The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow

by Mark Latham

  When New Year’s Day arrived, Gawain donned his armor and the girdle and set out for the Green Chapel. Eventually, he came to a narrow defile in a rock face. He heard sounds of life and, believing the Green Chapel to be near, Gawain called out. Sure enough, the Green Knight emerged to greet him. Intent on fulfilling the terms of the contract, Gawain presented his neck to the Green Knight, who proceeded to feign two blows, with the intent of making Gawain flinch, and thus besmirch his honor. On the third feint, the Green Knight nicked Gawain’s neck, only barely drawing blood. Angered, Gawain shouted that the contract had been met, and at this the Green Knight merely laughed.

  The Green Knight revealed himself to be Bertilak, lord of the castle where Gawain had sheltered. Because Gawain had not honestly exchanged all of his winnings on the third day, Bertilak had drawn blood on his third blow. Nevertheless, Gawain had proven himself a worthy knight, without equal in all the land. Bertilak explained that the old woman who accompanied his wife at the castle was really Morgan le Faye, King Arthur’s half-sister. She had sent the Green Knight on his errand to Camelot, and used her magic to change Bertilak’s appearance. Gawain returned to Arthur’s court, relieved to be alive, but ashamed that he had not been truthful about the girdle. As penance, he tied it around his arm and wore it always. However, the other knights of the Round Table, believing Gawain’s honor to be intact, followed suit, wearing girdles about their arms to show their support.

  For Washington Irving, the story was deeply meaningful. He had read many times of myths regarding “the wild hunt,” which Bertilak surely represented. In addition, Irving saw the role of Morgan le Faye as a cautionary note regarding the man or woman who controls the Headless Horseman. In this case, the knight was driven to a purpose: whether trickery or deceit, or a genuine attempt to claim the life of Arthur, who could tell. What Irving supposed was that headless spirits were bound by supernatural laws that could be exploited by a wily occultist, and that their very existence was a sort of pact with unseen forces. Irving began to suspect that headless spirits were not spirits at all in the traditional sense, but supernatural entities from some other realm entirely. What the superstitious people of the British Isles might call “fairy-folk” or “fae,” and what more god-fearing men might call demons.

  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

  Transformed by Morgan le Faye, the Green Knight is able to withstand his beheading at the hands of the knight Gawain, and returns a year to the day in order to test Gawain’s valor. Had Gawain lacked sufficient mettle, Morgana’s dark magic would surely have claimed his life.

  Celtic Horsemen

  Legends of the fairy-folk would enter Irving’s research for the rest of his time in Great Britain. In Wales, where the story of the Green Knight probably originated, he heard many obscure tales of headless ghosts: Lady Matthias of Stackpole who roams her estate in a coach pulled by headless horses and driven by a headless coachman; a similar headless lady pulled by a near-identical team of horses in Tenby, supposedly vanishing in a ball of fire if they’re seen; and the ghost of Princess Gwenllian, the last Celtic warrior princess, beheaded in battle and consigned to roam the battlefield searching for her missing head. These were familiar tales, but did nothing to expand Irving’s knowledge of the entities he hunted.

  More promise was evident, however, when he visited Scotland and Ireland. In Scotland he heard tell of a legendary chieftain who held more than one similarity with the fearsome Hessian. In Ireland, on the other hand, Irving found several superstitious old sops who were more than willing to tell him tales of the fairy-folk and their great mischief. They perhaps thought Irving would take them for fools, but instead he used their stories to fuel further research, and before he was done in Ireland, he had found evidence of at least one powerful entity, which he had no desire to meet in person.

  The Dullahan and the Gan Ceann

  It was never fully clear to Irving whether the Dullahan and the Gan Ceann were the same entity by different names, or two separate creatures altogether. There were many similarities between the two, certainly, and Irving doubted that such terrible characteristics could be shared, and so he put the confusion down to local variance in mythology.

