Headless Horseman
The fictitious headless horseman has been a motif of European folklore since at least the Middle Ages.[1]
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[edit] In Celtic folklore
The Irish dullahan or dulachán ("dark man") is a headless fairy, usually riding a black horse and carrying his head under one arm (or holding it high to see at great distance). He wields a whip made from a human corpse's spine. When the dullahan stops riding, a death occurs. The dullahan calls out a name, at which point the named person immediately perishes.[2] In another version, he is the headless driver of a black carriage.[3] A similar figure, the gan ceann ("without a head") can be frightened away by wearing a gold object or casting one in his path.[4]
The most prominent Scottish tale of the headless horseman concerns a man named Ewen decapitated in a clan battle at Glen Cainnir on the Isle of Mull. The battle denied him any chance to be a chieftain, and both he and his horse are headless in accounts of his haunting of the area.[5]
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle English poem which utilises a decapitation myth.
[edit] In German folklore
The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm (Deutsche Sagen) recount two German folk tales of a headless horseman.
One is set near Dresden in eastern Germany. In this tale, a woman from Dresden goes out early one Sunday morning to gather acorns in a forest. At a place called "Lost Waters", she hears a hunting horn. When she hears it again, she turns around she sees a headless man in a long grey coat sitting on a grey horse.
In another German tale, set in Brunswick, a headless horseman called "the wild huntsman" blows a horn which warns hunters not to ride the next day, because they will meet with an accident.
In some German versions of the headless horseman, he seeks out the perpetrators of capital crimes. In others, he has a pack of black hounds with tongues of fire.
[edit] See also
- Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a modern American horror story
[edit] Notes
- ^ "Headless Horseman". Mythical Creatures Guide. http://www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/page/Headless+Horseman.
- ^ Haggerty, Bridget The Dullahan - Ireland’s Headless Horseman at Irish Culture and Customs
- ^ The Dullahan at Shee-eire.com
- ^ McKillop, James A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, 2004, cited at gan ceann, encyclopedia.com
- ^ Fox, David The Headless Horseman at Federated Caledonian Societies South Africa
