Dullahan
See also: dullahan
English
Etymology
The surname is from Irish Ó Dubhlacháin, meaning "descendant of [the] Dubhlachán", variously interpreted as "black duckling"[1] or "dark, sullen person", ultimately related to if not cognate with dullahan (“headless horserider”).[2]
Noun
Dullahan (plural Dullahans)
- Alternative letter-case form of dullahan
- 2012, Armen Pogharian, Misaligned: The Celtic Connection, SynergEbooks, →ISBN, page 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.”
- 2016, Mark Latham, Hunting the Headless Horseman, The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc, →ISBN, page 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.
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Proper noun
Dullahan
- A surname from Irish.
References
- Patrick Hanks, Richard Coates, Peter McClure, The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland (2016), page 779.
- Peter Haining, The Leprechaun's Kingdom (1979), page 39