There are many stories in the folklore surrounding headless horsemen—from the German folktale by the Brothers Grimm to the Irish Celtic legend of dullahan, a headless demon on a black horse. The most persistent American version of the myth is a loose adaptation of Washington Irving’s 1820 story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which draws from historical facts about the American Revolutionary War.
Legend has it, that during the Battle of White Plains, a Hessian artilleryman was decapitated by an American cannonball. He was buried hastily in the churchyard of Sleepy Hollow by his comrades. In the middle of the night, it is said that he rides out to seek his head or take anyone else&rsqu