Ewen of the Little Head — The Headless Horseman of Mull

Carrifran, Moffat Hills, Scotland

A headless clan chief's son rides through Glen More on the Isle of Mull, still warning the Maclaines of Lochbuie before a death in the family.

In 1538, Ewen MacLean — known in Gaelic as Eoghan a' Chinn Bhig, Ewen of the Little Head — was the son and heir of the Maclaine chief of Lochbuie on the Isle of Mull. Pressed by his wife to demand a larger share of his father's lands ahead of his inheritance, Ewen rode out to confront his father's men. The two forces met at Glen Cainnir, and in the fighting Ewen was struck from his horse and beheaded. His grey horse, the story goes, did not stop when its rider fell. It carried Ewen's headless body on for miles through the glens of Mull before finally halting near a waterfall, where the corpse was found still mounted. Since then, Ewen has not entirely left. Riders on the moorland roads of Mull, particularly around Glen More, have reported meeting a horseman without a head, mounted on a grey or black horse, moving at speed and vanishing without a sound. Among the Maclaines of Lochbuie the sighting carries a specific meaning: Ewen's appearance, by long family tradition, foretells a death in the clan within the year. The story has been told on Mull for close to five hundred years and is still repeated by islanders as one of the clearest examples of a fetch — an omen ghost tied to a single family's fortunes rather than a place.