"but how do you watch something accidentally with french subtitles?" you may ask, and i may tell you that it's simple, because i love english, english is fun and versatile and incredibly useful in this world, but listening to some dutch music recently reminded me how much consuming dutch art for a change feels like doing stretches for my brain (i don't really notice what i'm missing out on if i don't do it, but it feels SO good when i do), and that had me pondering once again how to incorporate some german into my diet in a natural way, because if dutch is my language, then german belongs to people i love, german is the one used to tell family stories, german is a language that feels like home but that i use so little it always takes a few days of just listening before i remember how to speak without feeling like an idiot, and so i thought to myself, well, i know bad buddy has a whole list of subtitle options, and perhaps i can pull off a really neat trick here and get my fill of german while also spending some time with thai (with which i am having a torrid love affair this year) through a show i know almost by heart at this point, because i can process the german fast enough to still be able to listen to what i'm hearing (the spoken thai), and then as a bonus, i'd get to sidestep english entirely for a few brief but glorious moments, which is a thing so rare it's almost unheard of, and that would just be a win-win-win. however! it turns out german is not one of the many, many languages offered on youtube as a subtitle option for bad buddy (which is of course fine because in a grand way, truly, why would it). and they do happen to have french, which i then of course had to click just for fun almost as a joke just to see it play for a minute or so and definitely not any longer than that, and as it turns out, on a practical is-this-doable-for-me level french in this context worked out way better than i thought it might, which is why i got sucked in immediately, easily fascinated as i am. but this is also a language that has me reading just slowly enough that it takes all my attention to have any hope at staying caught up with the speed of the dialogue, which amounts to a situation that is, you know, not making me feel much closer to my german grandmother (or making me feel very much at all for that matter, because on the whole i have a deeply impersonal relationship with french), but that IS very unexpectedly making me think fondly of my high school french teacher who once wrote under an assignment that he really hoped i'd choose to do something with languages. and this is probably not what he meant, but i suppose i am doing that, yes. both by choice and because i stumbled and tripped and now i've watched several episodes of a french subtitled thai show in an attempt to find german input because i was listening to dutch music.
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It might be cool to see dullahan for pride month. I don't think any original stories about dullahan are particularly queer but her depiction SMTIV is something I think about a lot. Taking a red pill and changing gender is definitely a more accurate interpretation of the matrix than other times people talk about the red pill at least lol
Dullahan - Day 49 (Request)
Race: Haunt
Alignment: Neutral-Neutral
June 6th, 2024
Yeah, shoutout to the random NPC in SMT IV who eats a red and instantly transes their gender. A true icon. Today's Demon of the Day is a very common fixture of medieval fantasy, however, and not just a bit of someone's true identity- the headless knight of no renown, Dullahan. Headless Horsemen are a common sight in many tales spanning Europe, the subjects of many a legend or fairy tale, but each of these halloween fables can trace their roots all the way back to Celtic myth, in the form of this unseelie fairie... or so some think. In truth, the origins of the Dullahan are unclear and murky, much like the foggy skies it mingles within, so let's dig in!
Ireland is no stranger to weird fairy tales- as the place where the term fairy originated from, Celtic myth is filled with tales upon tales of weird, loveable goons that paint stranger and stranger pictures of the times each time one thinks about them. Whether it be the oh-so-elusive Cat-Síth or the inanely wailing Banshee, Celtic folktales are filled to the brim with creatures at the forefront of each and every story... which is what makes the Dullahan so bizarre. While the concept of a headless horse-riding knight isn't too out there, especially in comparison to some other fairies (looking at you, Pooka), very few primary sources actually attest to the existence of the Dullahan, whether it be by name or concept alike.
However, in spite of this, we do have a few historical accounts- this makes the Dullahan's existence frustratingly vague, to say the least, as it's impossible to say if it did or did not exist- either possibility is plausible, especially given that artwork depicting the Dullahan does exist, dating back to the 1800's. As according to Doris V. Sutherland, the earliest reference to the Dullahan can be found in 1802, within a text written by Charles Vallancey called "Prospectus of a Dictionary of the Language of the Aire Coti, or Ancient Irish, Compared with the Language of the Cuti, or Ancient Persians, with the Hindoostanee, the Arabic, and Chaldean Languages." Kind of a mouthful. Within the book, which is a compendium of all sorts of languages and drawn comparisons between them (among all sorts of other stuff, I'm too lazy to find a free copy of it online though lol), there is a segment in which Vallancey draws a comparison between the Irish Dullahan and an Arabian demon, the Wulahan.
"The Dullahan or Wullahan is a terrible bug-bear at this day; the peasants hear him in the night dragging a heavy chain through the villages and along the roads; this is the wulahan, or Satanas of the Arabs…"
As pointed out by Sutherland, though, the brief description given of only a few passages has no mention of it being headless. So why is it commonly seen as being headless? Skip ahead a few years and we get to a book by Thomas Cofton Croker going into the fairies of Irish folklore, and stories pertaining to them. Among the many fairies listed in this book, entitled "Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland," we get to our second mention of the Dullahan! In one of five segments, a tale is given regarding a man named Larry Dodd who gets a random hitchhiker one day atop horseback- a mysterious woman whose every feature was covered by a cloak. She climbs aboard after he offers so, and they take off.
After a few moments of silent, uncomfortable riding, the woman exits suddenly to head to a nearby church. Smitten, Larry chases after the woman to try and pursue a thank-you kiss, but when he catches up with her... shock! Horror! She has no head! So that's where the idea of the Dullahan came from as being headless- and likely why the Dullahan in SMT is so feminine in appearance as well. After witnessing a dance of the Dullahans in the dead of night, he's decapitated... only to come to a few hours later, confused from the whole sordid affair.
This tale is only one of four, however- the general idea of Dullahans and the Headless Horsemen being synonymous actually came from this same book as well. A later story is, well, quite literally the fable of the Headless Horseman! From these tales, we can glean quite a few things- almost every account of the Dullahan comes from this book, with the name being spurned from the Prospectus and its offhand mentioning of the 'Irish Dullahan' as though it were common knowledge. I'm of two minds here, personally- for one, it's entirely possible that Croker, pardon my french, just made some shit up, basing his fables on pure speculation as to what the Dullahan name could mean by connecting it to the Arabian Wulahan. However, the other possibility, one that I personally subscribe to, is that the Dullahan was a part of the tapestry of Celtic folklore- it was just obscure.
The tales presented clearly speak of the Dullahan as though it were a preexisting concept, and the offhand mention of its existence in the Prospectus seems to give light to the idea that it did, indeed, exist in the cultural consciousness to some extent. Of course, this is all purely guesswork on my end- unless Croker digs himself out of his grave to answer my burning questions, I doubt I'll find an exact answer to this line of thinking- but I think it makes the most sense given what little information we have to work off of.
Now, in terms of representation in SMT... It sure is a headless knight. One aspect I really adore in this design, though, has to be the way the top of the head appears- the implication of the Dullahan being able to freely attach and detach its head like the joints on a Bionicle is hilarious, and gives a whole new line of depth to this already cool looking design. The silver, deep purple, and gold all combine to make the knight look regal, as though it was a stalwart protector of a kingdom under the king's right hand that had now fallen into disrepair. Somewhat fitting, given that it appears most prominently in SMT IV as a boss!
Lastly, though, I've gotta say I'm so glad we're almost to 50 posts. I didn't expect this series to last this long, and we've got a big, big one coming up for post 50, so I hope you're all excited! Happy Pride Month, and I need to say thanks for sticking with me, all this time.
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