"What can I say, I'm cut for the job!"
Here are twelve more creatures of nightmare—as hauntingly terrible—and as terribly haunting—as their predecessors. The Mummy, the Banshee, the Poltergeist, the Sorceress—all splendidly horrific, all unforgettable.
—The insert blurb
The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight: More Poems to Trouble Your Sleep is a monster-themed poetry collection for children. It is a sequel to Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep, once more both written by Jack Prelutsky and illustrated by Arnold Lobel. It was released in November of 1980.
Contained within the pages of The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight: More Poems to Trouble Your Sleep are twelve poems, which in order are "The Mummy", "The Spectre on the Moor", "The Towering Giant", "The Zombie", "The Kraken", "The Darkling Elves", "The Sorceress", "The Invisible Beast", "The Abominable Snowman", "The Banshee", "The Poltergeist", and "The Headless Horseman". The poems vary in rhyme scheme and length, with most poems fitting a single page. "The Mummy", "The Zombie", and "The Yeti" are each two pages while "The Headless Horseman" takes up three pages. Each page of text is accompanied by a monochrome illustration on the neighboring page, so the longer poems also have more than one illustration.
In 1988, Caedmon Audio combined the two collections into one audiobook adaptation on cassette titled Nightmares and the Headless Horseman Rides Tonight: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep. The A-Side contains the Nightmares poems and the B-side the Headless Horseman poems. The narration is by Jack Prelutsky himself, the sound by Don Heckman, and Daniel Wolfert edited it to the final product.
The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight: More Poems to Trouble Your Sleep provides examples of the following tropes:
- Bad Vibrations: In "The Towering Giant", when the giant of a thousand feet tall walks, the "mountain top shakes."
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: The abominable snowman of "The Abominable Snowman" is a solitary, furry, and ape-like creature that lives in snow-beaten mountains. It is carnivorous and comes out of hiding only to hunt.
- Breath Weapon: In "The Towering Giant", when the giant of a thousand feet tall breathes, the "winds turn to tempests."
- Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: The final illustration of "The Headless Horseman" depicts the Headless Horseman at a distance, evidently leaving as the night bows out to the dawn that a lone rooster readies itself to announce.
- Color Contrast: In "The Headless Horseman", the Headless Horseman is dressed in "robes of black" while he rides an "alabaster steed."
- Combat Tentacles: The kraken of "The Kraken" uses its eight tentacles, at least one of which has two rows of suckers, to crush and strangle. Neither human ships nor leviathans stand a chance against the kraken's might.
- Don't Go in the Woods: The setting of "The Darkling Elves" is the woods. It is there that the darkling elves dwell, who are always looking for people to steal from and to devour. They hide out in the treetops and once they pounce, they rarely lose their prey.
- Eyeless Face: The steed of the Headless Horseman in "The Headless Horseman" looks for the most part like a regular mangy flying horse. What stands out about its looks are its hollow eye sockets.
- The Fair Folk: The elves in "The Darkling Elves" are humanoid sprites with pointy hats, pointy ears, pointy noses, and pointy teeth. They live in the treetops from which they keep an eye on the ground below for passers-by to pounce on and devour. The elves may also steal whatever their victim has with them at the time. Their ferocity is such that once they've commenced their attack, they cannot be escaped from.
- Falling Chandelier of Doom: Among the many disturbances the poltergeist in "The Poltergeist" causes, there's the breaking of the rod or chain holding up a chandelier. It falls and shatters into pieces on the floor.
- Fog of Doom: The spectre in "The Spectre on the Moor" is an ever-shifting entity that dwells as one with the mist upon the moors during the twilight hours. The only thing that makes it stand out is its phosphorescence, which attracts victims the spectre then strangles or crushes with its tendrils.
- For the Evulz: "The Mummy", "The Spectre on the Moor", "The Towering Giant", and "The Poltergeist" each describe a monster that does harm for no gain or purpose other than entertainment or compulsion.
- Headless Horseman: In "The Headless Horseman", the black-clad Headless Horseman rides an alabaster steed upon the wind. Beneath his left arm it holds its skeletal head with its "harsh and hollow" voice while with his right arm he wields a scythe. The horseman may or may not be a psychopomp. On one hand, he rides to take a soul with him and anyone could be that soul. On the other hand, the horseman's overall look taps into that of the Grim Reaper and he's also referred to as the "minister of death".
- Horror Hunger: The elves in "The Darkling Elves" experience perpetual hunger. From the treetops, they wait for human prey and when one passes by underneath, the elves let themselves fall with their teeth at the ready. The zombie in "The Zombie" similarly has an eternal need to embrace the living, but does it so tightly that inevitably its target perishes.
- Invisibility: Both the invisible beast and the poltergeist in respectively "The Invisible Beast" and "The Poltergeist" are invisible entities. The beast, instead, makes its presence known through its awful smell and overbearing presence while the poltergeist's arrival is clear from all the disturbances it causes.
