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Dullahan
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dullahan
English
Etymology
The surname is from en ga Ó Dubhlacháin, meaning "descendant of [the] Dubhlachán", variously interpreted as "black duckling"Patrick Hanks, Richard Coates, Peter McClure, The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland (2016), page 779. or "dark, sullen person", ultimately related to if not cognate with en dullahan headless horserider.Peter Haining, The Leprechaun's Kingdom (1979), page 39
Noun
en dullahan.
en 2012 Armen Pogharian Misaligned: The Celtic Connection SynergEbooks 9780744320350 111 “With the Bodach defeated, no one thought to protect Gwen. A Dullahan discovered her and used the necklace to control her. Through her, it learned everything about Arthur's defenses.”
en 2016 Mark Latham Hunting the Headless Horseman The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc 9781508173847 47 It was never fully clear to Irving whether the Dullahan and the Gan Ceann were the same entity [...]. Most feared of all the Unseelie, the Dullahan is a bringer of dismay and death. The Dullahan is a headless rider, clad in a flowing black cape and usually mounted upon a black horse that spews flames from its nostrils The Dullahan carries its rotting head aloft in one hand like a lantern, the better to see immense distances, while it holds a whip made from a human spinal cord in the other.
Proper noun
en Irish.
References