The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

She is also the only child of Baltus Van Tassel, one of the more successful farmers in the area. Katrina Van Tassel, a beautiful young woman of eighteen, is one of Ichabod’s students. He also has an insatiable hunger and a taste for the finer things. This arrangement keeps him employed and gives him many opportunities to hear ghost stories from the farmers’ wives and eat meals with the farmers’ daughters. Along with this, Ichabod makes some extra money teaching singing lessons-he prides himself greatly on his magnificent voice. Ichabod makes almost no money, and it is customary in the village for the farmers whose sons he teaches to feed and board him in rotation. Ichabod is a strict teacher but not a cruel one, doling out his punishment of the rod only to those who can handle it. Ichabod is fascinated by this story, being especially interested (and prone to believe) in tales of the supernatural. He is believed to be always in search of his head. The Horseman is seen most often riding by the church, where local historians say he was buried. Sleepy Hollow’s most famous supernatural phenomenon is the ghost of the Headless Horseman, said to be a Hessian soldier who lost his head to a cannon ball during the Revolutionary War. Sleepy Hollow, maybe for that reason or maybe because its residents are almost all descended from its original Dutch settlers, has more than its fair share of supernatural occurrences, or at least stories of them. Its residents all seem to move a little slower, daydream a little more, and be more prone to believe in the supernatural.

Sleepy Hollow is a small, very quiet town said to be under some kind of enchantment. Ichabod comes to Sleepy Hollow, New York, from his home state of Connecticut, to be the schoolmaster of the village. “ The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” tells the story of Ichabod Crane and his hapless attempt to win the heart and hand of Katrina Van Tassel in the context of a comical ghost story.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving