The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a gothic story by American author Washington Irving, contained in his collection of 34 essays and short stories entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.. Written while Irving was living abroad in Birmingham, England, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was first published in 1820. Along with Irving's companion piece "Rip Van Winkle", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during Halloween because of a character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.[1]

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
"Ichabod Crane pursued by the Headless Horseman",
by F.O.C. Darley, 1849
AuthorWashington Irving
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesThe Sketch Book
Genre(s)Gothic horror
Published inThe Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.
Media typeHardback & paperback
Publication date1820
Published in English1820
Preceded by"The Angler"
Followed by"L'Envoy"

Plot

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by name of Sleepy Hollow ... A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere.

— Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

The story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town (historical Tarrytown, New York), in a secluded glen known as Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors. Some residents say this town was bewitched during the early days of the Dutch settlement, while others claim that the mysterious atmosphere was caused by an old Native American chief, the "wizard of his tribe ... before the country was discovered by Master Hendrik Hudson." The most infamous spectre in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman, supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head had been shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the Revolution, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head".

The "Legend" relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, the town rowdy, for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and sole child of wealthy farmer Baltus Van Tassel. Ichabod Crane, a Yankee and an outsider, sees marriage to Katrina as a means of procuring Van Tassel's extravagant wealth. Bones, the local hero, unable to force Ichabod into a physical showdown to settle things, plays a series of pranks on the superstitious schoolmaster. The tension among the three continues for some time, and is soon brought to a head. On a placid autumn night, the ambitious Crane attends a harvest party at the Van Tassels' homestead. He dances, partakes in the feast, and listens to ghostly legends told by Brom and the locals, but his true aim is to propose to Katrina after the guests leave. His intentions, however, are ill-fated.

After having failed to secure Katrina's hand, Ichabod rides home on his temperamental horse (named Gunpowder) "heavy-hearted and crestfallen" through the woods between Van Tassel's farmstead and the farmhouse in Sleepy Hollow where he is quartered at the time. As he passes several purportedly haunted spots, his active imagination is engorged by the ghost stories told at Baltus' harvest party. After nervously passing a lightning-stricken tulip tree purportedly haunted by the ghost of British spy Major André, Ichabod encounters a cloaked rider at an intersection in a menacing swamp. Unsettled by his fellow traveler's eerie size and silence, the teacher is horrified to discover that his companion's head is not on his shoulders, but on his saddle. In a frenzied race to the bridge adjacent to the Old Dutch Burying Ground, where the Hessian is said to "vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone" before crossing it, Ichabod rides for his life, desperately goading Gunpowder down the Hollow. However, while Crane and Gunpowder are able to cross the bridge ahead of the ghoul, to Crane's horror it rears its horse and hurls its severed head directly at Ichabod. The schoolmaster attempts to dodge, but is too late; the missile strikes his head and sends him tumbling headlong into the dust.

The next morning, Ichabod has mysteriously disappeared from the area, leaving Katrina to later marry Brom Bones, who was said "to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related". Indeed, the only relics of the schoolmaster's flight are his discarded hat, Gunpowder's trampled saddle, and a mysterious shattered pumpkin. Although the true nature of both the Headless Horseman and Ichabod's disappearance that night are left open to interpretation, the story implies that the Horseman was really Brom (an extremely agile rider) in disguise, and suggests that Crane survived the fall from Gunpowder and immediately fled Sleepy Hollow in horror, never to return but to prosper elsewhere, or perhaps was killed by Brom himself. Irving's narrator concludes the story, however, by stating that the old Dutch wives continue to promote the belief that Ichabod was "spirited away by supernatural means", and a legend develops around his disappearance and sightings of his melancholy spirit.

In a Postscript (sometimes unused in certain editions), the narrator states the circumstances in which he heard the story from an old gentleman "at a Corporation meeting at the ancient city of Manhattoes", who didn't "believe one-half of it [himself]."

Background
The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane (1858) by John Quidor

Irving wrote The Sketch Book during a tour of Europe, and parts of the tale may also be traced to European origins. Headless horsemen were staples of Northern European storytelling, featuring in German, Irish (e.g., Dullahan), Scandinavian (e.g., the Wild Hunt), and English legends, and were included in Robert Burns's poem "Tam o' Shanter" (1790) and Bürger's Der wilde Jäger, translated as The Wild Huntsman (1796). Usually viewed as omens of ill-fortune for those who chose to disregard their apparitions, these specters found their victims in proud, scheming persons and characters with hubris and arrogance.[2] One particularly influential rendition of this folktale was recorded by the German folklorist Karl Musäus.[3]

During the height of the American Revolutionary War, Irving writes that the country surrounding Tarry Town "was one of those highly-favored places which abound with chronicle and great men. The British and American line had run near it during the war; it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of border chivalry."

