by Mark Latham
While investigating the manor, Irving discovered a hidden cellar, undoubtedly from the foundations of the old cabin that had not been filled in. Within this damp, fetid room they found a working guillotine, rusted with age and still bearing a crust of dried blood. Buried beneath the floor were half a dozen skulls – it would seem that someone had found a barbaric method of executing unwanted slaves in the early days of the house. Irving declared that the headless ghosts were not demonic entities, but restless spirits – when the gruesome guillotine was dismantled and the cellar consecrated, the hauntings quietened, though they never fully stopped.
El Muerto – Irving’s Final Case
In 1859, at the end of Irving’s career as a psychical detective and just months before his death, he was summoned once more from his idyllic home at Sunnyside, Sleepy Hollow, this time to Texas. There, soldiers garrisoning Fort Inge on the San Antonio–El Paso road had reported sighting a headless man on a grey horse, riding hell-for-leather along the trail. The phantom rider had supposedly appeared outside the nearby townsteads several times before, and each time had presaged a violent shooting or outbreak of fever in the settlements. No longer a young man, Irving nevertheless felt compelled to investigate and so, taking up his books and ghost-hunting paraphernalia one last time, he set off westward.
Once in San Antonio, Irving quickly learned the tale of a Mexican bandit by the name of Vidal, who had plied his trade in a part of South Texas known as “No Man’s Land” some ten years earlier. His illicit business led him on a collision course with the fledgling Texas Rangers, which did not end well for Vidal.
Two Texas Rangers, Taylor Creed and William “Big Foot” Wallace, were bandit-hunters without peer, who often resorted to brutal means to dissuade the bandits from returning to their territory. When Vidal stole a herd of cattle and two prize mustangs that belonged to Creed, he earned himself a particularly sticky end. When the posse caught up with the outlaws, they attacked at nightfall, killing Vidal and the bandits in their sleep. But this was not enough – Taylor and Wallace wanted to make an example of the audacious Vidal. Big Foot beheaded Vidal and lashed his body to a saddle on the back of a horse. He attached Vidal’s severed head to the saddle, still wearing its sombrero, and turned the mustang loose.
Soon stories started to circulate about a headless rider roaming the hill country. It was seen by numerous cowboys, Indians, and soldiers, and before long each new sighting reported that the Horseman was riddled with bullet-holes and arrows. Local homesteaders began to call this headless horseman “El Muerto.” As time went by a legend grew that people must avoid this strange apparition, for if it was seen some evil misfortune would befall them.
It was a familiar tale to Irving, but at first he doubted he could do anything – after all, if the body and head of the Horseman were still animated, then there were no remains for him to use in a ritual, and no head with which to compel El Muerto to leave the earthly realm. However, soon he learned more to the story. A local preacher told Irving that a group of ranchers had caught up with the poor burdened horse near Alice, Texas – it had indeed been shot with gun and arrow, but the horse was quite alive. They had buried Vidal’s body in an unmarked grave near the tiny community of Ben Bolt. However, that was not the end of the sightings. As soon as the body was laid to rest, soldiers at Fort Inge began to see an apparition of the headless rider, and mysterious deaths within the communities around No Man’s Land quickly followed each new sighting. It seemed that El Muerto was a headless revenant after all!
Knowing that the local lay preacher would not be enough for the battle to come, Irving sent word to the south for a Catholic missionary named Father Bermudez. When Bermudez arrived in No Man’s Land, the two men set about planning their attack. First, they traveled to Ben Bolt and spoke to one of the ranchers who had found Vidal’s horse years earlier. He was a tired old man, the last of the three ranchers, the others all having succumbed to El Muerto’s curse. Nonetheless, the hardy old cowboy led Irving and Bermudez to the spot where he’d buried Vidal’s body. Next to the grave, a large, gnarled tree had sprung up impossibly quickly, casting a grim shadow over the place. Before night fell, Irving and Bermudez instructed some local ranch-hands to dig up the body – all were shocked to discover that it had not fully decomposed, and still had seemingly living flesh sloughing from its bones. Irving dug deep into his reserve of fortitude and took up the rotting head, wrapping it in sackcloth before closing up the coffin.
That night, the two hunters waited by the crossroads in No Man’s Land, a stone’s throw from Fort Inge, where El Muerto was most often seen. Sure enough, just as in the forests of Germany, the sound of hoof beats was heard shortly after midnight, echoing across the plain. This time, Irving was in no doubt that he had the correct skull in his possession, although he still shook with fear at the recollection at how close he had come to death upon his last meeting with such a revenant.
This time, when El Muerto appeared, thundering from the dusty plain with fire dancing around the hooves of his mustang, it was Irving who stepped before the phantom. Holding aloft the head and reciting ritual words from the writings of Dr John Dee, he faced down the revenant, who brought his horse about, stomping and braying in frustration. From behind El Muerto stepped Father Bermudez, holding aloft a golden crucifix and reciting the cant of exorcism against the devil’s servant.
At this two-pronged attack, the power of El Muerto visibly lessened, his stature shrinking away. The horse bucked and threw the headless rider, before galloping away, vanishing into a cloud of dust. The revenant flailed, firing spectral pistols at the two ghost hunters, but the ethereal bullets had no effect. Slowly but surely, El Muerto was pacified, until he stood silent and placid before Washington Irving.
Irving completed the ritual, buoyed by his efforts so far and growing in courage. He handed the skull to the headless rider, with one last command – that El Muerto should leave the earthly plain and find peace in the afterlife. At these words, the form of El Muerto, head and all, fell away into dust and shadow, until Irving and Bermudez were alone on the plain.
Said to be the ghost of Vidal, a cattle rustler who was decapitated by Texas Rangers, El Muerto, the “Headless One,” now rides a grey mustang across the plains, his body riddled with bullet-holes and Indian arrows.
Irving’s Legacy
The victory over El Muerto was to be Irving’s last in the field. Every physical encounter with the headless revenants increased his knowledge, but took a heavy toll on him, and he knew that one man could not go on forever fighting evil in such a fashion. Whatever vigor flowed in the veins of the Grimms was not endowed on him – he was but a man. Instead, he turned his attention to recording his endeavors for future generations. He wrote stories, as he had promised the Grimms he would, but he also sent an unprecedented body of research to the Lycean Club, so that future generations of psychical detectives and ghost hunters could draw upon his research in times of need. Thus did Washington Irving’s legacy of battling evil forces endure forever.
Here lies the gentle humorist, who died
In the bright Indian Summer of his fame!
A simple stone, with but a date and name,
Marks his secluded resting-place beside
The river that he loved and glorified.
Here in the autumn of his days he came,
But the dry leaves of life were all aflame
With tints that brightened and were multiplied.
How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on Washington Irving
In the Churchyard at Tarrytown, 187
Legacy of the Horseman
Though none can say for sure just how effective
Washington Irving’s cautionary tale proved, it cannot be disputed that the popularity of the tale has created an enduring appetite for stories of Sleepy Hollow and Headless Horsemen. Several adaptations of Irving’s story have been created for the screen, most notably perhaps the Tim Burton Gothic horror movie Sleepy Hollow (1999), which portrayed Johnny Depp’s Ichabod Crane as an anachronistic forensics expert trying to uncover a conspiracy in the old Dutch colony. In more recent years, the story has inspired a television series of the same name, which pits a resurrected and temporally displaced Ichabod against a host of supernatural mysteries in modern-day America.
The tale – and its source material of decapitated ghost stories from around the world – has inspired not only books, films, and even musicals, but also urban legends. Today, stories of headless motorcyclists are more common than horsemen, with similar tales from as far afield as the Elmore, Ohio, and Kasara Ghat, India. These apocryphal stories often take the same format – surprising given heir geographical spread. A lone motorcyclist (sometimes part of a biker gang) is killed while overtaking a truck on a tight, remote road. He’s forced from the road by oncoming traffic, and is beheaded in the resulting crash. The site of the accident is always a notorious black spot, and from that day forward the biker rides up and down the road as a dire warning to others, or perhaps seeking vengeance on lazy road planners. A headless biker in Tulare, California, supposedly boasts not only firsthand eyewitnesses, but also living relatives of the unfortunate victim who testify to the phenomenon.
This urban legend has itself been adapted several times into other media. For example, a headless rider was featured in the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters, while the cult TV show, Kolchak: the Night Stalker, featured a headless biker seeking revenge against the rival gang that murdered him. More famously, however, Marvel Comics created the character Ghost Rider – first as a spectral cowboy in the Wild West, and then more popularly as the leather-clad, skull-faced vigilante who hunts down evil souls and sends them to the underworld. Though not technically headless, when the Rider’s host transforms, his head becomes a grinning skull wreathed in flame, and his motorcycle an infernal engine carried on wheels of fire. Other comic-book creations, such as the Spider-man nemesis Jack O’Lantern, and the Green Goblin with his pumpkin bombs, undoubtedly owe much to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
We now live in a world where the essence of the tale – the ‘high concept’ – has saturated much of our popular entertainment, from children’s books to movies, comics to rock songs. Sleepy Hollow is not just a modern legend from the United States, but an iconic ghost story known around the world. While few believe that the tale is anything other than fiction, perhaps Washington Irving was not wholly unsuccessful in his mission. For who today, when faced with approaching hoofbeats in a misty forest at night, would do anything other than hide from the dread rider that approaches? And of course, what now exists of the Apollonian Club, and its sister Lycean? Perhaps there are guardians still, watching and waiting for the appearance of dread spirits with which to do battle…
A latter-day spirit of vengeance? A restless spirit left earthbound by a tragic motor accident? Or a fiction created by modern-day readers of Irving's stories? In any case, the ominous sound of approaching hooves seems to have been replaced by the gunning of phantasmal engines; the legend of the Headless Rider lives on!
Books and Film
Select Bibliography
Irving, Washington, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories (various editions, first published 1820).
Grimm, Jacob, & Wilhelm, Complete Fairy Tales (various editions, first published 1812)
Pratchett, Terry, The Wee Free Men (2004).
Reid, Maine, The Headless Horseman: A strange Tale of Texas (2007).
Simpson, Jacqueline, Haunted England (2008).
Wayland, M. J., 50 Real American Ghost Stories: A journey into the haunted history of the United States (2013)
Notable Film & TV Adaptations
The Headless Horseman (1922), starring Will Rogers as Ichabod Crane.
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), produced by Walt Disney Productions and narrated by Bing Crosby.
Scooby Doo: The Headless Horseman of Halloween (1976).
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1985), from Shelley Duvall’s Tall Tales and Legends, starring Ed Begley, Jr. as Ichabod Crane, and Beverly D’Angelo as Katrina Van Tassel.
Chopper (1974), from Kolchak: The Night Stalker, starring Darren McGavin.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1999). Canadian TV movie starring Brent Carver and Rachelle Lefevre.
Sleepy Hollow (1999), starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci.
The Hollow (2004). TV movie starring Kevin Zegers and Kaley Cuoco.
Sleepy Hollow (2013), fantasy mystery drama series co-created by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Phillip Iscove and Len Wiseman, airing on the Fox network.
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