<P> The Headless Horseman is a fictional character from the short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by American author Washington Irving . The story, from Irving's collection of short stories entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., has worked itself into known American folklore / legend through literature and film . </P> <P> The legend of the Headless Horseman begins in Sleepy Hollow, New York, during the American Revolutionary War . Traditional folklore holds that the Horseman was a Hessian artilleryman who was killed during the Battle of White Plains in 1776 . 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 . Eventually they buried him in the cemetery of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, from which each Halloween night he rises as a malevolent ghost, furiously seeking his lost head . </P> <P> The Headless Horseman is also a novel by Mayne Reid, first published in monthly serialized form during 1865 and 1866, and subsequently published as a book in 1866, based on the author's adventures in the United States . "The Headless Horseman" or "A Strange Tale of Texas" was set in Texas and based on a south Texas folk tale . </P> <P> The dullahan or dulachán ("dark man") is a headless, demonic fairy, usually riding a horse and carrying his head under his inner lower thigh (or holding it high to see at great distance). He wields a whip made from a human corpse's spine . When the dullahan stops riding, a death occurs . The dullahan calls out a name, at which point the named person immediately dies . In another version, he is the headless driver of a black carriage . A similar figure, the gan ceann ("without a head"), can be frightened away by wearing a gold object or putting one in his path . </P>

Where does the story of the headless horseman come from