Headless Horseman Bridge

After the Battle of White Plains in October 1776, the country south of the Bronx River was abandoned by the Continental Army and occupied by the British. The Americans were fortified north of Peekskill, leaving Westchester County a 30-mile stretch of scorched and desolated no-man's land, vulnerable to outlaws, raiders, and vigilantes. Besides droves of Loyalist rangers and British light infantry, Hessian Jägers—renowned sharpshooters and horsemen—were among the raiders who often skirmished with Patriot militias.[4] The Headless Horseman, said to be a decapitated Hessian soldier, may have indeed been based loosely on the discovery of just such a Jäger's headless corpse found in Sleepy Hollow after a violent skirmish, and later buried by the Van Tassel family, in an unmarked grave in the Old Dutch Burying Ground.[5] The dénouement of the fictional tale is set at the bridge over the Pocantico River in the area of the Old Dutch Church and Burying Ground in Sleepy Hollow.

Irving, while he was an aide-de-camp to New York Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, met an army captain named Ichabod Crane in Sackets Harbor, New York during an inspection tour of fortifications in 1814. Irving may have patterned the character in "The Legend" after Jesse Merwin, who taught at the local schoolhouse in Kinderhook, further north along the Hudson River, where Irving spent several months in 1809.[6] The inspiration for the character of Katrina Van Tassel was based on an actual young woman by that name. Washington Irving had stayed with her family for a short time, asked permission to use her name, and loosely base the character on her. He told her and her family he liked to give his characters the names of people he had met.

Ichabod Crane, Respectfully Dedicated to Washington Irving. William J. Wilgus (1819–53), artist Chromolithograph, c. 1856

The story was the longest one published as part of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (commonly referred to as The Sketch Book), which Irving issued serially throughout 1819 and 1820, using the pseudonym "Geoffrey Crayon".[7] With "Rip Van Winkle", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is one of Irving's most anthologized, studied, and adapted sketches. Both stories are often paired together in books and other representations, and both are included in surveys of early American literature and Romanticism.[8] Irving's depictions of regional culture and his themes of progress versus tradition, supernatural intervention in the commonplace, and the plight of the individual outsider in an homogeneous community permeate both stories and helped to develop a unique sense of American cultural and existential selfhood during the early 19th century.[9]

Adaptations

Film
Will Rogers as Ichabod Crane in The Headless Horseman (1922)
  • The Headless Horseman (1922), a silent film directed by Edward Venturini and starring Will Rogers as Ichabod Crane. It was filmed on location in New York's Hudson River Valley.
  • Sleepy Hollow (1999), a feature film adaption directed by Tim Burton which takes many liberties with the plot and characters, changing Crane from the local schoolmaster into a police constable sent from New York City to investigate recent murders, and the Horseman is used as a weapon against the local landowners.
  • Sleepy Hollow High (2000), a direct-to-video horror film shot in Maryland, in which a group of misbehaving high school students are sent to the Sleepy Hollow Park Grounds to clean up vandalism and graffiti. They soon realize that someone is taking the original legend too far.
  • '"The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow" a retelling of the story by the Smurfs.

Television
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980), a television film directed by Henning Schellerup and filmed in Utah, starring Jeff Goldblum, Meg Foster, and Dick Butkus as Brom Bones. Executive producer Charles Sellier was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on the movie.[10] Crane is depicted as a skeptic regarding ghosts and the supernatural.
  • "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1985), the premiere episode of Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales and Legends series, stars Ed Begley Jr. as Ichabod Crane, Beverly D'Angelo as Katrina, Tim Thomerson as Brom, and Charles Durning as Doffue Van Tassel, who is also the narrator.
  • "The Tale of the Midnight Ride", a 1994 episode of the Nickelodeon series Are You Afraid of the Dark?, serves as a sequel to the original story. A boy named Ian Matthews moves to Sleepy Hollow, where he develops a crush on a girl named Katie. On Halloween night, they see the ghost of Ichabod Crane and send him over the bridge that the Headless Horseman cannot cross, unintentionally prompting the Horseman to pursue them instead of Crane.
  • In the 1997 Wishbone episode "Halloween Hound: The Legend of Creepy Collars", Wishbone imagines himself as Ichabod Crane and reenacts the story in his imagination when his owner goes on a Halloween night scavenger hunt with two schoolmates, but is scared off by the Headless Horseman.
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1999), a Canadian-American television film directed by Pierre Gang and starring Brent Carver and Rachelle Lefevre.
  • The Night of the Headless Horseman (1999), an hour-long computer-animated tv special using motion capture.
  • The Hollow (2004), an ABC Family television film starring Kevin Zegers and Kaley Cuoco, and focusing on a teenage descendant of Ichabod Crane.
  • "The Legend of Sleepy Halliwell" (2004), an episode of the TV show Charmed, in which a headless horseman murders the teachers at Magic School by beheading them.
  • Sleepy Hollow (2013), a crime/horror series in which Ichabod Crane is reimagined as an English professor and turncoat during the Revolutionary War, who awakens in the 21st century and encounters the Headless Horseman, a felled mercenary whom Crane had decapitated 250 years prior. Crane teams up with Abbie Mills, a lieutenant in the Sleepy Hollow sheriff's department, and together they try to stop the murderous Horseman and uncover a conspiracy involving supernatural forces. The show ran for four seasons.[11]

