The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Difference between revisions

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'''"The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow"''' (also known informally and somewhat incorrectly as "The [[Headless Horseman]]") is a short story by American author Washington Irving, first published in February 1820 as part of a series of stories later collected as ''The Sketch-book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.'' As with a number of Irving's stories, the plot is based on German legend (particularly in the re-told versions of Karl Musäus), transplanted to a New York state setting, and mingled with Irving's genial satire of human, and particularly American, foibles.

 

The story has been subject to a great deal of adaptations since Irving's time. The "quilting frolick" of the original is often transferred to Halloween. In more than one adaptation it is strongly hinted that the Horseman is a genuine supernatural apparition.

 

* [[The American Revolution]]: Concluded not very long before the opening of the story; the Horseman himself is supposed to have been one of the [[The Sixteen Lands of Deutschland|Hessian]] mercenaries who fought for the British.

* [[Big Eater]]: Ichabod

* [[Hellish Horse]]

* [[Horror Struck]]: Averted in the original, in that Ichabod fervently believes in all supernatural phenomena -- even when (as it is strongly implied) the phenomena ''aren't'' supernatural. Later adaptations sometimes play the trope straight.

* [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]]: The story purports to have originated at some four removes from Irving himself, as 1) [[Same Face, Different Name|Geoffrey Crayon]]'s recounting of 2) the notes of American Dutch "historian" [[Same Face, Different Name|Diedrich Knickerbocker]] containing an account by 3) a poor and [[Unreliable Narrator|whimsical storyteller]] of 4) the legendary lore of the old Dutch wives of the New York colony.

* [[Lost in Imitation]]: Pretty much every interpretation after the original either has the [[Headless Horseman]] be truly supernatural (when the original strongly implies it was Brom Bones in disguise), Ichabod be slain by the Headless Horseman (in the original, it's declared he ran away from the Hollow and has taken to living elsewhere, though the locals prefer to ignore that news because him being carried away makes for "a better story"), or both.

* [[Shout-Out]]: Not only the usual literary allusions of the period, but especially to Irving's own fanciful ''Knickerbocker History of New York''.

* [[Purple Prose]]: Some modern readers may be put off by Irving's luxuriant descriptions, typical of the early nineteenth century, of the New York landscape, or the heaped-up delicacies of an old Dutch table, or the varied apparitions that haunt the Hollow.

 

== Live Action Film ==

* A silent version of the story appeared as early as 1908 ; in 1912 Ichabod was played by Alec B. Francis.

* The best known silent version appeared in 1922: ''The Headless Horseman'', directed by Edward Venturini, and starring Will Rogers as Ichabod Crane, filmed on location in New York's Hudson River Valley.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* A made-for-TV movie version, ''The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'' was made in 1980, starring Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane and Dick Butkus as Brom Bones. In this version Ichabod has become a [[Agent Scully|disbelieving rationalist]].

* The ''Tall Tales and Legends'' series, produced and hosted by Shelley Duvall, featured a "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" episode in 1987, starring Ed Begley, Jr. as Ichabod Crane, Beverly D'Angelo as Katrina Van Tassel, and Charles Durning as Doffue Van Tassel, the narrator.

* [[Wishbone]] reenacted the role of Ichabod Crane in the episode "Halloween Hound: The Legend of Creepy Collars" in 1996.

* In 1999 another made-for-TV film, also entitled ''The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'' (AKA ''La légende de Sleepy Hollow''), starring Brent Carver appeared; this was a Canadian effort filmed in Montreal.

* ''The Hollow'' (2004) was a TV movie, starring Kaley Cuoco as a teenage descendant of Ichabod Crane, that premiered on the ABC Family channel.

 

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* In 1972 a short animated version appeared, [[Narrator|narrated]] by John Carradine.

* Similarly, in 1986 ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'' featured an episode, "The Headless Motorcyclist," with a descendant of Ichabod Crane cursed by a headless apparition (on a motorcycle, naturally) who chases her.

** The Headless Motorcyclist may have been cribbed from the ''[[Kolchak the Night Stalker|Kolchak: The Night Stalker]]'' episode, "Chopper."

* ''The Night of the Headless Horseman'' (1999) was an hour-long computer motion capture animated Fox TV special.

** Not unlike a similar [[Casper]] comic, where the Horseman finally does meet up with his long-lost noggin, who's been going around as the "Horseless Headman".

 

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