The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving

I don’t remember what I was doing that brought this story to mind, only that on thinking of it and realizing that I had never read it, I looked it up online and finding a free version (it’s in the public domain), read and thoroughly enjoyed it.

You surely know the story. Ichabod Crane is an itinerant schoolmaster come to a village on the Hudson River called Sleepy Hollow. Full of pride, and naturally full of superstition, magnified by the numerous supernatural stories of the area, he’s a comic figure. Though thin, and poor, he has a large appetite for food, and for material comfort. He sees a means to improve his life by marrying the daughter of a local wealthy farmer. But she, Katrina Van Tassel, is also being courted by one of the local boys, the “burly, roaring, roystering blade,” Brom van Brunt, called Brom Bones.

At a party thrown by the wealthy farmer, Katrina’s father, Ichabod dances with Katrina and seems to make a success, but, lingering after the party breaks up, he’s discouraged. Going home alone, in the dark, on a horse he borrowed from a local man, Ichabod comes upon a mounted figure, the “Headless Horseman” the locals tell tales of. The specter gives chase. Ichabod loses his saddle but stays on the horse, until the headless figure lifts his severed off the pommel where it rests and hurls it at Ichabod, hitting Ichabod on the back of his head and throwing him to the ground. The next day, Ichabod cannot be found. The villagers of Sleepy Hollow find the horse at his owner’s home, the saddle trampled in the dirt, and Ichabod’s hat beside a smashed pumpkin. Some are sure he was taken by the Headless Horseman. Others hear rumors that Ichabod moved to another part of the country and took up a life that led to the law and eventually politics. Brom Bones marries Katrina and seems to know more, “than he chose to tell.”

The story is very funny. It’s presented as a joke, a tall tale, not as a horror-story. Irving’s writing is excellent. His descriptions of the valley of Sleepy Hollow, and the Tappen Zee section of the Hudson are lovely. The list of food piled up at the dance party is especially good. Throughout, he keeps the tone mysterious and spooky with the villagers telling stories, and the autumn atmosphere of Sleepy Hollow itself.

The story is presented as being “found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker.” Diedrich narrates the story, which, in a postscript, he says he heard told to him by a man entertaining at his club in New York and took down, “almost in the precise words in which I heard it related.”

The story is from 1820. Washington Irving also wrote the Rip Van Winkle story, published in the same short story collection. A delight. Take an hour or so and read it for yourself.