Page 157. This description of the decapitated ghost sitting astride the beer-barrel, reminds one of Crofton Croker's ‘Clooricaun,’ and of the hag's son in the story of Paudyeen O'Kelly and the Weasel. In Scotch Highland tradition, there is a ‘trunk-without-head,’ who infested a certain ford, and killed people who attempted to pass that way; he is not the subject, however, of any regular story.
In a variant of this tale the hero's name is Labhras (Laurence) and the castle where the ghost appeared is called Baile-an-bhroin (Ballinvrone). It is also mentioned, that when the ghost appeared in court, he came in streaming with blood, as he was the day he was killed, and that the butler, on seeing him, fainted.
It is Donal's courage which saves him from the ghost, just as happens in another story which I got, and which is a close Gaelic parallel to Grimm's Man who went out to learn to shake with fear2 The ghost whom the hero lays explains that he had been for thirty years waiting to meet some one who would not be afraid of him. There is an evident moral in this.