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THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

by Washington Irving

Found among the papers of the late Diedrech Knickerbocker.

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;

And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,

Forever flushing round a summer sky.

Castle of Indolence.

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the

eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river

denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and

where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the

protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small

market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh,

but which is more generally and properly known by the name of

Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by

the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate

propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern

on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact,

but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and

authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles,

there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills,

which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small

brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to

repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a

woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the

uniform tranquillity.

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in

squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades

one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when

all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of

my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was

prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should

wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its

distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled

life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.

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 the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are

called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring

country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land,

and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was

bewitched by a High German doctor, during the early days of the

settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or

wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country

was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the

place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that

holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to

walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of

marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and

frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the

air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted

spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare

oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country,

and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the

favorite scene of her gambols.

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted

region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of

the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a

head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper,

whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some

nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and

anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of

night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not

confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent

roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great

distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of

those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating

the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body

of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost

rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head,

and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along

the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated,

and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition,

which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that

region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country

firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have

mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the

valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides

there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before

they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time,

to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow

imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud for it

is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there

embosomed in the great State of New York, that population,

manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of

migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes

in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them

unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water,

which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and

bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their

mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current.

Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of

Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the

same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered

bosom.

In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period

of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a

worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as

he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of

instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of

Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for

the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its

legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters. The

cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was

tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and

legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that

might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely

hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge

ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it

looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell

which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of

a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering

about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine

descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a

cornfield.

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely

constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly

patched with leaves of old copybooks. It was most ingeniously

secured at vacant hours, by a *withe twisted in the handle of the

door, and stakes set against the window shutters; so that though

a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some

embarrassment in getting out, --an idea most probably borrowed by

the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eelpot.

The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation,

just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by,

and a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. From hence

the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons,

might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a

beehive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of

the master, in the tone of menace or command, or, peradventure,

by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy

loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he

was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim,

"Spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars

certainly were not spoiled.

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of

those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of

their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with

discrimination rather than severity; taking the burden off the

backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your

mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the

rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice

were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little

tough wrong headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and

swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he

called "doing his duty by their parents;" and he never inflicted

a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so

consolatory to the smarting urchin, that "he would remember it

and thank him for it the longest day he had to live."

When school hours were over, he was even the companion and

playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would

convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty

sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts

of the cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms

with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small,

and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily

bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the

dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance,

he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and

lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed.

With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the

rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up

in a cotton handkerchief.

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his

rustic patrons, who are apt to considered the costs of schooling

a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones he had

various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable.

He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of

their farms, helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the

horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood

for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant

dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his

little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle

and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers

by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like

the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold,

he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with

his foot for whole hours together.

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-

master of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings

by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no

little vanity to him on Sundays, to take his station in front of

the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where, in his

own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson.

Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the

congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in

that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite

to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning,

which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of

Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that

ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by

crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was

thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork,

to have a wonderfully easy life of it.

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in

the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a

kind of idle, gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste

and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed,

inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance,

therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table

of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes

or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot.

Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles

of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the

churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for

them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees;

reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones;

or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the

adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung

sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.

From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of

traveling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from

house to house, so that his appearance was always greeted with

satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of

great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and

was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's "History of New England

Witchcraft," in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently

believed.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and

simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers

of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been

increased by his residence in this spell-bound region. No tale

was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was

often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the

afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering