Among the curiously shaped phantoms are those which have an important part of their anatomy lacking, and most common of all are the ghosts, human and animal, that are seen without a head. Indeed the belief in headless spectres, both of equine and canine beings, is remarkably widespread throughout England.
The Rev. Richard Dodge, a Cornish clergyman, who lived near Looe, was an exorcist, and was said to be able "to drive along evil spirits of various shapes, pursuing them with his whip." One day his services were commanded by a Mr. Mills, Rector of Lanreath, who said that labourers had been startled by an apparition of a man in black garb driving a carriage drawn by headless horses. Mr. Dodge met Mr. Mills, but as they saw no apparition, they parted to return to their respective homes. Mr. Dodge's horse grew restive and refused to proceed, so he, thinking something uncanny was about to take place, allowed the animal to return to the spot where he had parted from Mr. Mills, whom, to his distress, he found lying prostrate on the ground with the spectre and his black coach and headless horses beside him.
Jumping down to assist his friend, Dodge uttered a prayer, and the spectre screaming, "Dodge is come, I must be gone," whipped up the ghost horses and vanished into the night.
Spectre horsemen are common and one is said to haunt Wyecoller Hall. The ghost is dressed in the costume of the Stuart period, and the trappings of the horse are of uncouth description. On windy nights the horseman is heard dashing up to the Hall. The rider dismounts, makes his way up the stairs into a room on the first landing, whence presently screams and groans issue. Suddenly the horseman reappears and gallops off, the horse appearing wild with rage, its nostrils streaming fire. The tradition is that one of the Cunliffes of Billington, for long the owners of Wyecoller Hall, near Colne, murdered his wife and reappears every year as a spectre horseman in the home of his victim. She is said to have predicted the extinction of the family, a prediction long since fulfilled.
The midnight hunter and his headless hounds are often to be seen in Cornwall, and the Abbot's Way, on Dartmoor, is said to be a favourite spot for their visitations. Sir Francis Drake was supposed to drive a hearse into Plymouth by night, followed by a pack of headless, but nevertheless howling, hounds. On Cheney Downs in the parish of St. Teath, ghostly hounds said to have belonged to an old squire called Cheney, were often seen and heard, especially in rough weather.