This article is about the Irish mythological figure. For the Thoroughbred racehorse, seeDullahan (horse).
Dullahan, the headless horseman
—Illustrated byW. H. Brooke, Croker,Fairy Legends (3rd ed., 1834).
TheDullahan (Irish:Dubhlachan;dúlachán,/ˈduːləˌhɑːn/) is a type oflegendary creature inIrish folklore. He is depicted as aheadless rider on ablack horse, or as a coachman, who carries his own head. As it is not widely described in native sources, and no references to it appears on theIrish Folklore Commission'swebsite, there is doubt as to whether the Dullahan was originally a part of the Irish oral tradition.
Dullahan orDulachan (Irish:Dubhlachan [Duḃlaċan]) referring to "hobgoblin" (generic term; cf. Dullahan described as "unseelie (wicked) fairy"[1]), literally "signifies dark, sullen person", according to thelexicographerEdward O'Reilly.[2]Dulachan andDurrachan are alternative words for this "hobgoblin", and these forms suggest etymological descent fromdorr/durr "anger" ordurrach "malicious" or "fierce".[2] The original Irish term contains the stemdubh, meaning "black" in Irish.[4]
Dullahan was later glossed as "dark, angry, sullen, fierce or malicious being",[a][8] encompassing both etymologies, thoughThomas Crofton Croker considered the alternative etymology more dubious than thedubh "black" ("dark") etymology.[b]
The Dullahan is also calledColainn Gan Cheann, meaning "without a head" inIrish.
"Headless Coach" (Irish:Cóiste Gan Cheann)[9] or the "Soundless Coach" (literally "deaf coach",Irish:cóiste bodhar;[10][9]Hiberno-English:Coshta Bower, corrupted to "coach-a-bower")[11][12] is the name given to the vehicle driven by the Dullahan.[13]
He is depicted as aheadless horseman,[14] typically on a black horse,[19] who may carry his own head in his hand or under his arm.[20][1] The severed head has a revolting appearance, as in Croker's tale "The Headless Horseman":
..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.[21]
According to the modern storyteller Tony Locke of County Mayo, the Dullahan's mouth, full of razor-sharp teeth, forms a grin reaching the sides of the head, its "massive" eyes "constantly dart about like flies", and the flesh has acquired the "smell, colour and consistency of mouldy cheese".[22]
There are also legends and tales mentioning the "Headless Coach"[23] (also called "Coach-a-bower";[24]Irish:cóiste bodhar[10]), with the Dullahan as its presumed driver.[25][26]Cóiste Bodhar was referred to as "Soundless Coach" byRobert Lynd, who gave an account of a "silent shadow" of a coach passing by, provided by an avowed witness fromConnemara.[9] However,William Butler Yeats explained that "the 'deaf coach' was so called because of its rumbling sound".[27][c] According to one witness,[d] only the silent shadow of the horse-drawnhearse, i.e., the "Soundless Coach" was seen passing by.[9]
In Croker's poem "The Death Coach", the carriageaxle is made of a human spine and the wheel-spokes are constructed from thigh bones.[28] A later writer prosifying this description supplied additional details, so that the "two hollow skulls" used as lanterns on the carriage[28] are set with candles,[29] and thehammercloth made of pall material "mildew'd by damps"[28] is embellished as being chewed away by worms.[29][e]
A Dullahan appears as a mounted horseman or a coachman[26] driving ahorse-drawn carriage out of graveyards.[6] The rumour of a Dullahan's appearance often develops near a graveyard or acharnel vault where a wicked aristocrat is reputed to be buried.[6]
He arrives, driving thedeath coach, at the doorstep of a person whose death is approaching.[12] According to Croker, the appearance of the "Headless Coach" foreshadows imminent death or misfortune.[31] In "Hanlon's Mill", Michael (Mick) Noonan is returning from his trip to a shoemaker at Ballyduff, Co. Cork, and during his journey, he sees a black coach drawn by six headless black horses, driven by a headless coachman clad in black. The next morning, Mick receives news from the huntsman that Master Wrixon of Ballygibblin had a fit and died.[32]
Croker reports that in one legend, a Headless Coach would run back and forth from Castle Hyde[f] to a glen/valley[g] beyond the village ofBallyhooly, inCounty Cork.[h][31] Nearby in the town ofDoneraile,[i] it was said that the coach would visit the houses in succession, and whichever occupant dared to open the door would be splashed with a basin of blood by the coachman.[31]
There are rumours that golden objects can force the Dullahan to disappear.[33][better source needed]
A modern commentator stated that the Dullahan has the ability to see with the severed head and can "use it to scan the countryside for mortals about to die".[1]
In contrast, the headless coach in the tale "The Harvest Dinner" is described as a "blind (thief)",[34] and Croker assumed he lacks sight.[35]
The Dullahan allegedly uses a humanspine as a whip according to a number of 21st century commentators.[36][22][40][j]
The headless coachman merely bears a "long whip" in Croker's tale "The Harvest Dinner", with which he lashes the horses so furiously, he almost strikes a witness blind in an eye (the would-be-victim regarded it as deliberate assault).[34] Croker deduced that the headless creature, as a way of habit, attempts to destroy his witness's eye[42] or eyes with his whip, reasoning that the coachman's wrath turns to the onlooker because he lacks the ability to look due to his headlessness.[k][35]
Croker'sFairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (1828) contained a section on "The Dullahan" devoted to the lore of headless beings.[43]
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),[l] travels toCashel where he buys a nag, intending to sell it atKildorrery fair that June evening.[46] 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 awheel 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.[47][m]
^The epilogue tells of Larry getting a tongue-lashing from his wife Nancy Gollagher after his absence the whole night. Larry wisecracks that the headless woman should be called a "Good Woman" (as given in the title) in comparison, for she lacks the ability to verbally abuse him so.[48] It is further explained that a "Good Woman" referred to a saint or devoted woman martyred by decapitation, but this got corrupted to a standing joke that a woman without a head (and therefore can only remain silent) is therefore a "Good woman".[49][50]
^Kinahan, F. (1983)."Armchair Folklore: Yeats and the Textual Sources ofFairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry".Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature.83C: 265.JSTOR25506103.Much of what Yeats had to call on might be classed as armchair folklore: Croker describes the merrow, Kennedy borrows from Croker but adds an anecdote, O'Hanlon goes back to Croker and then adds a touch of his own.
^abCampbell, Josianne Leah (2016)."Death Coach". InFee, Christopher R.; Webb, Jeffrey B. (eds.).American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore: an Encyclopedia of American Folklore. Dublin: ABC-CLIO. pp. 285–296.ISBN9781610695688.
^O'Hanlon (1893),[6] also quoted by Josianne Leah Campbell (2016).[7]
^Haughton (2012), p. 54 generalizes on colour of the horseman's steed. Whereas Croker's story "Hanlon's Mill" features a "black coach drawn by six black horses".[15] Croker's annotation also quotes an account of a "spirit.. in the shape of a black horse without a head", fromThe Spectator,[16][17] but this was actually a fabricated ghost story byJoseph Addison, set near the (English) manor of the fictitious SirRoger de Coverley.[18]
^Croker's section on The Dullahan includes the tale "Hanlon's Mill", and in the postscript Croker states the "Headless Coach" is a "general superstition".[23]
^abO'Hanlon's poem "Legend of Murrisk" describes the Coach-a-bower on the move, and its driver is explicitly called "Dullahan" in a subsequent stanza.[6]
^Brian Ray's essay claims that "W. B. Yeats mentions.. thedullahan.. brandishing a whip made from a human spine",[37] however, the source Ray cites, Yeats (2003), p. 118[38] (= Yeats (1888), p. 108[39] fails to mention whip or spine.
^Croker (1828), Section "The Dullahan". Chapters "The Good Woman"; "Hanlon's Mill"; "The Harvest Dinner"; "The Death Coach"; "The Headless Horsemann"II: 85–152
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