In modern literature, the image of the Dullahan, a legendary Irish creature, is usually reduced to that of a headless rider on a black horse. He overtakes travelers in the middle of the night, carrying his own head either tucked under his arm or in his right hand, its eyes glowing like lamps.

... 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 to complete all, a 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.., now burst upon his view in all its hideousness.

The Headless Horseman // Croker Th.C. "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland" (1055: p.234-235)

In the other hand he holds a whip made from a human spine. Encountering him is an omen of imminent death (1056: p.54). Sometimes the Dullahan is regarded as a form of the Death Coach — that is, not as a rider but as a carriage drawn by several horses that overtakes travelers, foretelling essentially the same fate (764: p.140). The Dullahan is also considered a male counterpart of the Irish banshee (764: p.140), although it should be noted that the Dullahan does not herald the deaths of members of particular families, as the Irish keening spirit, the banshee, traditionally does.

The Irish folklorist Thomas Crofton Croker, when attempting to understand what the Dullahan actually was, noted that the name referred to a type of goblin (1055: p.240). This, of course, was not the image of a goblin imposed by modern popular culture. The folkloric concept implied by this word often had no fixed appearance. Rather, it represented a kind of “fear”, a terror that might appear in almost any form. The word Dullahan, also known as Durrachan, was derived by Croker from the Irish durr or dorr (“rage”), or durrach (“malicious, fierce”) (1055: p.240), suggesting the malevolent nature of the creature. However, not all stories about encounters with the Dullahan end tragically for humans.

Despite the differences among the stories about the Dullahan, the creature has one very distinct characteristic. It is humanoid, and its head lives a life of its own. The Dullahan is not always male. In one Irish story, a man meets a young woman on the road and offers to give her a ride in his cart. Soon, overcome with passion and intending to kiss her, he chases after her and catches up with her in a graveyard, only to suddenly discover that this is impossible — because she has no head (1055: p.214-215). In the graveyard, the frightened protagonist becomes a witness to the strangest gathering of Dullahans imaginable. He sees an old torture wheel with skulls set upon it, while the headless owners of those skulls spin it and dance to music that seems to come from nowhere, singing a song. Afterwards they mock the hero and even invite him to drink with them (1055: p.216-217). Humor, in fact, is quite characteristic of Dullahans. In the story “The Headless Horseman”, which tells how a hero returning from a fair where he had bought a horse is unafraid to race a carriage that catches up with him — drawn by a headless horse (although its head “gallops” beside it) and driven by a man whose head, resembling a piece of moldy cheese, is tucked under his right arm — one constantly hears the latter’s sarcastic remarks about the hero. After the race, during which the hero shows no fear of either ditches or stone walls^* along his path, the rider not only lets the hero go in peace but also rewards him for his courage:

A hundred years it is since my horse and I broke our necks at the bottom of Kilcummer hill, and ever since I have been trying to get a man that dared to ride with me and never found one before. Keep, as you always have done, at the tail of the hounds, never baulk a ditch, nor turn away from a stone walls and the headless horseman will never desert you nor the old mare.

The Headless Horseman // Croker Th.C. "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland" (1055: p.238)

Other encounters with Dullahans do not end so well. Even looking at a Dullahan can be dangerous. A mere glance may result in the Dullahan splashing a basin of blood into the observer’s face or striking them across the face with his whip, leaving the person blind in one eye (1056: p.55). It is also believed that the Dullahan fears gold, and if a gold coin is thrown onto the road before him, he will disappear (1056: p.54).

This image clearly contains elements of classic ghost stories about restless or cursed individuals who are forced to wander after death, endlessly repeating the actions that obsessed them during life. Moreover, the story “The Headless Horseman” contains a clear hunting motif, which recalls the themes associated with the Wild Hunt, especially since headless figures were sometimes believed to appear in such spectral processions (1056: p.55).