Music
  • In Sleepy Hollow (1913), a piano suite by Eastwood Lane
  • The Headless Horseman (2001) by Michael Jeffrey Shapiro, for baritone, itinerant string band, and orchestra
  • Undead Ahead 2: Tale of the Midnight Ride (2019), by Motionless in White

Theatre
  • Sleepy Hollow (1948), a Broadway musical, with music by George Lessner and book and lyrics by Russell Maloney and Miriam Battista. It lasted 12 performances.[12]
  • Sleepy Hollow (2009), a musical with book and lyrics by Jim Christian and music by Tom Edward Clark. It premiered at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah on October 30, 2009.[13][14] It received the 2009 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Musical Theatre Award.[15]
  • The Hollow (2011), a musical by Matt Conner and Hunter Foster[16]. It premiered at the Signature Theatre Company in Arlington, Virginia.
  • Sleepy Hollow - A Legendary Musical (2017), a musical by Michelle Ackerman.[17]
  • Tarrytown (2018), a musical by Adam Wachter. Its world premiere production at Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company won the 2018 San Diego Theatre Critics' Circle Craig Noel Award for "Best New Musical."[18] A studio cast recording starring Jeremy Jordan, Krysta Rodriguez, and Andy Mientus was released in 2020 to benefit The Actors Fund's COVID-19 relief efforts.[19]

Audio
  • Ronald Colman was the host and narrator for a radio adaptation on NBC's Favorite Story on July 2, 1946 (requested by Walter Huston as that actor's favorite story).
  • An adaptation was broadcast on September 19, 1947 on NBC University of the Air: American Novels.[20]
  • Bing Crosby recreated his Disney narration in Walt Disney's Ichabod and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow for Decca Records (DAU-725) in 1949.
  • Lionel Barrymore narrated and wrote the music for a version of the story on Full Fidelity Lion Records (L70078), a branch of MGM Records, in 1958.
  • In 1968, Ed Begley narrated the story in a Caedmon Records recording (TC-1242).
  • Martin Donegan narrated the story in a 1968 recording for CMS Records (CMS 533).
  • Hurd Hatfield narrated the story in a 1968 recording for Spoken Arts Records (SA 991).
  • Boris Karloff was the narrator for an abridged version on a 1977 Mr. Pickwick Records recording (SPC-5156).
  • In 1988, Glenn Close narrated a version of the story for Windham Hill Records (WH-0711), later also released on audio cassette and CD (WD-0711).
  • Sleepy Hollow (1998) - An abridged version omitting the characters of Katrina and Brom, narrated by Winifred Phillips for the Radio Tales series on National Public Radio.
  • In 2009 Historic Hudson Valley[21] released an unabridged dramatic reading by Jonathan Kruk[22] with musical effects by Matt Noble.
  • In 2005, BBC Radio 7 broadcast a three-part reading of the story narrated by Martin Jarvis, broadcast several times since on BBC Radio 4 Extra.[23]
  • Tom Mison, who starred as "Ichabod Crane" in the Fox television series Sleepy Hollow, narrated the story in 2014 for Audible Studios.
  • In 2019, the radio program Adventures in Odyssey produced an adaptation of the story titled "Icky and Kat and Balty and Bones".

Geographic impact
U.S. postage stamp of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", issued October 1974
  • Annually since 1996, before Halloween, the nonprofit organization Historic Hudson Valley has held "Legend Weekend", an event at the Philipsburg Manor House in Sleepy Hollow.
  • In 1997, the village of North Tarrytown, New York (as the village had been called since the late 19th century), where many events of the story took place, officially changed its name to Sleepy Hollow. Its high school teams are named "the Horsemen".
  • In 2006, a large sculpture depicting the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod Crane was placed along Route 9 in Sleepy Hollow/Tarrytown, New York.

