Also, /Dullahan General/, post cool pics of Dullahans and talk about cool Dullahan stuff.So several months back, some anon started a thread about underrated fantasy races. He and I had a good back and forth about Dullahans and it unlocked a hidden memory of a children's book that ignited my interest in them. All I remembered was that it was a story about a little ghost who was afraid of all the other ghosts in a haunted castle, until he met a dullahan princess. He thought she was just a regular girl, so he wasn't afraid, until her head accidently popped off. After calming him down, he realized that they were all just like him, and she went and introduced him to all her other ghost friends. I promised anon that's I'd post it when I found it.After a long search, I finally reached out to my sister to see if she remembered this book, and she was able to find it! It was in a story book called "A treasury for 6 year olds," and the story itself was called 'The Ghost who was Afraid' by Gill Davies. As far as I can tell, this was a story made specifically for this book, so I can't really find anything else about it online. I ordered a copy, which should be here in 2 weeks. But I wanted to post this now in the hopes that anon will see this. otherwise, post dullahan pics!
>>93246583some slop I made on that thread back then
>>93246595
>>93246605
>>93246617Here's a weird one. Originally a portrait of Charles I, it got painted over and redone so many times that someone just decided to erase the head and say it was a portrait of the headless horse man lol. Check the curator's notes for more.https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_P-2-49
>>93246794Lmao that’s some spongebob logic right there
>>93246583Do Dullahans have any interesting abilities or limitations? I've seen them depicted as evil magic knight.
>>93250801That's more or less what they are, but there are a few weird things about them that make them very interesting to me. They come from celtic mythology, and despite the fact that they are obviously ghosts/undead, they are traditionally seen as fey creatures, for some reason. I've been unable to determine why that is. There are some sources that say they are fey spirits that take on the appearance of the dead, which is why they appear around grave yards. Gold is also used to ward them off, which i also strange, as it's usually silver or iron. They don't have to be a knight, but are always involved with horses, whether it be as a messenger, a knight, or a coachman. The legend of sleepy hollow really helped to popularize the idea of them, but there are a lot of discrepancies between the headless horseman and the traditional dullahan. Like the pumpkin head and the spine whip, these are modern interpretations. the whip comes from the coachman idea, because they have to use a whip to drive horses, and a spine whip sounds scarier than a normal one, and the pumpkin head is a merging of America's jack-o-lantern obsession and the original description of the heads, which were very unhuman. they had bulging eyes far off to either side, with rotting flesh, and a wide, sharp toothed grin. kinda sounds like a jack-o-lantern though. personally, I like the idea that they are their own race of (relatively) normal humanoids with an undead/fey origin. I think they make for fun characters in rpgs.
>>93252638>despite the fact that they are obviously ghosts/undead, they are traditionally seen as fey creatures, for some reasonbecause there isn't actual difference between those things
Probably my favorite type of undead.
>>93250801They can watch themselves be fucked.
>>93252996I mean, fey creatures were never human, so yes, there is a difference?
