Irish Gothic Podcast
Join hosts Spence and Chris on "Irish Gothic," a captivating podcast exploring Ireland's myths and legends. Each episode delves into the rich tapestry of Irish folklore, where ancient tales of faeries, banshees, and Celtic warriors come to life.
From the eerie landscapes of the Emerald Isle to the chilling stories passed down through generations, the duo invites listeners to unravel the mysteries of Ireland's past. Whether you're a folklore enthusiast or new to the tales, "Irish Gothic" promises to transport you into a world where the supernatural intertwines with history. Tune in for a journey filled with spine-tingling stories, cultural insights, and a touch of humour as Spence and Chris uncover the darker side of Ireland's enchanting heritage.
Education purposes only.
Irish Gothic Podcast
EPISODE TWO : THE DULLAHAN, IRELAND'S HEADLESS HORSEMAN
The Irish Gothic Podcast explores the origins of Irish Folk tales. myths and legends in all their dark, fantastical glory and how these vivid yarns continue to resonate across the world to this very day.
Join Hosts Chris Patterson and Spence Wright as they fuse their love for all thing's horror with a wellspring of Irish lore.
This week on the Irish Gothic Podcast, we dive into the chilling tale of the Dullahan, Ireland's own headless horseman. To some an instrument of vengeance to others a Harbinger of death, from it's origins within Irish folklore to Hollywood Movies and beyond The Dullahan continues to inspire fear and fascination. So buckle up and join Chris and Spence on the 'Death Coach' as together we journey down the lonely lanes of rural Ireland and into the dark night of the Dullahan.
Hosts: Chris Patterson & Spence Wright
Producer: Rebecca Alcorn
Production Company: Causeway Pictures
Bibliography:
Banshees, Beasts and Brides from the Sea: Irish Tales of the Supernatural (Bob Curran, 1998):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Banshees-Beasts-Brides-Sea-Supernatural/dp/0862815533
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Website: https://irishgothicpod.buzzsprout.com
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Checkout our other podcast - Hostage to the Devil, real life stories of exorcism and possession. Wherever you get your podcasts.
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I know all the folks round these arts and parts. Can't say I know you. Leastways. Not yet. But I dare say I know what you'll be wanting. Some of the crack, maybe. How we yarn with your sup, is it? No harm in that. Come on over. Warm yourself, hmm? I'll warn you though. If it's the old Begara and Blarney shenanigans you're after, you'll not hear them from me. Well, if such, like, pleases you, you sit on. I'll fill your ears. And see what story is meant for you. On this dark old night.
spencey-guest166_1_10-23-2024_180537:So this story comes from a local historian, Bob Curran, in his book Bansi's Beasts and Brides from the Sea, which is all about Arie's tales of the supernatural. And this story was collected from an old woman living high in the Sperrin Mountains in County Tyrone, and she talks about her encounter with the Doolahan or the culture buyer. And she says, This happened long ago when I was only a slip of a girl, living on the edge of the Sparrow Mountains, and we lived in a very lonely place beside a road, which ran right through the mountains. Every night, one of us young ones had to go down to the road, get some peat for the fire, And this night it was my turn. It was a clear, frosty night. The moon was as big as a shell and twice as bright. Well, I'd only taken a few steps back towards the house having got to turf when I heard the sound of wheels on the road behind me. It was louder than you would have heard from a pony in a trap and it was coming up on me very, very quick. I turned to see who it was. The road behind me twisted and curled across the hills. And because of the moonlight I could see for miles. There was not a thing on it, but yet that sound was getting louder and louder and closer and closer. The sound of turning wheels. And the closer it got, not a devil of a thing could I see, and yet it was getting louder and louder. Suddenly it was right up beside me and I felt myself pushed tight up against the ditch as if there was something just trying to get past me on the road, but yet there was still nothing to be seen at all. It was like trying to be Pushed against the strong wind, the whole night was filled with sound of galloping hoofs and wheels, and then it was gone. I heard the sound of the wheels just fading away further and further. I ran back home. I told all in the house what I'd heard, but nobody would believe me. In fact, my father made me go back out to pick up the turf that I'd dropped. No one believed me. They all made fun of me. Many months later, I was talking to an old woman. Now, she had the reputation of being a wise woman. She knew about the fairies and the ghosts that wandered across her mountains. And I told her about the noise I'd heard that night on the road. The very mention of it, she started up and she crossed herself. Go on between us and harm, she said. It's not right that such a young person should hear these things. That was the coach a buyer you heard that was the death coach. That's what you surely heard She said there is a misery for some poor critter somewhere in this Locality and that was the warrants you gave. It was many months later There was a man who lived further along the road from us He was very fond of the drink and they said he was very bad to his wife Well, but two months after I'd heard the sound of that coach on that road That drunk man was going past our turf stack at the bottom of the lane Because of the drink being in him, he tripped up and he fell. He fell right at the very place where I'd heard that sound, and he cut his leg. It swelled up with blood, and he got blood poisoning. And a couple of days after that, I heard that in spite of everything the doctors could do for him in the hospital, he died. That was why the Dullahan, was on our road that night, it left death and grief in it's wake.
