Legends of The Headless Horseman



Dark and frightening horseman ... artist unknown



I always thought that the story of the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and was a uniquely American story.  Not so, it seems, for the legend, with some variations, exists in Ireland, Scotland, Germany and likely other countries as well.  Each paragraph of my article is illustrated with some really beautiful works of art depicting the Horseman.
  

Wild chase through the woods ... artist unknown

Irving describes the horseman thus:   "Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion ... quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind,--the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him. ...There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless!--but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle!"

From  the British Museum, equestrian
painting of a headless horseman

In 1796, Sir Walter Scott translated The Wild Huntsman, originally written by German poet Gottfried Burger, based on Germanic legend of a huntsman who does have a head, chasing unsuspecting riders in the night to their death.  Other Germanic folklore speaks of a headless horseman who wears a long grey coat, astride a grey horse, blowing a hunting horn to warn hunters of impending accidents.  In other versions, he has a pack of hounds with tongues of fire.  (Cool!)

A classic film-lover's horseman ... stark black and white

Scotsman Robert Burns wrote Tam O'Shanter in 1790, a narrative poem about a poor man riding at night, chased by really disgusting demons of all kinds who cannot cross running water or bridges.

Striking illustration by Kanaru92

I love the legend from the Green Isle best!  In Irish folklore the headless horseman, called the Dullahan, is a terrifying figure galloping through the night, holding his head under his arm, as the arbiter of death.  He wields a human spine as a whip, gallops to a place where someone will die and reins in his wild horse, where the head calls out the doomed person's name.  As told in the legend taken down from oral tradition by Thomas Crofton Croker in Fairy Legends and Traditions of The South of Ireland (1906), the headless horseman is completely different and much more dark and horrifying than any of the above versions:  

(As told by Irishman Charley Culnan on his way home from the pub one dark night) -- "His vision failed in carrying him further than the top of the collar of the figure's coat, which was a scarlet single-breasted hunting frock, having a waist of a very old-fashioned cut reaching to the saddle, with two huge shining buttons at about a yard's distance behind ... see further he could not, and after straining his eyes for a considerable time to no purpose, he exclaimed, with pure vexation, "By the big bridge of Mallow, it is no head at all he has!"   "Look again, Charley Culnane," said a hoarse voice, that seemed to proceed from under the right arm of the figure.  Charley did look again, and now in the proper place, for he clearly saw, under the aforesaid right arm, that head from which the voice had proceeded, and such a head no mortal ever saw before. It looked like a large cream cheese hung round with black puddings: no speck of colour enlivened the ashy paleness of the depressed features; the skin lay stretched over the unearthly surface, almost like the parchment head of a drum. Two fiery eyes of prodigious circumference, with a strange and irregular motion flashed like meteors ..., and a huge mouth reached from either extremity of two ears, which peeped forth from under a profusion of matted locks of lustreless blackness. This head, which the figure had evidently hitherto concealed from Charley's eyes, now burst upon his view in all its hideousness."

Unique art works of the Horseman, with a Disney finale:

I love this impressionistic sketch by Maquinafantasma

Black and brooding, with the demon
horse, by Jurei-Chan

Pumpkin carving, artist unknown

                           A YEARLY HALLOWEEN TRADITION -- DISNEY!

By the time the legend of the Headless Horseman got to Disney, the terrifying demonic creature was still scary, but mainly to children, and the dark nature of the stories, especially the Irish Dullahan, had changed the head to a glowing pumpkin. However, I will always have a special place in my heart for Disney's bumbling Ichabod Crane, and will remember that I was just as scared as poor Ichabod when the horseman gave chase through the wind-swept autumn woods!


Who could ever forget Disney's Legend of Sleepy Hollow  from 1949?

Seeing THIS coming at your would scare anyone of ANY age