The Celtic Mythology Hiding Inside A Folk Tale

The Headless Horseman isn’t just a Halloween story. First huge thanks to https://thelocalmythstorian.com/ who did some brilliant research on the DeWalton case and for trawling through the court records. On the Staffordshire Moorlands, medieval poetry, Victorian folklore, and a real 14th century murder all seem to collide in one landscape. In this video, I investigate Britain’s most attested headless horseman tradition, the brutal killing of yeoman John De Warton in 1379, and the strange links between local folklore and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Could the famous headless rider of the moors be a surviving folk memory of a real event? Along the way we explore: The murder of John De Warton Dieulacres Abbey and Abbot Thomas Litchfield Victorian ghost lore from the Staffordshire Moorlands The Green Knight and the medieval “beheading game” Welsh and Irish mythology The Dullahan The Celtic “Cult of the Head” History, folklore and mythology often overlap in strange ways — and nowhere feels stranger than these moors. #History #Folklore #HeadlessHorseman #SirGawain #GreenKnight #BritishFolklore #CelticMythology #MedievalHistory #ArthurianLegend #Staffordshire #EnglishHistory #GhostStories #Mythology #Dullahan #FolkloreHistory