another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old dutch wives , as they sat spinning by the fire , with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth , and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins , and haunted fields , and haunted brooks , and haunted bridges , and haunted houses , and particularly of the headless horseman , or galloping hessian of the hollow , as they sometimes called him .