LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW.pdf

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Washing ton Irving

F OUND A MONG THE P APERS OF THE L ATE D IEDRICH K NICKERBOCKER

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,

For ever flushing round a summer sky.

C ASTLE OF I NDOLENCE.

I N 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 noon time, 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 S LEEPY

H OLLOW, 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 pow-wows 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 marvellous 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 nine fold, 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

church-yard, 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 church-yard 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 woodsmen 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 school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly

glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copy-books. 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 Houton, from the mystery of an eel-pot. The school-

house 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 bee-hive;

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 burthen 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

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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 consider 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

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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 make-shifts 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,

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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 tea-pot. 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 overrun 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 travelling 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

marvellous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by

his residence in this spellbound 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

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clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there con over old Mather’s

direful tales, until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes.

Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he

happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination:

the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hill-side; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of

storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from

their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled

him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead

of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost,

with the idea that he was struck with a witch’s token. His only resource on such occasions, either to

drown thought, or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes;—and the good people of Sleepy

Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe, at hearing his nasal melody,

“in linked sweetness long drawn out,” floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road.

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as

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they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to

their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges,

and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as

they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the

direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of

Connecticut; and would frighten them wofully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars; and

with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-

turvy!

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that

was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show his

face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and

shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night!—With what wistful look did

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