  The Dullahan, as far as Irving could gather, was one of the Unseelie – a race of malevolent fairies. Whereas their opposite number – the Seelie – are prone to bouts of mischief, they rarely plague humans unless some slight has been perceived against them. The Unseelie, however, bring their assaults wherever they please – across Ireland peasants whisper of “Unseelie hosts” who will waylay lone travelers at night, lifting them into the air, beating them, and compelling them to commit heinous acts against their will. Most feared of all the Unseelie, the Dullahan is a bringer of dismay and death.

  The Dullahan is a headless rider, clad in a flowing black cape and usually mounted upon a black horse that spews flames from its nostrils (this fiery connection, shared by the Dullahan, the Hessian’s jack o’lantern and the ghost of Thomas Boleyn, set Irving to thinking of a more literal, hellish explanation for headless spirits). Sometimes, the entity instead drives a team of headless horses, drawing a ghostly black carriage adorned with funereal objects behind him, the sparking wheels setting hedgerows aflame as he passes. The Dullahan carries its rotting head aloft in one hand like a lantern, the better to see immense distances, while it holds a whip made from a human spinal cord in the other. As the specter gallops across the Irish countryside, gates and doors fly open at his approach, for nothing can impede the Dullahan’s passage until his grim work is done. Mortals who see the Dullahan riding are often struck blind by the creature’s hideous whip, or else are drenched in blood that splashes upwards from the horse’s hooves. When the Dullahan finally draws to a halt, someone nearby will die, for the creature is a harbinger of death.

  Unlike the Banshee, which warns families of a loved one’s imminent death, the Dullahan is said to claim souls for himself, choosing his victims deliberately for some unknown reason. The only defense against this dreadful Unseelie is gold – Irving heard of a man from Galway who had tried to outrun the Dullahan but, when he realized there was no escaping his dread fate, he remembered that he had an old lucky gold coin in his pocket. He threw the coin on the road before the Dullahan, and the spirit roared in anger and vanished at once.

  Ensconced within a library in Dublin, Irving found a legend about the Celtic fertility god, Crom Dubh, who was worshipped by an ancient king named Tighermas. Each year, Tighermas would sacrifice humans to Crom Dubh in exchange for his blessings, but all of that changed when the Christians came to Ireland. Like so many of the old gods, Crom Dubh was abandoned by his followers, but he was vengeful and would not be forgotten. He took the decaying form of the Dullahan, and now sets forth across the land on ancient feast days, when the veil between worlds is thin.

  Dullahan on chariot

  The Dullahan is a headless fairy, who rides atop a carriage pulled by a black, headless horse. The creature has a whip made from the spine of a human corpse, and it is said that when the Dullahan stops riding a death occurs soon after. If one’s name is called by the Dullahan, then death is instantaneous.

  Irving felt sure that there was a strong connection between this strange Unseelie and the Hessian of Sleepy Hollow. Upon returning to Scotland, he put this theory forward to Walter Scott, who at once handed him a manuscript of one of his early works, entitled The Wild Huntsman. This story was translated from an older story by the German poet Gottfried August Bürger called Der Wilde Jäger. This story also featured headless spirits, which may, Scott postulated, have been part of the Germanic courts of elves – the Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar – almost certainly analogous to the Seelie and Unseelie of Celtic mythology. These tales would almost certainly have been known to the Dutch as early as the 16th century, and would thus have been carried across the sea to the American colonies, and to Sleepy Hollow. The evidence was mounting – Irving knew he would have to continue his European tour, and pay a visit soon to Germany.
From that day, however, Washington Irving never traveled without his watch-chain of fine gold – just in case.

  THE CHIEFTAIN OF GLEN CAINNIR

  The most famous headless spirit of Scotland has a more traditional explanation for its ghostly appearance.

  In 1500 much of the southern parts of the Isle of Mull belonged to two factions of the Clan Maclaine, the Lochbuie and the Duart. In 1538, Ewan of the Little Head decided to dispose of his father, Iain Maclaine, and claim the castle of Mull for himself. Iain Maclaine, being in poor health, called on the Duart Maclaines to help him. The two factions met at Glen Cainnir, falling upon each other with axe and claymore. The fight went badly for Ewan’s outnumbered clansmen, but he saw the Duart chieftain ahead of him and saw a way to end the battle at a stroke. Ewan drove his horse straight at the Duart leader, but was blindsided by an enemy clansman who, with a single blow, decapitated him.

