Happy Halloween! This year, the scariest prospect of Halloween is being stuck with a whole bunch of leftover chocolate goodies. We have two adorable little kids here at Ellie’s farm who will get frightening quantities of sugar from me and 3 other neighbours who are indulging in the spirit of Halloween- if they show up!
For you, dear reader, I have another treat– a Halloween story that’s sure to send a shiver down your spine! Based on a terrifyingly true story about an encounter with a headless horseman straight from Hell, broadly known as the Dullahan.
The Dullahan
It isn’t often that rain doesn’t drench Halloween night on the west coast of Canada. But in 2009, Black Creek was blessed with both a full moon and a clear sky. After the last of my candies had been doled to small goblins and fairy princesses, I looked out my window at Orel Lake on the other side of the road. Tonight the surface of the lake glowed like freshly polished silver. “What a waste of a perfectly gorgeous night it would be to stay indoors” I thought.
A Beautiful Halloween Night For A Stroll
It was only 8:40. Not that cold out. A little stroll on the trail surrounding the lake was definitely in order. So I left the warm comfort of the couch in front of my fireplace, put on my warm red wool jacket and the blue toque that my Irish grandmother had knit for me. In the end, everyone agreed that Grandma might be a little confused. But she always knit her children and grandchildren the most beautiful sweaters and toques and even cozy slippers that hugged your feet as warm as blankets.
As I stepped out the doorway my fingers fished beneath my jacket and checked the spot at the base of my throat for the gold cross that Grandma had given me. A sense of relief rippled beneath my conscious mind whenever I touched that cross. The cross represented my now departed grandmother and brought to mind the stories from the old country that she would bestow upon both me and my younger sister and with which she would beleaguer our two older teenage brothers.
“Don’t stay out late tonight my darlings,” she would say every Halloween, just as we pirates, witches or faeries were about to disperse throughout the neighbourhood.
“For The Dullahan will be riding tonight on his stallion, as tall as the trees, and as black as the night. He carries a big whip made of the spine of a man in one hand to blind those who would stare at him. Don’t ever stare at the Dullahan. In the other, he carries a glowing green head that serves as a lantern to light his way. If ever his horse stops, you will die.
When he calls your name, you will die on the spot.” Then with a smile, she would add: “But don’t worry my loves, you’ll be safe as long as you are home by 8.” Just the way she told that tale to us still made me shudder as I crossed the road to the trail. Come to think of it, we kids never stayed out too late on Halloween!
As I walked down the narrow part of the trail, I watched the bats flitting and diving over the mirror surface of the lake through the bushes. There was a poignant stillness in the air. A rustle now and again in the barren and dense salmonberry thicket on the right side of the trail let me know that life had not stopped for the night. Deer or raccoons probably. There were so many of both that fall. On the left side of the trail, the polished and silver lake glowed a tribute to the moon directly above it. It was so beautiful and tranquil.
But still, there was certainly something in the cool night air. And I couldn’t place the awful smell that wafted occasionally: Possibly the odours of burning hair, rotting flesh, and something else I couldn’t identify. Very gross. Very strange.
I kept walking, for I was about halfway around the little lake by now. Soft and slow, walking hoof beats and the sound of snapping twigs seemed to be approaching through the bushes. My friend Nancy was the only person I knew who might be out riding at night on her big bay quarter horse, Quincy. Maybe she was lost.
“Hey, Nancy!” I called, loudly, so she would hear me. There was no reply, but the hoof beats came a little quicker now. The stench now burned its way into my throat. I yelled my greeting again, and waved in the direction of the clopping hooves. Just in case Nancy had her I-pod plugged into her ears. She would have answered if she heard me.
Now the hooves were trotting, and a big dark form rose through the bushes silhouetted against the bare branches of big leaf maple trees. It was definitely a horse and rider. The pale light of the moon gave the illusion that the rider had no head. I called out again. No answer. Why were they coming through the bushes anyway? A chill ran through me. My eyes and my throat suddenly burned in reaction to the putrid odour.
A Strange Sight Indeed
I walked faster. Whoever it was wasn’t answering. It was creepy. I began to run, coughing as I ran. The hoof beats sped up too, beating a galloping path on the trail. I looked over my shoulder and I heard the crack of hard steel when the shoes of the horse met rocks on the trail and saw that they lit small fires that burned and consumed the leaf litter until they were themselves consumed by autumn moisture. Some light glowed along the trail at arm’s length beside the rider. Soon, I couldn’t see much. A phosphorescent mist began to form and rise from the ground around me. I ran as fast as I could and still the mist came thicker and more putrid with every step. I wondered if my tears welled from my terror, or from this horrible mist.!
Fate Is Inescapable
It was then that fate and gravity pulled my right foot into a sink hole. I went down hard, ligaments of my right knee snapping audibly under my weight. I laid on the trail wiped tearful eyes and watched the black form of the rider approaching at full gallop. There was no illusion. The big black stallion definitely had a headless rider. That’s the image that was seared in my mind as I turned to drag myself down the trail. But I had only scraped myself down the trail a few feet when I felt hot breath on my back. My stomach retched at the smell. It was hopeless. I rolled over, back against the cold earth and I saw the most horrible sight:
Directly above me reared a fiendish horse with glowing hot coals where his eyes should have been. The creature’s ears had been hacked to the skull. And from their places there poured perpetual fountains of steaming, crimson blood. I suddenly felt very cold. As though I had been plunged into a deep freeze. In his left hand the rider carried a man’s rotten head by the mere scraps of long, black hair that remained on it. Maggots crawled in and out of holes in the head’s pocked and phosphorescent green flesh and periodically dropped to the ground. The mouth was bent upward in a permanent grin and two bloodshot eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.
Spellbound
I was as transfixed as a deer in the headlights of an oncoming train. No part of my body could move. I watched helplessly as the horseman’s right hand reached back and produced a long whip from beneath his long, black cape. Spellbound, I could do nothing but stare at the spectacle in front of me. Could I even trust my own eyes? The whip appeared to be made from a human spine! I tried to move away again. But it was no use. Not a single muscle would do my mind’s bidding. “Carry Leigh, I have come for you!” That voice creaked and scraped through the air like fingernails on an old chalkboard.
The Gold Cross
In a single moment, here was Grandma’s gentle lilt. “Only the sight of gold can save you from the Dullahan, Darlin’. You throw that little cross now!” Suddenly I snapped out of my trance and my fingers felt for the little gold cross. I yanked on it until the fine chain that fastened it to my neck snapped. I threw it as hard as I could at the stallion. Just as suddenly as legend had said it would happen, Dullahan and horse spun a full circle. In the same instant, the Dullahan reached beneath his cloak, produced a small ivory-coloured basin full of blood, and threw it at my chest. At once the stallion gave a terrible scream, leaped into the air, and disappeared in a puff of putrid green mist.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
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