The bean nighe is a Scottish fairy, seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Otherworld. She is a type of bean sìth (in Irish bean sídhe, anglicized as "banshee"). As the "Washer at the Ford" she wanders near deserted streams where she washes the blood from the grave-clothes of those who are about to die. It is said that mnathan nighe (the plural of bean nighe) are the spirits of women who died giving birth and are doomed to do this work until the day their lives would have normally ended.