The most prominent Scots tale of the headless horseman concerns a man named Ewen decapitated in a clan battle at Glen Cainnir on the Isle of Mull. A similar figure, the gan ceann ('without a head'), can be frightened away by wearing a gold object or putting one in his path. In another version, he is the headless driver of a black carriage, the Cóiste Bodhar. The dullahan calls out a name, at which point the named person immediately dies. When the dullahan stops riding, a death occurs. He wields a whip made from a human corpse's spine. The dullahan or dulachán ('dark man') is a headless, demonic fairy, usually riding a horse and carrying his head under his arm. ' The Headless Horseman' or ' A Strange Tale of Texas' was set in Texas and based on a south Texas folk tale. The Headless Horseman is also a novel by Mayne Reid, first published in monthly serialized form during 18, and subsequently published as a book in 1866, based on the author's adventures in the United States. Modern versions of the story refer his rides to Halloween, around which time the battle took place. Eventually, they buried him in the cemetery of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, from which he rises as a malevolent ghost, furiously seeking his lost head and wielding a Jack-o'-Lantern as a temporary replacement and/or weapon.

He was decapitated by an American cannonball, and the shattered remains of his head were left on the battlefield while his comrades hastily carried his body away.

Traditional folklore holds that the Horseman was a Hessian trooper who was killed during the Battle of White Plains on 28 October 1776. The legend of the Headless Horseman (also known as 'the Headless Hessian of the Hollow') begins in Sleepy Hollow, New York, during the American Revolutionary War.

The story, from Irving's collection of short stories titled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., has worked itself into known American folklore/legend through literature and film, including the 1999 Tim Burton film Sleepy Hollow. The Headless Horseman is a fictional character from the 1820 short story ' The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' by American author Washington Irving. The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane, painting by John Quidor (1858)

The legend of sleepy hollow short story