The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow is a legendary character who appears in Washington Irving's 1820 Gothic short-story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". In this story, which is arguably the most famous incarnation of the Dullahan legend, the Headless Horseman is a ghost rather than a faery.
In the backstory given to the story byIrving, the Headless Horseman was a Hessian horseman (likely a mercenary) who fought for the British during the American Revolutionary War. The Horseman was killed in 1776 at the Battle of White-Plains (although the book refers to it as "Some nameless battle") when his head was blasted off of his shoulders by a cannon-ball. They buried the body of the horseman in the graveyard of the Old Dutch Church outside a small Dutch-colonized village called Sleepy Hollow (or "Tarrytown" in real life). According to the folklore of Sleepy Hollow, the ghost of the horseman emerges from his tomb at night and rides through the woods in search of his head own head or at the least, a new one.
According to legend, the Headless Horseman rises every night searching for his head, and if not, he would take someone else's. Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow's school teacher, was first introduced to the legend when Brom Bones told everyone at Baltus van Tassel's Halloween party about the Horseman. That night, when Ichabod traveled back to Sleepy Hollow, he has a terrifying encounter with the Headless Horseman, resulting in the Horseman throwing his pumpkin head at Ichabod. What happened to Ichabod is unknown; he may have survived, or the Headless Horseman took his head. However, Brom Bones was the one behind Ichabod's chase and the legend itself. Ichabod's whereabouts following the event have remained a mystery.