A phantom coach that, according to lore, comes to collect the dying and is also used by the dead as a means of late night transport. It is either a coach or a hearse but it is always black and the driver and horses are typically headless. The coach never makes a sound and travels at lightning speed. If anyone sees the coach it is thought to be a death omen.
According to an anonymous writer in 1847 in the Athenaeum:
The spectral appearance often presents itself in the shape of a great black coach, on which sit hundreds of spirits singing a wonderfully sweet song. Before it goes a man who loudly warns everybody to get out of the way. All who hear him must instantly drop down with their faces to the ground as at the coming of the wild hunt, an hold fast by something, were it only a blade of grass; for the furious host have been known to force many a man into its coach [and] can carry him hundreds of miles away through the air.
Although the motor car has long since replaced the coach and horses, phantom coaches are still being reported in parts of rural England, France and Germany. A famous example is the phantom coach of Francis Drake, which from time to time is allegedly seen driving across Dartmoor, on starless nights, followed by a pack of baying hounds.