This is an original story, written by me in October, 2018, which I told to children in 2019 and no doubt will tell again. You can read it with the pdf link below.

A Postscript

A pooka, in ancient Celtic lore, was a creature who could take any shape – animal or human. It could speak and would appear only at night. It could wreak havoc upon humans but were not generally thought of as killers.

That’s why I made this pooka a mutant, and perhaps the offspring of a dullahan. A dullahan is a headless rider and, indeed, a killer.

In this story, the creature initially appears much like a banshee. A banshee appears as a woman and poses no threat to the person seeing it. That does not mean that one would ever wish to see a banshee. A banshee appears to advise of the death of someone near and dear.

In this story, I wanted the creature to attack the lone traveler on a dark road. This makes the creature more closely fit the Central American Cegua. La Cegua in the folklore of Central America is a female creature which punishes drunken and unfaithful men. They appear to such men only at night and only when such men are alone. To the lone man, La Cegua looks like a beautiful young woman asking for help. But she will transform into a hideous monster with the head of a horse. The image at the top of the page is an artists rendition of La Cegua.

This never ceases to amaze me. Disparate cultures, located at opposite ends of the planet, somehow develop folklore with incredible similarities.

All images from the internet and I claim no rights to any of them.