The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during the Halloween season. Very understandable indeed, with its amazingly chilling and atmospheric ambience. The story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town (New York), in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors. The most infamous creature in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman, said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper that had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during "some nameless battle" of the American Revolutionary War, and who "rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head". The Legend relates the tale of Ichabod Crane, a lean, lanky and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut.