Image source: Merlina McGovern
A lanky interloper swirls into a sleepy rural Tarry Town. Ichabod Crane becomes the town’s schoolmaster and is helpful to the town folks, almost ingratiatingly so. And the ladies, the ladies sure do like him. But the one lady that catches his eye is Katrina Van Tassel. And Katrina is the one lady he can’t have.
His despair causes him to ride out into the darkness of the woods on his horse. It’s a cold and forbidding fall night, and Tarry Town is a town teeming with ghosts and ghouls. Fog swirls, and even Ichabod’s trusty horse, Gunpowder, becomes skittish at the slightest crack of a fallen branch or the mournful hoot of an owl. On a night like this, is it any wonder that poor Ichabod falls victim to one of the scariest of those paranormal beasties, the headless horseman?
The reader of this particular ghost story is left with only their imaginations to think about what might have happened to poor Ichabod. He may have been a superstitious lout with little care for the settled traditions of a new town, but what tortures could the headless horseman have visited upon him? Or was the rival suitor for Katrina’s hand, Brom Bones, actually responsible for his death? Had he in fact disguised himself as the scary haunt knowing Ichabod was so easily swayed by scary folk tales? Only Ichabod’s suddenly lonely horse, Gunpowder, will ever know.
Now, this long intro about an old short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, is a far cry from today’s Inktober prompt, Saddle. But there’s absolutely nothing spooky or anything remotely Halloween about the word Saddle, so I had to add a little seasonal flavor to my drawing. Of course, in the original story, the headless horseman carries his disembodied head strapped to his saddle, a gruesome image indeed, but one far beyond my drawing abilities.
It’s also a word that I’m not too interested in researching for a blog post. Now, a headless horseman, that’s far, far more interesting. This idea of a headless ghost was not invented by Irving’s story. And in fact, Irving wrote of his inspiration being tales of the fearsome spectre from ancient European legends. In that linked Wikipedia article, you can read about the dullahan from Ireland (“a headless, demonic fairy, usually riding a horse and carrying his head under his arm”), the decapitated soldier Ewen from Scotland, or the headless horseman from Germany who could kill enthralled victims by simply touching them.
In researching headless horseman for this blog post, the idea of an animated ghost that is so very like a living human except for its head makes me think of a demon that looks just like us but will continue to come after us without remembering anything of what it’s like to be a human because it’s head is no longer attached. There is something terrrifynig about a human continuing on and on even after the source of its soul and being, the head, has become separated from its body. The body is nothing but a pure animal that has no ability to think rationally and will kill you despite any and all of your protestations.
Of course, there are also the more recent and less scary versions of this myth, like Nearly Headless Nick, the bumbling house ghost for Gryfinndor from the Harry Potter series. In the Disney version of the short story, Ichabod Crane is a figure of ridiculousness with his bobbing and enormous Adam’s apple and his absurdly large feet. But for the most part, even the Disney version of this ghost is haunting and frightening (his blood-red cloak swirling fiercely around him as he lifts a flaming jack o’lantern high).
I’m getting the shivers just remembering that image and of the fear Ichabod showed even as he stupidly pushed his horse further and further into the dark forest. As for me, if someone tells me a ghost story, I’ll definitely make sure to listen to them and stay far, far away.
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