The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | Page 2

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