Headless in Lahaina
The result of a terrible accident at the art gallery of Curtis Wilson Cost in Lahaina. (I've told Curtis a million times to stop swinging that tennis racket in there!) The details are too gruesome to recount, but suffice to say that I've been languishing in this awful condition ever since.
Okay, not really. This was the costume that I put together for Halloween 2003 along Front Street in Lahaina, Maui, where one of the world's largest Halloween street parties takes place each year. The mayhem continues until well after midnight, and the street is filled with Maui residents and visitors wearing every imaginable type of costume, from the very simple to the extremely elaborate. Drunkenness and partial nudity are embraced by a large percentage of the participants, so it's not always the most flattering display. I was proud, however, to contribute this tasteful representation of the famous Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. Here's a more complete view:
The false shoulders were held in place by an adjustable armature that I fashioned by bending thick, copper wire into a form that would rest on my shoulders while supporting the weight of the clothing. My head was covered with a black mesh fabric that allowed me to see through - well, sort of. I was able to see just well enough, at least, to find my way among the crowd. The biggest problem was Maui's tropical temperatures - on a warm, humid night in Lahaina, wearing three layers of heavy clothing gets just a little uncomfortable.
Actually, let's not understate this. It was hot. Miserably hot.
Here are a couple of back views that show off the cape. I bought two yards of a beautiful black satin fabric, and was completely at a loss to do anything with it until Jill Cost came to the rescue with her sewing machine. Thanks, Jill! Because of you, I was able to bring terror to the streets of Lahaina.
- A few words about the history and habits of headless beings -
"The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow."
Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
Washington Irving's “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a well-known tale in the United States, but less well known is the fact that headless riders are not unique to American folklore. I was surprised to learn that the Irish have been spinning tales about a similar fright for centuries. The Irish call this thing a Dullahan. The Dullahan is a vision so wonderfully and gruesomely preposterous that it could not possibly fail to captivate the imagination. Sleepy Hollow’s horseman would seem justified in claiming kinship to the Irish Dullahan, since both are night-riding, headless fellows dressed in dark attire, complete with the flowing cape that's so indispensable for dramatic flourish. But while Washington Irving’s horseman was said to gallop along New York’s country lanes in a vain search for his missing head, the Dullahan is fortunate enough to maintain possession of his own severed noggin, but simply can’t reattach it. Therefore, he’s obliged to carry his head about with him wherever he goes.
This is not a pretty sight. The head is said to glow with a sort of phosphorescence, resulting from a perpetual state of decay, and this affords the Dullahan with a convenient but hideous lantern with which to illuminate the dark back-roads of the Irish countryside. On the other hand, the light of a full moon might render such guidance unnecessary, in which case the Dullahan simply plants his unwieldy head on the brow of his saddle, like an equestrian version of the worst imaginable hood ornament. Of course, the Dullahan restricts all of its public appearances to those darkest and loneliest hours of the night (honoring a long-held tradition among supernatural terrors of all kinds, it would seem), but I dare say that the sight of such a thing at any hour, even in broad daylight, would present an excessively adequate excuse for wetting one’s self. And all the more so, since the Dullahan does not appreciate being stared at, and is said to reward this offense with a bucket of blood thrown into the face of any unwelcome witness to his nightly rides. How it always manages to have a bucket of blood at the ready for such mischief is a mystery to me, but ours is not to question such things...
A similar apparition is known as a tradition of Scandinavian folklore, but with a twist. In his book, "The Forest in Folklore and Mythology," Alexander Porteous describes the Wild Huntsman, a phantom engaged in a perpetual hunt on horseback throughout the forest. As described by Porteous, this being is very similar to the Celtic Dullahan and other variants of the headless horseman:
"There he hunts night and day in fulfillment of a wish...that 'God may keep His Heaven, so long as I can hunt in Gurre for evermore.' ...the crack of his whip is heard as he rushes through the forest on a white horse, sometimes with his head under his left arm, and preceded by coal-black hounds with fiery tongues hanging from their mouths."