Headless Horseman

The headless horseman has been a motif of European folklore since at least the Middle Ages. The most famous interpretation of the legend is Washington Irving's The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, where the American Ichabod Crane runs into the entity while riding through the forest at night.

Mainstream Smurfs Media
In Sony Pictures' animated feature The Smurfs: The Legend Of Smurfy Hollow, a tale is told about how a few Smurfs have met the legendary Headless Horseman out in Smurfy Hollow on the day of the Smurfberry Harvest contest, which Brainy had won nine years in a row. Upon Gutsy discovering that Brainy had found a bountiful patch of smurfberries in Smurfy Hollow, he used the shadowy image of the Headless Horseman to scare Brainy away so that he could have the smurfberries all to himself, but in so doing, Brainy ended up being captured in one of Gargamel's traps. Later on, when Papa Smurf judged Gutsy to be the winner of the contest for bringing in the most smurfberries, the other Smurfs began to wonder where Brainy is, and Gutsy went out to find him when he was accompanied by Smurfette, to whom he confessed what he had done to Brainy. Gutsy and Smurfette were also captured in Gargamel's traps, and soon Gargamel is alerted by his cat Azrael to the Smurfs that were captured and came to claim his prize, only to find two of the Smurfs have already escaped. But then, as Gargamel has the three Smurfs trapped, the Headless Horseman appeared and chased after them, sending them running to the covered bridge, which legend says the horseman cannot cross. Surely the five of them found safety from the horseman as they reached the bridge, but when Gargamel taunted the horseman, he threw a flaming pumpkin into the bridge, causing Gargamel and Azrael to fall into the river and be carried off toward a waterfall. By the story's end, it is revealed that the Headless Horseman was not a ghost, but actually was a goat that was transformed by Papa Smurf's magic into the horseman and his mount.