The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
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- On the Web:
- Pressbooks - The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Apr. 12, 2024)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, short story by Washington Irving, first published in The Sketch Book in 1819–20. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” have been called the first American short stories.
The protagonist of the story, Ichabod Crane, is a Yankee schoolteacher who lives in Sleepy Hollow, a Dutch enclave on the Hudson River. A suggestible man, Crane believes the ghost stories and tales of witchcraft he has heard and read. He is particularly impressed by the tale of a spectral headless horseman said to haunt the area. Crane is also mercenary; he courts Katrina Van Tassel mostly because she is the daughter of a rich farmer and is expected to receive a large inheritance.
Abraham Van Brunt (also called Brom Bones) is Crane’s jealous rival, a local favorite and a rash horseman who often plays tricks on the schoolmaster. Late one night as Crane rides home from a party at Van Tassel’s home, he is suddenly frightened by a ghostlike headless horseman. The ghost pursues him and hurls at him a round object that he takes to be a head but is later revealed to have been a pumpkin. The schoolmaster is never seen in Sleepy Hollow again.