chris-patterson_2_10-23-2024_181531:I'm Chris
spencey-guest437_2_10-23-2024_181541:I'm Spence
chris-patterson_2_10-23-2024_181531:And this is the Irish Gothic Podcast.
chris-patterson_3_10-23-2024_182126:Hello and welcome to tonight's episode. the Legend of the Dullahan. Suspense! is the Dullahan?
spencey-guest801_3_10-23-2024_182136:well, Chris, it's one of Ireland's most famous exports, it's the legendary headless horsemen. Its origins are attributed all the way back to the Irish folklore. It's believed the room, the trails of Ireland taking the souls of the dying.
chris-patterson_3_10-23-2024_182126:Oh, are we talking Christopher Walken style in Sleepy Hollow?
spencey-guest801_3_10-23-2024_182136:I think we can definitely trace the Dullahan through to Sleepy Hollow. It's an interesting story, the origins of Dullahan and then how that gets, interpreted in movies like Sleepy Hollow. Absolutely, that's the sort of images. Actually, if anything, they're a wee bit darker than anything you've probably seen.
chris-patterson_3_10-23-2024_182126:I see that because during the research for this, obviously we had a look and there's two different styles. That come through really strongly. You have the one man on a horse with no head galloping. And then of course you have the black horse and carriage. With the man with no head driving it. I mean, in terms of what this thing would have looked like as it came down the road at you, Spence. What are we talking here?
spencey-guest801_3_10-23-2024_182136:yeah, been attributed to the Dullahan's in the years. So you're holding its severed head in the air as it rides down the roads. Flaming eyes, short ears, the ability of the supernatural sight. Perhaps one of the most grisly elements, at least for me, is it has been known to, wield a human spinal cord as its whip it uses that to whip the horses and to take out the eggs of anyone who does see it.
chris-patterson_3_10-23-2024_182126:that's awesome.
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:It would need to take your eyes out because
chris-patterson_3_10-23-2024_182126:I can imagine that riding towards you, on a dark night. The flesh is decayed on the head that he carries, which is obviously his own, we're told that the skin is sort of like moldy cheese. And you can re imagine that sort of off his face. Now, I've seen mouldy cheese and I can only imagine how that would look and possibly smell. What does this guy do? Why is he riding down the road, Spence?
spencey-guest86_4_10-23-2024_182711:Well, look, we know he roams the countryside. calling on the souls of the dying or the ill to join him in the afterlife. That's the sort of catch all belief around Adolahan. some of the rules around that is he stops his horse in front of a house. We may shout out the name of the person about to die, draw their soul forth. That's
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:So is he a bit like the angel of death
spencey-guest86_4_10-23-2024_182711:absolutely. I mean, all maybe would be more familiar with the Banshee, that classic, famous of death. And I know we'll talk about the Banshee in later episodes, but there are even stories that have the Banshee riding alongside the Dullahan on the death coach. So absolutely a harbinger of death, a grim reaper.
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:Well for, for anybody who in their childhood saw a Disney film called Darby O'Gill and the Little People, the band she does certainly come along with the Headless Horseman and picks up Darby to take him to the other realm. as a child I remembered being one of the most scariest things I'd seen, other than Sean Connery singing, because I believe it was his first film.
spencey-guest86_4_10-23-2024_182711:The horror.
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:the horror, yeah.
spencey-guest86_4_10-23-2024_182711:That's where the movie was riffing on, stories that have been recorded by Yeats, been recorded by Croker, who do talk about the Banshee accompanying the coach of Bauer, rumbling up the doors. If you open the door, according to Croker, a base and a blood gets thrown in your face. It just gets worse. Grizzly and Grizzly and Grizzly, with the retelling.