  Legend has it that Ewan’s headless body flailed left and right, wounding several foes, before his horse bolted, carrying the upright body of its master all the way home. This was seen as a terrible omen, and the battle ended at once.

  Upon returning to Loch Squabhain, Ewan’s servants examined their lord’s body – sure enough, the head was missing, even though the body still sat upright in the saddle, and twitched most disturbingly. A superstitious lot, they believed the devil must surely be at work, and thought perhaps that Ewan’s horse was the source of the evil. To be sure, they decapitated the beast, before burying their lord.

  Within a short space of time, Maclaine clansmen reported hearing the sound of ghostly hoof beats at night. Soon, the phenomenon stretched to the outlying villages, until at last the ghost of Ewan Maclaine was sighted several times. What set this restless spirit aside from other ghosts – for the Highlands are filled with such tales – was that whenever the ghost of Ewan Maclaine was seen, the witness would soon after die. Thus the strange thread of circumstance that links the appearance of headless revenants across the world was continued.

  Ewan the Headless, clan chieftain, decapitated while making a last stand on the Isle of Mull. His spirit still rides about the island on the back of a headless horse, to warn of impending tragedy, or to claim the souls of his enemies’ descendants.

  Germanic Horsemen

  Washington Irving spent much of 1821 traveling in Europe, spending considerable time in Germany where he researched the old Germanic tales of headless spirits that the Dutch had perhaps taken with them to Sleepy Hollow. That the Hessian himself had been German served to confirm in Irving’s mind that the root of these evil spirits lay in this European land.

  Irving’s mind flashed back to the tales of the Dullahan that he had heard in Ireland, and of the many legends of the “Death Coach” that often accompanied the appearance of that creature. The origins of phantom coaches could clearly be traced to the Herlething (Wild Hunt) of Germany, as well as to the ominous “hell waine,” a wagon that carried off the souls of the damned, recorded by Reginald Scot in The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584).

  The Grey Horseman

  Irving again returned to the Books of Grimm. Delving into the origins of a story called Hans Jagendteufel (Jack the Hunting-Devil), Irving found a succinct reasoning for the existence of headless horsemen. Relating events supposed to have taken place in 1644, the Grimms wrote: “It is believed that if a man commits a crime punishable by decapitation and it remains undiscovered during his lifetime, he will have to wander around after his death with his head under his arm.”

  Hans Jagendteufel describes how a young woman from Dresden was out gathering acorns in the forest, near to a place called Lost Waters. She was interrupted by a loud blast from a hunting horn. She turned to see a headless man in a long grey coat sitting on a grey horse. The apparition wore high boots and spurs, and carried a hunting horn. Fortunately for her, on this occasion, the headless rider passed on without doing her any harm, but she knew from the legends that she’d had a lucky escape. In some versions of the tale, the Grey Huntsman seeks out the perpetrators of capital crimes, taking their lives in much the same way as the Hessian did back in Sleepy Hollow. In others, he is accompanied by a pack of black hunting hounds with tongues of fire. This final reference chilled Irving to the bone – again he had seen mention of “hell fire,” and again he wondered if he had seen exactly that back home. There was some dark magic involved in the legends of the headless horsemen, of that Irving was sure. The early Christians had labeled these revenants devils, but as he had seen in Ireland, there was surely older, pagan belief at the root.

  Finding his membership of the Lycean Club to open doors, Irving visited the University of Marburg, and finally met the Brothers Grimm. They were not quite as he had expected – being of modest means and coming from a family of small income, the brothers were not allowed to be a full part of the university, though they lived and studied there and had enjoyed great success. Instead they were consigned to meager quarters on the edge of the university grounds, where they made Irving their honored guest. There, in a draughty library, he was introduced to the original Books of Grimm, and spent many hours poring over them, with the help of the brothers themselves, who lent him every assistance with the translation of their work. It was there that Irving found the missing pieces of the puzzle.

