...'tis the galloping Hessian!!

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Earlier, I posted, The Raven, for Ruby Tuesday, a legend!! By now y'all know I love and appreciate much of the literature from the bygone era. This time of year, the epic tale of the Headless Horseman is a favorite story for me. Yes, he's an annual creature that magically appears in our home somewhere each and every October. This year, we find him on the wall divider that is between our kitchen and dining room. In all his gory glory. We've had this tiny, miniature figurine in our household for decades. From our youngest to Bud...with Irene and myself in between, we ALL like the legend. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In my youth, I remember having to read this short story by Irving in my Junior High School English class and then making a diorama of my favorite verse[s] of the penned work. The diorama that I worked on diligently was the bridge [my favorite lines back then: "This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark"]. Eventually the schoolmarm meets with the horseman on one side with Icabod Crane atop the old broken down horse, Gunpowder. I can't remember what grade I got on it, but I do remember the class liking my project. Oh how I labored on it to get even the falling leaves 'just right'. READ the original short story online. Now, I've learned there is a legend farther south than Tarrytown....no, go farther south than that....the legend of another Headless Horseman...in Texas no less!!!

In a dramatic example of frontier justice, Wallace beheaded Vidal then lashed him firmly into a saddle on the back of a wild mustang. Tying the outlaw's hands to the pommel and securing the torso to hold him upright, Big Foot then attached Vidal’s head and sombrero to the saddle with a long strip of rawhide. He then turned the bucking horse loose to wander the Texas hills with its terrible burden on his back. Soon, stories began to abound about the headless rider seen usually in remote country, with its sombreroed head swinging back and forth to the rhythm of horse’s gallop. As time went on, more and more cowboys spotted the dark horse with its fearsome cargo and not knowing what it was they riddled it with bullets. But the horse and its rider rode on and the legend of El Muerto, the headless one, began. Soon, the South Texas brush country became a place to avoid as El Muerto was credited with all kinds of evil and misfortune. Finally, a posse of local ranchers captured the wild pony at a watering hole near the tiny community of Ben Bolt just south of Alice, Texas. Still strapped firmly on its back was the dried-up corpse of Vidal, now riddled by scores of bullet holes and Indian arrows. The body was buried in an unmarked grave near Ben Bolt, and horse was free of its burden at last. That should have been the end of El Muerto, but the legend would live on to this day. Soon after Vidal’s body was laid to rest, soldiers at Fort Inge (present-day Uvalde) began to see the headless rider. Travelers and ranchers in "No Man’s Land” also reported continuing to see the apparition. In 1917, a couple traveling by covered wagon to San Diego, Texas camped for the night outside of town. They would report the next day that as they sat by the campfire a large gray stallion sped by with a headless man shouting "It is mine. It is all mine." Another sighting of the headless wonder was reported near Freer, Texas in 1969. The legend lives on and still today, many people report seeing the headless rider galloping though the mesquite on clear and moonlit nights in South Texas.

READ WHY this Horseman became Headless

Freer, Alice and San Diego Texas are just minutes outside of Corpus Christi.


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I ALSO ADDED ANOTHER PHOTO to my Photo Blog...AN OSPREY...It's a beauty if I say so myself....take a look if you'd like....the link "An Osprey" will open in a new window. And, this Ruby Tuesday is posted early 'cause Bud and I will be out early on Tuesday...going bird watchin'! LOL Have a great day.