The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

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"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a short story by Washington Irving contained in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., written while he was living in Birmingham, England, and first published in 1820. With Irving's companion piece "Rip Van Winkle", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is among the earliest American fiction still read widely today.

1 Plot
2 Inspiration
3 Film adaptions
4 See also
5 Further reading
6 External links

[edit] Plot

The story is set in the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, New York, in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. It tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a priggish schoolmaster from Connecticut, who competes with Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, a buff and tough man, for the hand of eighteen-year-old Katrina Van Tassel. As Crane leaves a party, he is pursued by the Headless Horseman, supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who lost his head to a cannon-ball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head." Crane runs away from town, leaving Katrina with Brom Bones, who is implied to be the Headless Horseman.

[edit] Inspiration

The denouement of the fictional tale is set at the bridge in the real location of the Old Dutch Burying Ground in Sleepy Hollow. The characters of Ichabod Crane and Katrina Van Tassel may have been based on local residents known to the author. The character of Katrina is thought to have been based upon Eleanor Van Tassel Brush and her name comes from Eleanor's aunt Catriena Ecker Van Tessel.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" follows a tradition of folk tales and poems involving a supernatural wild chase, including Robert Burns's Tam O' Shanter (1790), and Bürger's Der wilde Jäger, translated as The Wild Huntsman (1796).

[edit] Film adaptions

Notable film adaptations include:

The Headless Horseman (1922), a silent version directed by Edward Venturini, and starring Will Rogers as Ichabod Crane. It was filmed on location in New York's Hudson River Valley.
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), directed by James Algar, Clyde Geronimi and Jack Kinney, produced by Walt Disney Productions. It is an animated cartoon version of the story, paired with a similar treatment of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. The climactic ride is more extended than the original story, and whether the visually impressive Horseman is an actual ghost or a human in disguise is left unclear.
Sleepy Hollow (1999), directed by Tim Burton. A movie adaptation which takes many liberties with the plot and characters.

[edit] See also

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was founded in 1849, and is adjacent to the Old Dutch Burying Ground. They are separately owned and administered.

[edit] 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 0791450848.