Sleepy Hollow

“Bridge over Sleepy Hollow Creek. Ichabod, according to Irving, in the Legend, returning from a late evening tarry with Katrina Van Tassel, on his lean steed Gunpowder, was chased by a huge horseman, without a head, from the Andre tree to the bridge. ‘He saw the walls of the church dimly gleaming under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones’ ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another compulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind, to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late; it encountered his cranium with a terrible crash; he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed like a whirlwind.’ A shattered pumpkin was found on the road the next day, but Ichabod had gone to parts unknown. Brom Bones, his rival, soon afterward let the pretty Katrina to the altar. The good country people always maintained that Ichabod was spirited away by the headless horseman, who was the ghost of a Hessian soldier, whose body, deprived of its caput by a cannon-ball, ws sleeping in the church-yard near."—Lossing, 1851

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