The Irish Dullahan not only helped inspire The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but as Dr. Zarka will show, they are much scarier than Washington Irving’s monster. These headless monsters of Celtic lore are connected to horses, carriages, and graveyards—and they cannot be defeated. Oscar Wilde even called them “the most terrible thing in the world.” The dullahan can be male or female, but they are always headless, a characteristic that makes sense given Ireland’s social and religious history. Ultimately this monster is a personification of death, a monster that reminds us all not to “lose our heads” in more ways than one.