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In Hebridean (heb-rih-DEE-un) folklore, this activity is performed by spirits who may have breasts that they throw over their shoulders while working. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this activity at the center of a Celtic mytheme in which old women performing it at midnight ask passersby to help, killing those who comply exactly and granting wishes to those who do it in a different fashion.
ANSWER: washing clothes [or doing laundry; accept the midnight washerwomen; or laundresses; or Les Lavandières] (Twisting the clothes in the opposite way from the washerwomen leads to them granting you wishes.)
[10e] The bean-nighe (ban NEE-yuh) who wash the clothes of those who are about to die in Scottish and Irish folklore are a subtype of this more general kind of female spirits, who shriek and wail to herald death.
ANSWER: banshee [or bean sidhe; or bean sí; or ben síde; prompt on sidhe]
[10m] Washerwomen spirits in this region are called kannerezed noz (“can”-ner-EH-zed “nose”), meaning “night ducks,” for their webbed feet. A princess from this region steals a gate key from her father Gradlon to bring a lover home, with disastrous consequences.
ANSWER: Brittany [or Bretagne; or Breizh; or Bertaèyn; prompt on France; prompt on Ys by asking “what region is that in?”] (The disaster is that their city, Ys, sinks beneath the ocean.)
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Summary

2023 BHSU @ Berkeley03/18/2023Y313.33100%33%0%
2023 BHSU @ Maryland03/11/2023Y320.00100%67%33%
2023 BHSU @ Northwestern02/25/2023Y618.33100%67%17%
2023 BHSU Online04/15/2023Y417.50100%75%0%
2023 BHSU @ Sheffield04/15/2023Y220.00100%100%0%
2023 BHSU @ Waterloo04/15/2023Y310.0067%33%0%
2023 BHSU @ Yale04/08/2023Y316.670%100%67%
2023 BHSU @ Yale04/08/2023Y316.67100%33%33%

Data

Milan et al.Cameron et al.010010
The Vulture's Guide to BuzzParth et al.0000
The Passion According to C.H.Neg 5! Playing Quizbowl, Liddy Style0101020