The Dullahan The Dullahan (pronounced DOOL-a-HAN) is a creature in the Irish fairy realm that is most active in the remote parts of the counties Sligo and Down. The times when the Dullahan are most present are on certain Irish festivals or feast days. The Dullahan is headless and carries it with him either in his hand or attached to his saddle. The head is smiling maliciously and has magnificent eyesight. It also uses a human spine as a whip and its wagon is full of funeral objects. The wagon has candles in skulls to light the way, the spokes of the wheels are made from thigh bones, and the wagon's covering made from a worm-chewed pall or dried human skin. When the Dullahan stops riding, that is where a person dies. All he has to do …show more content…
The most famous Scottish tale of the headless horseman was when a soldier named Ewen was decapitated in a clan battle at Glen Cainnir on the Isle of Mull. The battle denied him any chance to be a chief of the clan, and even his horse is headless and there are accounts of him haunting the area. The Dullahan could have transferred to American folklore. The Headless Horseman is a fictional character from the short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. In this story a soldier in the American Revolution gets decapitated by a cannonball and his comrades bury him close to the battlefield. Every halloween night his ghost furiously looks for his head. In Indian Folklore it is called the jhinjhār and is actually viewed as a heroic figure. They are viewed to be warriors whose wrath and passion to protect the innocent motivate them to fight even after beheaded. There was a comic book series based on the Dullahan called Chopper. The Dullahan is imaged as a modern day headless outlaw biker on a motorcycle who collects the souls of sinners. The only people who could see him were those who consumed an Ecstasy like drug that triggers their sixth sense and opens a gateway to the afterlife. During the hallucinogenic high, any characters that have committed sins are haunted by the headless ghost. The person is safe from the headless ghost once the drug wears
The sugar skull is obviously referring to the Mexican tradition called dia de los muertos. Dia de los muertos takes place during the end of october and the first of November. This celebration is an important holiday as it is considered a vital part of Mexican identity, and identity in which is a combination of mesoamerican rituals, European beliefs, and Spanish culture. Mesoamerican culture shared many of the same traditions when celebrating their ancestors. Dia de los muertos isn’t about the final resting place of the dead, but instead the beginning of a new journey. A journey to the Machlin, a final resting place for the souls. Due to Spanish colonization, death rituals were influenced by new laws and lifestyles. Spain and the catholic church made an lasting influence on the cultures of mesoamerica. Many of these influences were a cause of mass war and the bubonic plague. Life and death balanced together like right and wrong, good versus evil, eventually creating a general understanding that life and death, itself, is a cyclical journey. Europeans brought the idea of cemeteries to the indigenous people. Today there is evidence of this with sugar skulls and celebrations in the cemetery and homes. According to The Day of the Dead, Halloween, and the Quest for Mexican National Identity, Stanley Brandes
The story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, was written by Washington Irving, and the story is about a man name Ichabod Crane who was trying to win Katherina Van Tassel’s hand in marriage, but he is failing. The small town named Sleepy Hollow has a folklore about the Headless Horseman, who rides through the town at night to find his head. Irving explains that Sleepy Hollow has many ghost stories, but the Headless Horseman is the most popular in the town. Ichabod Crane was a school master, and he was killed by the town’s ghost. The townspeople believed Crane was taken by the Galloping Hessian, so the story of the Headless Horseman would not be associated with Crane’s disappearance. As the news about Ichabod’s disappearance rummage through the town, the Brom Bones’ reaction to the news made people question the Galloping Hessian’s part
The readings “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving and The Monster by Stephen Crane are to amazing readings. However, these two texts represent violence and conflicts in different ways, which shows that although they have the same concept their tactic for this same concept is used in a different approach.
The Storyteller claimed she once watched a documentary on television about the ghosts of Gettysburg, and it told a strikingly similar story of a ghost in a floppy hat saying the same words to many tourists who were taking pictures at Devil’s Den. Similar stories have been told involving a man in a floppy hat at Devil’s Den. One tells the story of a woman visiting the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. After experiencing no paranormal activity, she sarcastically challenged any ghosts of Devil’s Den to come home with her. A few days later she saw a man wearing a floppy hat and loose shirt in her house. She saw this vision many times, but it would always disappear very quickly. She believed this was a ghost from Devil’s Den accepting her challenge (U.S. Civil War History and Genealogy).