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:According to Yeats and his book Fairies and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, these phantoms are found even elsewhere. If we look back into Norwegian history, the heads of corpses were cut off to make the ghosts feeble. But heads off a body to make a ghost feeble. Sounds a bit like vampirism as well, doesn't it?
spencey-guest86_4_10-23-2024_182711:you can see how all these stories sort of clash and merge and, on the one hand in Norwegian history is dealing with similar territory, but in Ireland, we could be telling the same stories at the same time, not that one necessarily came first, it could be happening simultaneously because people all around the world are struggling with the same time. anxieties, the same fears, the same worries about death, how death will come, how they can protect themselves against it, what are the signs. It's a wee bit classic what we talked about last week in terms of, I think, fear and protection.
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:Yeah. I mean, it always comes down to what people need from the culture. That takes us perfectly on to the origin and where this story came from
spencey-guest86_4_10-23-2024_182711:One of the earliest sort of versions and theories and I suppose the one that Perhaps give credence to the fact that the dohan is Irish in nature. Is it, it's actually a descendant of the ancient Celtic god of fertility and death. dove. Who was known as the dark bent one. This was a can in Ireland, worshiped and offered human sacrifices. Guess by what method? Chris?
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:Crucifixion.
spencey-guest86_4_10-23-2024_182711:Decapitation close. The theory is that this is the outwork and the ret of crumb dove still seeking those sacrifices by decapitation. And of course Crumb dove is, em embodiment of an earlier God crumb crook. So there's a lot to suggest that the dohan origins go way, way, way, way back
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:Of course, Spence, in the 6th century, when Christianity came to Ireland, all that sacrificial stuff was put to one side. I mean, it sweeped the country. It really sort of killed off the pagan beliefs. This is when the story of the Dualahan first became prevalent. As Irish people believed that crumb Dove took the physical form and continued getting the sacrificial souls that he needed to get. before Christianity.
spencey-guest86_4_10-23-2024_182711:Christian beliefs sort of took hold, there's a belief that these pagan gods of Ireland were displeased with how festivals such as Sion, which we talked about in our last podcast, that these festivals like Sion were being mistreated and being disrespected by the introduction of Christianity. And so the response to that was that Crumb Dove come back wreak this terrible vengeance, this headless wraith, exacting his fury upon all those he didn't follow the customs and the rules of the old ways. So, so you, again, you're hearing it's a harbinger of death, there to take your souls. There we're hearing it's actually like an instrument of vengeance, that punishing the people for not holding with the old ways, which as you say, Christianity had begun to usurp.
chris-patterson_4_10-23-2024_182701:But I also think there was probably people still practicing paganism I guess it would be a good news story for them to put out that all of a sudden the God has come back and he's come back for people's heads.
chris-patterson_6_10-23-2024_184021:Yeah, Spence, I think this really came to the global attention when Washington Irvine released his short story in 1820 called The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It was a tale of a headless horseman that terrorizes the real life village of Sleepy Hollow is considered to be one of America's first ghost stories. And maybe, if you ever read it, one of its scariest.
spencey-guest101_6_10-23-2024_184031:So can we still claim Dohan Azari? Did he take it from us? did we give it to him? So there's lots and lots of conversation around Washington Irvin's inspiration. One of the things is, the story itself he talks about the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head was carried off by a cannonball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War. So that's how he sets up in real life, in reality, Irvin lived 10 miles from the site of an actual battle. And, in the journal of a major, he was quoted as saying, A shot from an American cannon at this place, White Plains, took off the head of a Hessian artilleryman. So, there's a real life event that happened within 10 miles of where Irvin lived. It's certainly one part. Of, the Sleepy Hollow legend.
chris-patterson_6_10-23-2024_184021:Ah, but Spence! There's a historian called Elizabeth Bradley and she's at the historic Hudson Valley and she says the likely source of Irvine's horseman can be found in Sir Walter Scott's The Chase, which is a translation of a German poem called The Wild Huntsman by Gottfried Berger.
spencey-guest101_6_10-23-2024_184031:Uh,
chris-patterson_6_10-23-2024_184021:it's likely based on Norse history. it is Walter Scott, it is German, it is Norse. a whole load of stuff just coming at you.
spencey-guest101_6_10-23-2024_184031:I think you may have trumped me there because Irvin, actually, whilst he was American, was traveling a lot around England, and he was traveling in the company of Sir Walter Scott.
