Headless Horseman of Santa Fe, New Mexico

If you’ve read my very first blog post, you know I’ve been writing about how I intend to write about the Headless Horseman in Santa Fe, New Mexico as well as the Oldest House in Santa Fe, as it ties into the story.

I thought about doing it this morning—I took the day off from my day job—and got really tired. I’ve been a little off this month—usually I feel like I come alive, and I’m happy and outgoing. These past two Halloweens have been rough for some reason.

I realized something else: Why didn’t I want to write a paraphrased version of the story from the book Enchanted Legends and Lore of New Mexico by Ray John de Aragón? What was stopping me in my tracks about such a fantastic tale?

And then I answered myself: That guy’s a dick. Our Headless Horseman is a dick. That’s why I don’t really want to write about him.

So, this guy, before becoming headless, really liked this girl. The girl got a bad vibe from him and she and her dad came up with a codeword to use, since this guy was coming to dinner at their house for some reason, and the codeword (ha, ha) was “Calabazas” which means pumpkins. So, at some point, she tells her dad the codeword, and her dad’s like “get the fuck out of my house, guy, my daughter isn’t interested.”

So guy goes to see the witches, who live in the Oldest House in Santa Fe, New Mexico: 215 E. De Vargas St. Santa Fe, NM 87501 (it’s right behind Upper Crust Pizza, which is right next to the old St. Michael’s church in the down town Santa Fe area; Upper Crust Pizza is off of Old Pecos Trail; the Oldest House is now a museum. http://www.oldesthousesantafe.com/about%20us.htm). He tells the witches that he really likes this girl and wants a love spell to give her. They try to talk him out of it, telling him it’s really long and complicated. He demands it. They cave and give him the love spell. He leaves their house and is like “that’s way too long and complicated, imma try and cut corners.” He cuts those corners all right, and he tries to give it to the girl, but she’s so disgusted with him she won’t have anything to do with him. Pissed off, guy goes back to the witches and is like “your piece of crap spell didn’t work” and starts physically fighting with them. Big mistake. He has a sword, and one of the witches picked it up and cut his head off. With his own sword.

One of the witches cut his head off with his own sword in a fight he started with them because a love spell they gave him didn’t work because he fucked it up.

I haven’t been down town at night in a very long time, and I won’t go alone, but I hear that he haunts the downtown area, looking for his head…

I looked it up real quick to confirm: His bloody head went rolling down the street all right, and they say on certain nights, late at night, you can hear him galloping after his head, which apparently rolls as far as Alta Vista Street. (I’m not on Alta Vista Street at night, either; I am there as my work is somewhere on Alta Vista Street, which is how I remember hearing that his head goes as far as that; that was another thing I was thinking about this morning though: How the hell does his head go rolling from De Vargas Street all the way to Alta Vista? It would have to go down Old Pecos Trail, past a Methodist Church that sells (used to sell?) pumpkins, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin pie—or at least they did before the pandemic—and then turn right at some point in order to get to Alta Vista. I’m probably thinking too logically about this; I’ve been taking some things way too literally lately.)

That is my very abridged version of our Headless Horseman. Because he was a dick, and I’m tired. Mostly he was a dick.

If you want to know more about the Headless Horseman and some other Legends and Lore of New Mexico, I highly recommend Enchanted Legends and Lore of New Mexico by Ray John de Aragón.

Sorry for the shorter post; maybe I’ll do another one later in the week or a longer one next week.

Happy Halloween! I hope it was safe and fun!

Keep it Spooky!