts are a valid vehicle for teaching Christian lessons to children in a fantasy setting.  It's valid.  It's legitimate. Look at the message, not the messenger.