chris-patterson_6_10-23-2024_184021:No,
spencey-guest101_6_10-23-2024_184031:Absolutely, he was in the company, um, became friends with Scott, and Scott's story about a wicked hunter, doomed to hunt forever, by the devil and the dogs of hell, that's not a huge stretch, you take that along with the real life story he knew about a soldier getting his head taken off by a cannon, add it to his relationship with Scott and there's one other element he was an American citizen, but his parents were from Cornwall. Cornwall has its own, Headless Horseman story. The English have one called The Spectator. The Welsh have The Headless Woman story. And the Cornwall story, according to legend, this headless coach pulls into the courtyard of the Molesworth Arms Hotel every New Year's Eve. And that links in to a Arthurian tale of the Green Knight in Camelot. with Irvine having been exposed to these stories, his parents were Cornish.
chris-patterson_6_10-23-2024_184021:I would imagine so. Very possibly. Or exposed to versions of them.
chris-patterson_7_10-23-2024_184648:Spence, I can do one better than that because Washington Irvine was a really close friend of Oscar Wilde. And rumour has when he would go over to Oscar's house and have tea with Oscar and his wife, Oscar's wife would tell him stories of Irish myths and legends.
spencey-guest660_7_10-23-2024_184658:I think what we're definitely seeing, and it's a delight to be able to say this, despite the fact that he may have been influenced by, Walter Scott, and the legends of the Archerian Knights, etc, I think we can always pull this back to that Celtic connection because even if all it was was a rendition of his Cornish parents Cornwall regarded as one of Celtic nations along with, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany and the Isle of Man. even if he just got it from his parents I think we can definitely claim Sleepy Hollow as one of ours.
chris-patterson_7_10-23-2024_184648:The Sleepy Hollow High School in Winchester County, New York has a mascot that has been referred to as America's Scurriest High School Mascot. The mascot, of course, is the Headless Horseman.
spencey-guest660_7_10-23-2024_184658:Oh my word, I did not know it'd be great to hear from anyone who attends that school, you know, as they actually send us a post or send us a picture of what it's like to go to school with that mascot. It's decidedly less cuddly than most mascots. We've asked a question, let's see who answers. I don't think I can top that aside, but I do have two more for you, right? also. Coined two very famed, terms that we use today. Knickerbocker, which is one of his early pen names, and Gotham, and it makes me think when I hear Gotham, takes me straight to movies. I was wondering, you being the movie buff, we've talked about Darby O'Gill, but what, have you a particular favourite, version of how the Dullahan's being portrayed on the silver screen?
chris-patterson_7_10-23-2024_184648:well I think probably the best version is the Tim Burton version, which of course had Christopher Walken. But long before that, the first version which was in 1922, and it was an American silent film adaptation. Which was called, obviously, Legend of Sleepy Hollow. And it was directed by Edward D. Venturi. really was one of the first things to catapult this legend to success. to a global audience because obviously film was quite new then and everyone went every weekend and all of a sudden you're seeing the Headless Horseman. it probably is one of the first if not the first silent horror film.
spencey-guest660_7_10-23-2024_184658:Wow, I haven't seen it. I knew you'd know,
chris-patterson_7_10-23-2024_184648:There are also a number. I mean, when we go back, even if we look more recently, films like Ghost Rider with, Nicholas Cage. I know he was on a motorbike, but there were scenes in that that showed you the history of the Ghost Rider. And of course, the Ghost Rider Now, he wasn't so much hairless in that film, he had a flaming skull. I think they couldn't have somebody running about hairless, so they needed a flaming skull. So it made a very iconic look.
chris-patterson_8_10-23-2024_185827:And that takes me on to a version of the Dullahan, a modern version which comes from an urban legend from Japan. The legend is that piano wires stretch across a road at neck height a motorist coming at speed hits the wire and is decapitated. He drives on headless and continues into the night and turns into a ghost he keeps riding, forever, looking for the person who murdered him. that's exactly the type of thing that could have come from the legend of the Dullahan.
spencey-guest673_8_10-23-2024_185837:Absolutely, Chris. When we look at how stories like the Dohan manifest themselves in other cultures or how their cultures manifest in our storytelling, what do we conclude from that, why are these stories universally known in one version or another? What is the DNA strand that runs through all these stories? For me, and I could be wrong, I feel it's similar to what we talked about but on our last podcast. It's trying to put a context, a construct around the unknown. You know, if, if we're all afraid of the unknown, and that's the worst fear of all, death, effectively, then must be the biggest unknown. And I think stories like Adolahan were There are rules, you'll hear three raps to the door, if you don't see it, you'll be fine. For me, this is again an example of people's fear of the unknown, fear of death, and trying to find ways to make sense of it and protect themselves from it.
