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 titled 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 1819. 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. This story in particular became very popular as a Halloween tale because of a character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.The "Legend" relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky, and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut. As a firm believer in witchcraft and the like, Crane has an unequaled "appetite for the marvelous," which is only increased by his stay in "the spell-bound region" of Sleepy Hollow. A source of "fearful pleasure" for Crane is to visit the Old Dutch wives and listen to their "marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins," haunted locations, and the tales of the Headless Horseman, or the …Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him." Throughout the story, Ichabod Crane 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. The tension among the three continues for some time and is soon brought to a head.

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