The death coach, or coach-a-bower, is a supernatural image of a horse-drawn carriage driven by a phantom coachman. The appearance of the death coach is often believed to signal the impending passing of its audience or their kin. The spectral appearances are recounted in numerous forms throughout Europe, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, some into the present day.
Most cultures contain stories of death omens and legends whereby the personification of Death carried souls into the afterlife. In Greek mythology, Charon was the ferryman who transported souls across the River Styx. Early myths from Northern Europe referred to the Viking god Odin as the Wild Huntsman, who swept away the souls of the departed as he stormed across the sky on his mythological steed. The myths of Brittany mentioned the Ankou, who collected the spirits of the townsfolk in his wagon. These stories differ in time period and geographical location. However, they all contain elements—delivery of the departed to the afterlife, a method of transportation, and a confrontation with Death—reminiscent of the Irish legend of the death coach.
The stories of the Irish death coach vary slightly from sighting to sighting. Most agree that the black carriage appears to be led by several black horses driven by a whip-wielding coachman upon the hour of midnight. However, some reports describe headless steeds and coachmen, while others describe bodiless horses and drivers. The sight of the coach-a-bower is not the only sensory presence. The sound of the hooves and wheels clattering and the whip cracking are taken in equal seriousness. The auditory and visual presence of the death coach can act in conjunction or solitarily. Regardless, the meaning remains the same: the coach-a-bower warns of impending death.
The driver is often believed to be an evil supernatural creature from Irish myth. John O’Hanlon, an Irish priest and folklorist who wrote under the pseudonym Lageniensis, identified the coachman in his notes for the poem “The Legend Lays of Ireland.” “The Dullahan, Dulachan, Dubhlachan or Durrachan, are names indiscriminately applied to Irish hobgoblins … a dark, angry, sullen, fierce or malicious being” (O’Hanlon 1893, 219–220). The Dullahan is the “masculine and lesser known form of the banshee” (Monaghan 2004, 140). Historian Brian Haughton supported this claim, stating that “the Coach-a-Bower is associated with both the banshee and the Dullahan, the latter sometimes said to be the driver of this phantom vehicle” (Haughton 2012, 63). Naturally, death is usually countenanced with an unfriendly face because of its unwelcome interference in people’s loves and lives.
Recorded tales of the death coach in Ireland and the United Kingdom predate the nineteenth century. However, their appearance in American folklore followed the major exoduses from the islands during the 1700s and 1800s. Many settlers found homes around the Appalachian Mountains, where the legend of the death coach still exists. One such example from West Virginia is noted by paranormal journalist and author Rosemary Guiley in her book Ghosts and Haunted Places. Seen by multiple witnesses, a spectral 1950s “black automobile hearse with velvet curtains pulled shut” drove along a section of Route 14 (Guiley 2008, 52).
The death coach and phantom driver most famously appear in American literature in Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” Published posthumously, the poem narrates the speaker’s carriage ride to eternity. “He kindly stopped for me; / The carriage held but just ourselves / And Immortality” (Dickinson 1892, 138). Dickinson used her knowledge of the death coach with its eerie form and function. Of interest is the speaker’s lack of fear at the appearance of Death, which is an important difference from other versions of the legend.
The most well-known appearance of the death coach in American popular culture is in Disney’s 1959 film, Darby O’Gill and the Little People. The movie included appearances of several figures in Irish legends. In the end, the main character, Darby, must make a choice. The banshee and death coach wail and clamor, foretelling the imminent death of his daughter. Although he begs the king of the leprechauns to stop the death coach, King Brian cannot. He tells Darby that once the carriage has been sent, it cannot return empty. In an act of love, Darby substitutes his soul for his daughter’s. Terrified, he climbs into the black carriage and is driven away by the headless coachman and shadowy horses. The death coach continues to appear in American supernatural literature and entertainment.
Josianne Leah Campbell
See also Express Train to Hell; Lincoln Funeral Train; Superstitions
Further Reading
Darby O’Gill and the Little People. 1959. Disney. DVD.
Dickinson, Emily. 1892. Poems by Emily Dickinson. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. 2008. Ghosts and Haunted Places. New York: Infobase.
Haughton, Brian. 2012. Famous Ghost Stories: Legends and Lore. New York: Rosen.
Monaghan, Patricia. 2004. Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore. New York: Facts On File.
O’Hanlon, John [Lageniensis, pseud.]. 1893. The Poetical Works of Lageniensis. Dublin: James Duffy.
Wendell, Leilah. 1996. Encounters with Death: A Compendium of Anthropomorphic Personifications of Death from Historical to Present Day. New Orleans: Westgate Press.