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The Tale Of Headless Horseman


There is a famous story about a pumpkin-headed demon that for many captures the spirit of Halloween, the Washington Irving Headless Horseman. But actually I think there is a much more terrifying headless monster with the potential to keep you up at night all year round, one that started in my ancestors' folklore: Irishman Dullahan. Before we really get into the legend of Dullahan, let's talk about the pumpkin in the room: Sleepy Hollow's Headless Horseman. Washington Irving wrote the tale "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in 1820. In it, Ichabod Crane and his rival Brom Bones, both fall in love with Katrina Van Tassel because of her great beauty ... and her great heritage. One night, after a rejection by Katrina, a drunken Ichabod is chased by a figure dressed in black on horseback, and then mysteriously disappears, leaving only her hat and the broken pieces of a pumpkin. With Ichabod out of the picture, Katrina marries Brom and the townspeople believe that Ichabod was carried away by a terrifying headless horseman of supernatural speed and strength. Most of us know the Headless Horseman through the children's books or the Disney version. There's also that movie that is loosely based on the story, which has a lot of problems, including demonizing women. Butttt let's move on. I think not only is it possible, but it is likely that Irving knew about Irish Dullahan before writing his famous creepy story. His mother and father were immigrants with an English and Scottish heritage. He had a Scottish babysitter. She traveled a lot in Europe. He was friends with well-known author Sir Walter Scott, who was in fact Scottish. So it is hard not to imagine that Irving was exposed to Celtic culture. We could also credit Irving's other possible European influences such as "Tam o’Shanter" by Robert Burns and "The Wild Huntsman" by Gottfried August Bürger, both poems featuring supernatural horse chases. Basically, Irving took the concept of a headless horseman from the Dullahan and added elements that would make it more terrifying for his target audience, the Americans. Irving uses the name of a real city in the United States and his villain is called the "Galloping Hessian", a reference to the true German soldiers hired by the British to fight in the Revolutionary War and known for their extreme violence. So Irving takes the fact and adds it to his fiction saying "some say it is the ghost of a Hesse soldier, whose head had been dragged by a cannonball, in an unnamed battle during the revolutionary war." The story of the Headless Horseman in popular culture generally has horses, night trips, carriages, and cemeteries, all found in Dullahan legends. But, what is unique about the Dullahan that is different from other monsters is that it doesn't actually kill you.

                                                      The Legend Of Headless Horseman

 They may gouge out your eyes ... because that's something they do, but your life is not in immediate danger. However, what Dullahan is is a serious warning. If you have seen one, it is not good. You, or someone you love, will die or suffer in a terrible, horrible, and eyeless way. Dullahan's story first appeared in writing in the 19th century in collections of Irish folklore such as fairy legends and southern Irish traditions by Thomas Crofton Croker and Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry by W.B. Yeats who introduced Irish legends to the masses. The Dullahan can be male or female, it always travels on horseback and has no head. Most of the time, his head is still with them. Sometimes it floats close to their bodies or is tucked under their arm, or even inside their pocket. In many stories, the horse also has no head. Dullahan can also travel in packages. In "The Harvest Dinner", a carriage full of headless passengers is driven by a headless driver and pulled by headless horses. Other stories from the Dullahan show them in the company of Banshees, competing with human riders and even bowling with their own skulls. That would be the party of your life. In the aptly named "Death Coach", a Dullahan wields a long whip and leads a team of headless horses. Its chariot wheels are made from human thigh bones and the chariot is illuminated by two hanging skulls. In some versions, the whip they carry is even more horrible - it's actually made from a human spine. Dullahan is the personification of death. The headless corpse was something the Irish were all too familiar with. They were a predominantly Catholic culture, with many stories and paintings depicting martyred saints walking with their heads as a symbol of how they were executed. Even before Catholicism was introduced in the 4th century, the early Celts would take and preserve the heads of slain enemies to dehumanize them. They believed that the head was where the soul was. So removing the head damages the spirit. Beheading was practiced in medieval Ireland, both in battle and in the form of punishment. During the late Tudor government, the British government even offered "head money" to anyone who could present the head of a known rebel to the crown. There are written accounts of these beheadings, and also archaeological evidence. Throughout Ireland, male and female skeletons have been discovered with their heads forcibly removed. This could explain stories of headless monsters, but what about headless horses? Well, the Irish believed that one of the biggest insults was to bury a human with a dead animal. And indeed, many skeletons have been found buried with dead animals with missing heads. 


Then the Dullahan's headless horse may have come from this tradition. The Dullahan is a reminder to never "lose your mind" both literally and metaphorically. The appearance of a Dullahan often occurs after the victim has succumbed to lustful thoughts or has been drinking too much. It serves as a midnight warning, keeping men and women at home, sober, and in their own beds. Oral folklore, religion, and literary history help create this monster. One of the scariest things about Dullahan is that it closely resembles the gruesome realities of medieval Ireland and blends fact and fiction, blurring real beheadings with imaginary beheadings.


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