Place names
Mural on a water tower in Sleepy Hollow, Wyoming based on "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
  • Town and village names:
    • Sleepy Hollow, Illinois, many of the street names reflect characters from the tale, and the image of the Headless Horseman can be found on many of the city's landmarks and publications.
    • Sleepy Hollow, Marin County, California, has Irving Drive, Legend Road, Ichabod Court, Katrina Lane, Van Tassel Court, Baltus Lane, Crane Drive, and Van Winkle Drive.
    • Sleepy Hollow, Wyoming, has street names such as Pumpkin Court, Gunpowder Street, Ichabod Avenue, and Raven Street. Hosts an annual event called Sleepy Hollow Days.[24]
  • Subdivision names:
  • State Parks:
  • Schools:
    • The Ichabod Crane School District, Valatie, New York. The school's sports teams are called "The Riders" and a silhouette of Ichabod Crane on his horse is often representative of the home team while a silhouette of the Headless Horseman is representative of the opponent. The wings in the junior high school are also named for characters and places, such as Katrina Van Tassel and Sleepy Hollow.
    • The Ichabod Crane Schoolhouse, Kinderhook, New York .
    • Sleepy Hollow Elementary
  • Orinda, California, has Washington Lane, Sleepy Hollow Lane, Tarry Lane, Van Ripper Lane, Van Tassel Lane, Tappan Lane, and Crane Court.
  • Pinson, Alabama's Sleepy Hollow Subdivision has Sleepy Hollow Drive
  • Walt Disney World's Sleepy Hollow quick service restaurant in Magic Kingdom theme park.
  • Rest Stop:

On the Far North Coast of New South Wales lies the Sleepy Hollow rest stop. There is a stop located either side of the road so that North- and South-bound traffic is able to stop. The northbound stop is located 58 km north of Ballina and the southbound stop is located 32 km south of Tweed Heads.

Fire Station 59 in Artondale, Washington has adopted the nickname of "Sleepy Hollow", as the station is located in a remote, quiet subdivision within Pierce County.

gollark: *spellbook suddenly appears over his head due to bug*
gollark: Or crashes the next universe along.
gollark: [Universe crashes after extensive testing]
gollark: 🥖 ⚡ Electrified Bread Weapon.
gollark: ⚡

See also

References
  1. Burstein, Andrew. "The Politics of Sleepy Hollow". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  2. Haughton, Brian (2012). Famous Ghost Stories: Legends and Lore.
  3. "Musäus Folktale". Readprint.com. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
  4. Ward, Harry M. The War of Independence and the Transformation of American Society. ISBN 185728657X.
  5. Kruk, Jonathan. Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow & the Hudson Valley. ISBN 1596297980.
  6. A letter from Merwin Irving was endorsed in Irving's handwriting "From Jesse Merwin, the original of Ichabod Crane". Life and Letters of Washington Irving. 3. New York: G.P. Putnam and Son. 1869. pp. 185–186.
  7. Burstein, Andrew (2007). The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving. New York: Basic Books. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-465-00853-7.
  8. Puertas, Manuel Herrero (2012). "Pioneers for the Mind: Embodiment, Disability, and the De-hallucination of American Empire". Atlantis. 34.1.
  9. Martin, Terence (1953). "Rip, Ichabod, and the American Imagination". American Literature. 31.2.
  10. "Charles Sellier, creator of 'Grizzly Adams,' dies at 67". Variety. February 3, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
  11. Genzlinger, Neil (September 15, 2013). "An Ichabod Crane With Backbone (but Can He Use an iPad?)". The New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
  12. "Sleepy Hollow (1948)". Internet Broadway Database.
  13. "Sleepy Hollow Legend Lives on at Regional Competition". weber.edu. 28 December 2009. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
  14. Hansen, Erica (October 25, 2009). "WSU creates musical of 'Sleepy Hollow' tale". Deseret News. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
  15. "The Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards for Festival Year 2009". March 10, 2010. Retrieved November 28, 2010.
  16. Jones, Kenneth (August 31, 2011). "PLAYBILL.COM'S BRIEF ENCOUNTER With Hunter Foster, Librettist of The Hollow". Playbill. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
  17. "Sleepy Hollow - A Legendary Musical". www.sleepyhollowmusical.com. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
  18. "Tarrytown". Adam Wachter. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
  19. "Jeremy Jordan leads cast of musical loosely based on Sleepy Hollow story – listen to it now | WhatsOnStage". www.whatsonstage.com. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
  20. digitaldeliftp.com. "The Definitive American Novels Radio Log". digitaldeliftp.com. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
  21. https://hudsonvalley.org/
  22. http://archive.parentschoice.org/product.cfm?product_id=26038
  23. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cjchm
  24. Gillette News Record staff (2005-08-28). "Gillette residents identify with their subdivisions". Gillette News Record. Gillette, Wyoming. Retrieved 2018-10-29.

Further reading
  • Thomas S. Wermuth (2001). Rip Van Winkle's Neighbors: The Transformation of Rural Society in the Hudson River Valley. State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-5084-8.
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