| Dullahan | |
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Real Name |
dullahan or dulachán |
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First Appearance |
Irish Folklore |
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Created by |
Irish Folklore |
Origin[]
The dullahan or dulachán ("dark man") is a headless, demonic fairy, usually riding a horse and carrying his head under his arm. 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 dies. In another version, he is the headless driver of a black carriage, the Cóiste Bodhar. A similar figure, the gan ceann ("without a head"), can be frightened away by wearing a gold object or putting one in his path.
The tale "The Good Woman" recounts a peasant's encounter with a cloaked female who turns out to be a Dullahan. A peasant named Larry Dodd, a resident of "White Knight's Country" at the foot the Galtee Mountains (Galtymore), travels (westward) to Cashel where he buys a nag, intending to sell it at Kildorrery fair that June evening. He offers a ride to a cloaked female, and when he grabs her to exact a kiss as payment for the ride, he discovers her to be a Dullahan. After losing consciousness, in the church ruins he finds a wheel of torture set with severed heads (skulls) and headless Dullahans, both men and women and nobles and commoners of various occupations. Larry is offered a drink, and when he is about to compliment it, his head is severed mid-sentence. His head reverts when he regains his senses. He loses his horse to the Dullahans.
Some believe the Dullahan to be the embodied spirit of the Celtic god Crom Dubh.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Fairy Legends (1834)
- Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1828)
Notes[]
- The Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hollow may have been inspired by Dullahan.