- Kraken and Leviathan: The kraken in "The Kraken" is a fearsome cephalopod with eight tentacles capable of strangling leviathans and the largest of whales. It is over ten times the size of an ocean liner and usually slumbers at the ocean floor. When it awakens, all other lifeforms flee the area in a panic. However, humans usually don't catch wind until the kraken comes up to destroy their ships.
- Losing Your Head: The Headless Horseman carries with him his skeletal head under his left arm. Despite the way it should limit his sight while riding, it doesn't prevent his effectiveness at killing.
- Mage Species: It is most likely that the sorceress in "The Sorceress" is what she is by species rather than occupation. Mostly because every other creature in the poetry collection is what they are by either birth or death. She's around middle-age and in service of Hell, from where she may summon demons to assist her.
- Magic Cauldron: The primary magical tool of the sorceress in "The Sorceress" is a cauldron in which she brews a concoction of "filth and fat" that condemns someone to Hell.
- Magic Dance: The sorceress in "The Sorceress" casts her spells by boiling a particular brew, whispering the right words, and performing a deadly dance.
- Mummy: For undisclosed reasons, the mummy in "The Mummy" wakes up after centuries of death-sleep. He escapes the labyrinthine halls of his pyramid in part by simply knocking down walls with supernaturally imparted power. Once outside, it has no greater purpose than to satiate his wrath with violent murder.
- Poltergeist: Poltergeists are invisible spirits with a penchant for destruction and bullying. The one in "The Poltergeist" invades a man's house to bite him in the cheek, rock the rocking chair, push all the books from the shelf, continuously flick off the light, shatter the chandelier on the floor, rap against the door, shake the dishware, and burst the windows.
- Our Banshees Are Louder: Banshees are death-announcing spirits active "from midnight until morn" along the riverside. "The Banshee" leaves it ambiguous whether their wailing merely notifies of death or causes death, but leans a little more to the latter than the former. Only the person who is to die can hear the mournful wail.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The phosphorescent spectre in "The Spectre on the Moor" is a shapeless and ever-shifting entity that is at home in the mist upon the moors during the twilight hours. It can spread its form into tendrils to strangle and crush victims drawn to its glow.
- Our Giants Are Different: In "The Towering Giant", the cruel giant is a creature of a thousand feet tall whose form is a humanoid rendition of a mountain. He even has trees growing on his rocky skin and were he to lay down, he would not be recognizable as anything but a mountain. His bulk is such that he can make mountain tops shake by stamping his feet and turn winds into tempests by merely breathing.
- Rock Monster: The giant of "The Towering Giant" is or resembles a living mountain complete with trees growing on him. He is "a thousand feet tall" and hostile towards anyone and anything that comes near him.
- Scaling the Summit: The abominable snowman in "The Abominable Snowman" lives in the higher regions of a mountain range where snow is ever-present and few other creatures dwell. Yet, the carnivorous abominable snowman can sustain himself with what is around and the regular arrival of another mountaineer trying to make it to the top.
- Sequential Art: The poems spread out over two or three pages, which are "The Mummy", "The Zombie", "The Yeti", and the "The Headless Horseman", have as many illustrations. Just like the poems progress narratively, so do the illustrations.
- To Serve Man: The kraken, the elves, and the abominable snowman in respectively "The Kraken", "The Darkling Elves", "The Abominable Snowman" are all eaters of humans. The kraken is confirmed to also eat other ocean-dwellers while the elves and the abominable snowman seem to favor human flesh but not necessarily limit themselves to it.
- Sinister Scythe: The Headless Horseman carries with him a scythe in his right hand. Whenever he rides, at least one mortal will be felt by it.
- Splash of Color: All of the collection's art is black and white except the yellow of the headless horseman's scythe's blade and the yellow of his shirt on the front cover.
- Summon Magic: In "The Sorceress", the sorceress summons demons from Hell through her brew to assist her in murdering someone.
- Super-Strength: The mummy in "The Mummy" beats down the walls of his own pyramid with his bare hands to get out. His strength is noted to be of supernatural origin.
- Voodoo Zombie: The zombie in "The Zombie" is the "spawn of voodoo's charms" and neither alive nor dead. It still senses, but no longer consciously and operates on a very limited set of behaviors. Such behavior includes a desire for living touch, but that desire is such that the zombie crushes its targets to death.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: In "The Banshee", the banshee is out and about with her mourning wail "from midnight until morn."
- Would Hurt a Child: All poems are meant for children to read, so all threats and warnings in them are for children to mind. The poems and illustrations that explicitly feature children as the victims of the monsters are "The Spectre on the Moor", "The Zombie", "The The Darkling Elves", and "The Invisible Beast".