  The Horseman of the Wild Hunt, like many headless revenants across the world, is not strictly speaking a ghost, but a cursed individual “scorned by God and cast from His light,” usually for committing some heinous sin or act of blasphemy. Forced to wander in a twilight world betwixt heaven and hell, between life and death, the revenants can be set to work for whatever dark purpose is desired, by those who know how to control them. With the correct incantations and symbology, perfected in the 16th century by Dr John Dee of England, a horseman can be commanded to do the bidding of a mortal master, so long as that master has in his possession the remains of the horseman’s head. Headless horsemen, it seemed, are capable of tearing the very soul from a mortal’s body, or simply inflicting grievous harm in the traditional fashion – with a blade. They are relentless killers, born of the wild hunt, and are often gifted dark trappings to assist in their missions – hell-forged swords, demonic steeds, packs of hounds, and phantom coaches amongst them. The fires of hell itself burn bright around the huntsmen when their quarry is near, although it is said to be an ill omen indeed even to look upon such a spirit when he is about his grim business, whether or not you are the target.

  Irving remembered Baltus Van Tassel’s book of spells – had the old man even realized what he had? He shuddered – so far from home, in the place that birthed the evil Hessian, he wished he had brought that book with him, rather than entrust it to the club. However, his own notes and sketches proved invaluable to the Grimms, and soon they began to formulate plans of their own – plans to replicate Irving’s victory over the Hessian in their own land.

  The Grey Horseman

  Supposedly the cursed spirit of a man who committed a crime punishable by decapitation, but who escaped his fate, the headless Grey Horseman is a persistent figure in the German backwoods. When he is encountered, he may “blow” his horn, signaling that the witness is fated to die.

  The Brothers Grimm and their Books of Lore

  Though younger than Irving by a few years, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were nonetheless possessed of brilliant minds, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. They had the uncanny knack of looking beyond the mundane and seeing the wondrous, even the supernatural, and had taken inspiration for their stories to date not only from folklore but also from their own experience. They thrilled Irving with their tales of hunting giants through the wilderness, bringing to justice an evil, cannibalistic witch, and slaying a dread werewolf who preyed on local children. They showed Irving evidence of their claims, and more besides, for they followed in a tradition set down by the French folklorist Charles Perrault, who also recorded his ghost-hunting exploits as cautionary tales, to be passed down to the children of future generations, so as t
o make them eternally wary of the monsters that exist beyond the veil of our mortal existence.

  The Perrault Manuscripts, documenting dozens of monsters and evil spirits supposedly destroyed by Charles Perrault a century earlier, were just the start of the bizarre things the Grimms revealed. Their great contemporary, Hans Christian Anderson, was a part of the same tradition, and indeed the three of them had collaborated on a hunt in Denmark just two years prior, where they had brought down a stone-skinned troll that was stealing goats from the local farmers’ herds. The production of the troll’s granite fangs was enough to convince Irving that his hosts spoke the truth.

  The Grimms brought forth further manuscripts – magical texts from Dee, Copernicus, and Agrippa amongst them, and a whole world of esoteric lore began to unfold before Irving’s eyes. Jacob and Wilhelm impressed upon Irving that his contribution to their knowledge was great indeed, and that he could help them further. They invited him to stay with them until May Eve – Walpurgisnacht, “the Night of the Burning Witches.” On such a night, the spirits walked abroad, and the Grimms were determined to return to Dresden and, along with Washington Irving, hunt the Grey Horseman.

  Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm were not just writers of fables, but hunters of supernatural entities too! Their battles against the occult were chronicled in the Books of Grimm, copies of which are held in chapters of the Lycean Club across the globe.

  The Wild Hunt

  The search began in the old town of Königsbrück, to the north of Dresden. There, in a small churchyard, the Grimms believed they had found the grave of the man dubbed Hans Jagendteufel, who had supposedly murdered his entire family and then, years later, committed suicide. He had been acquitted of all charges during his lifetime, but the guilt had toppled him over the edge – however, he had avoided the guillotine only to be curse to an eternity as the Grey Huntsman. The Grimms had collected stories of the huntsman’s appearance stretching back to 1600, and although he usually hunted the guilty, many innocent bystanders had been harmed or even killed just by virtue of seeing the ghostly figure – such is the capricious whim of the dark forces that control the headless revenants.