spencey-guest166_1_10-23-2024_180537:Time. Three or four years after the experience down by the turf stack. This is when my sister Annie was taken very ill with pneumonia. I had to be kept in bed. It happened on a cold winter's evening. I was in the house on my own. My mum was away. I was looking after Annie. And while I was waiting, the neighbour of ours, Maggie, called to see how Annie was. And I encouraged her to come in. We sat and we talked by the fire. And then I heard it. That sound, far away on the road, the horse and trap approaching our house, this time it was coming quicker and quicker, the clop clop of horses and hooves coming to our door. It drew closer and closer, and then it seemed to slow down. There's Muller now, says I, getting up to go to the door. And sure enough, the sound had stopped, and it drew level with our house. I went to the window to look out. Before I opened the door for I wanted to see who'd come by, but there was nobody on the road outside. And suddenly I heard three loud but very clear raps. I don't know if they came from the window, I don't know if they came from the door, but I can vouch I heard them. They were like the noise of a stick hitting the bottom of an empty wooden bucket. A hollow sound that kind of echoed, made me feel shivery. And Maggie heard it too because she jumped up. And then I started to hear the sound of the wheels turning again on the road outside. Come away from the window, Mary, said Maggie, very sternly. That's the coach of Bauer. It's come for your sister Annie's soul. Don't look out, for you don't know what you might see. Annie, it's not going to be long for this world at all. Well, I didn't look out and the sound did fade away and soon after my mum came home and we told her all about it. She knew all about the stories about the countryside and rumours and legends about three knocks on the window preceding the death but she never paid them any heed. And actually that night Ali's fever seemed to be getting better, she seemed to be getting well. But later in the night her fever suddenly took a turn for the worse. A doctor was sent for. But by the time he arrived, my sister Annie was already dead. The coach had definitely come for her soul. Now they say it's the devil himself who drives it, And that the horses that pull it are all headless, and no mortal eye can see as it goes past. Three raps in the window are a sure sign of a death, but if the coach only stops at a door, then it is a signal there will be a lasting sickness. That's what I heard, and that's what happened to Annie. Now those two you'll tell you these days, these are just silly superstitious people, telling silly stories. And the sounds that we're hearing on those roads at night are just the sounds of smugglers running, poaching up and down the roads and the hills and the trails of the Spirans. They say the smugglers themselves may have put these stories out to keep people off the roads when they're going about their business. But I am an old woman now, and I have no cause to lie to you. I know what I heard all those years ago. I know the way that it was.
chris-patterson_8_10-23-2024_185827:To quote Gothic Studies Professor Franz Potter, The Headless Horseman supposedly seeks revenge and a head. And of course a head, which he thinks was unfairly taken from him. This injustice demands that he continually search for a substitute. The Horseman, like the past, seeks answers. Still seeks retribution and can't rest. We are haunted by the past, which stalks us so that we will never forget it.
spencey-guest166_1_10-23-2024_180537:Whether it's fear of the unknown, fear of death, whether it's themes of retribution, injustice, disrespect for the old ways, we can see how all these universal themes are captured by one phantom creature. And it's that lady from the Sperans. She's an old lady now, and people try to tell her that she didn't really know what she heard, but she maintains, I know what I heard all those years ago, I know the way that it was.
spencey-guest815_9_10-23-2024_190417:That was the story of the Dullahan, Ireland's headless horseman.
chris-patterson_8_10-23-2024_185827:Next Week, we're doing Giant's Causeway, which of course means giants.
Looks like your story has found you. I wish It were another. But what's meant for you, won't go by you. I'm sorry. Ach, now. No need to look so scared, eh? Enjoy the fire. Have a sop. Sure. Is it all just Irish Gothic? All just Irish Gothic.
chris-patterson_10_10-23-2024_190653:The Irish Gothic Podcast was brought to you by Causeway Pictures. It's hosted by Chris Patterson and Spence Wright. And was produced by Rebecca Alcorn. All rights reserved.
chris-patterson_10_10-17-2024_205438:Check out our other podcast, Hostage to the Devil, which delves into the dark world of possession and exorcism. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts.