A philosopher named Paul Brunton said, “We should control our appetite, otherwise we will lose ourselves in the confusion of the world.” Washington Irving’s short story, “The legends of sleepy hollow” spins a tale about Ichabod Crane's experiences as a city teacher, while living in a magical place known as Sleepy Hollow. Appetite defines Ichabod Crane in the three following ways: food, wealth, and superstitions.
At first glance, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving seems to be an innocent tale about a superstitious New England town threatened by a strange new comer, Icabod Crane. However, this descriptive narrative is more than just a simple tale because it addresses several gender issues that deserve attention. The pervasiveness of female influence in Sleepy Hollow and the conflict between male and female storytelling in this Dutch community are two pertinent gender issues that complicate Irving's work and ultimately enable the women of Sleepy Hollow to control the men and maintain order.
Next I want to introduce to you The Banshee. The Banshee is believed to be ghost woman seen mostly in Irish Folklore. The Banshee is depicted "in Various versions which have been described, from a woman with long, red hair and very pale skin to an older woman with stringy, gray hair, rotten teeth and fiery red eyes.” (darksang.com)
As the ancient civilizations of the west grew their empires, they encountered something so powerful, beastly, and strong that no man could hold down with his own two bare hands, nor could they be tamed. As centuries go on, men learned the ways of the horse and learned to ride upon their backs. They found them to be a key component in transportation, carrying goods, and warfare. As time went on, for every footprint of a human left behind in the wet mud, there was a hoof print not far from the footprint. Ancient Greeks believed that the horse was a gift from the gods, and they were greatly valued in their society.
Tidwell, James N. "Folklore in the News." Western Folklore 14 (1955): 213-14. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
Washington Irving displays a sense of humor throughout “The Devil and Tom Walker” about greed, marriage and religion to help the reader, become a better person. Tom Walker makes a Faustian Bargain, also known as a deal with the devil. Tom has a lot of problems with his abusive wife, his desire for riches and getting into the afterlife. Washington Irving tells us the story of Tom Walker in a humorous way. Irving does this to display a message to his readers.
The sparsely populated towns and countryside of the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey have often been the ideal setting of various ghost stories, including the infamous tale of the Jersey Devil, that are told in the more heavily populated Northern New Jersey and Philadelphia metropolitan regions. One of those “Piney” towns is home to a lesser-known, but equally interesting, tale of a street that is haunted by the ghost of a young boy. The story is set in the town of Atco, within Waterford Township, and is located approximately half-way between Philadelphia and Atlantic City, right in the heart of the Wharton State Forest section of the Pine Barrens National Reserve.
The traveler goodman Brown encounters with the serpentine staff is one supernatural element Hawthorne includes in Brown’s quest. "He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and looking down again, beheld neither goody Cloyse not the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveler alone." (Hawthorne 390). Hawthorne’s use of the traveler with the serpentine staff suggests goodman Brown’s own subconscious debate of evil within man and his innocence. All the “witchy” encounters the traveler leads goodman Brown to on his quest seem to only lead him further from finding himself than he was at the start. Washington Irving also uses a supernatural element with the infamous headless horseman in “The Legend of Sleepy
Urban legends are the supernatural folklore of our modern society. From one generation to the next, they orally travel throughout the world, constantly changing from one region to the next. Although cultural variations exist, the core of all these urban legends remains the same, to unveil the universally known individual and societal fears. “The Graveyard Wager” is a timeless urban legend told again and again, and the one of which I will explore more in depth.
...bject of divination. The horse to the Germans is the most trusted species of augury and at public expense they have white horses kept in sacred groves for the taking of auspices which is conducted by noting the horse's various snorts and neighs.
This is an allusion to the Revolutionary war because the headless horseman was a hessian soldier. This explains the theme of supernatural because the Headless Horseman haunts their town and the main character, Ichabod Crane, comes across the ghost of him. Another major allusion in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is Ichabod's belief in witches. The author supports this when saying, “He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's 'History of New England Witchcraft” (Irving 4).