The story
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving’s story of a schoolmaster, a rich farmer’s daughter and a headless rider, told plainly: what happens, where it is set, who wrote it, and why it is read every October. Irving’s own words run through it.
What is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a story by Washington Irving, published in 1820 in his Sketch Book. In a Dutch valley on the Hudson, the schoolmaster Ichabod Crane courts the heiress Katrina Van Tassel. Riding home from her father’s party, he is chased by the Headless Horseman. He vanishes, and the story leaves what became of him open.
The story, in plain words
Sleepy Hollow is a quiet Dutch valley near Tarry Town, on the Hudson. Irving says the place is under a spell, and its people tell ghost stories by the fire. Their favorite is the Headless Horseman, a Hessian trooper who lost his head to a cannon-ball in the Revolutionary War. He rides out of the churchyard each night to look for it.
Ichabod Crane is the schoolmaster, a lank Connecticut man with a huge appetite and a head full of witch stories. He sets his heart on Katrina Van Tassel, the only child of a rich farmer, and on her father’s farm. His rival is Brom Bones, the best rider in the country and a prankster.
One autumn afternoon Ichabod rides old Gunpowder, a borrowed plow horse, to a party at the Van Tassel farm. There is food, dancing and ghost stories. Brom tells how he raced the Horseman, who vanished in a flash of fire at the church bridge. Ichabod stays behind to speak with Katrina. Something goes wrong. He leaves crushed.
On the road home a huge silent rider falls in beside him. On a rise Ichabod sees the rider has no head, and carries it on his saddle. The chase runs to the church bridge. Ichabod crosses it, looks back, and the thrown head knocks him into the dust. The next day they find his hat beside a shattered pumpkin. Ichabod is never seen in Sleepy Hollow again. Brom marries Katrina and laughs whenever the pumpkin is mentioned. Irving leaves the rest to you.
The real village
Sleepy Hollow is a real village on the Hudson, about 25 miles north of Manhattan. It was North Tarrytown until 1996, when it voted to take the name Irving made famous. Irving had visited Tarrytown in the late 1790s and drew on its landscape and customs. The Old Dutch Church, built by Frederick Philipse of Philipsburg Manor, still stands on North Broadway, with its burying ground beside it. Up the road is Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, open since 1849, where Irving is buried. His home, Sunnyside, is nearby in Irvington, and both it and Philipsburg Manor are open for tours.
The author
Washington Irving was born in New York in 1783 and died in 1859 at Sunnyside, his house on the Hudson below Tarrytown. He published the story in 1820 in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. The book came out in parts in 1819 and 1820, about thirty stories and essays, and it also holds Rip Van Winkle. Geoffrey Crayon was a pen name. So was Diedrich Knickerbocker, the Dutch historian whose papers the story is said to come from. Irving had written A History of New York under that name in 1809. Both tales are counted among the earliest American short stories.
Why it is read in October
The story is set in the fall. Ichabod rides to the party on what Irving calls “a fine autumnal day”. He passes fields of corn with “the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them” turned up to the sun. Irving never names Halloween or October. But a ghost story set at harvest time, ending with a pumpkin, belongs to the season. It is short, free to read, and ends on a question a class can argue over. If your class reads it this fall, the pages below take it one character at a time. The real village spends October on it, with a haunted hayride and a pumpkin trail. At Sunnyside the story is told live on October weekends, in Irving’s own words.
On screen
The story has been adapted for film and television. Three to know by name: Disney’s The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999), and the Fox television series Sleepy Hollow, which ran from 2013 to 2017. Each changes the story. Irving’s text is short, free, and the place to start.
Every quotation on these pages is Irving’s, from the 1820 text. The whole story is free at Project Gutenberg.
In Irving’s words
Irving, naming the valley at the opening of the story.
Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 1820. The voice reading Irving in the films was designed for Sleepy Hollow with ElevenLabs. It is not a recording of any person. The whole story is free to read.
From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere.
The questions people ask
One page for each, with Irving read aloud.
- Who is the Headless Horseman?The Headless HorsemanThe ghost of a Hessian trooper who lost his head to a cannon-ball and rides out each night to look for it. Who he is in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, where he rides, and why he hurries home before daybreak.
- Who is Ichabod Crane?Ichabod CraneThe Connecticut schoolmaster at the center of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. How Irving draws him, what he wants from Katrina Van Tassel and her father’s farm, and what the story does and does not say about his end.
- Why can’t the Headless Horseman cross the bridge?The covered bridgeIn Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman vanishes at the church bridge, and Ichabod Crane rides for it believing he will be safe. What the story says, what it leaves open, and where our covered bridge comes from.
- Is Sleepy Hollow a real place?The real Sleepy HollowSleepy Hollow is a village on the east bank of the Hudson River in Westchester County, New York, about 25 miles north of Manhattan. It was North Tarrytown until 1996. The church, the burying ground and Washington Irving’s grave are all there.
- Who is Katrina Van Tassel?Katrina Van TasselKatrina Van Tassel is the only child of a prosperous Dutch farmer, the girl Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones court in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Washington Irving gives her no line to speak and never tells what she said to Ichabod that night.
- Who is Brom Bones?Brom BonesAbraham Van Brunt, called Brom Bones, is the rider, prankster and local hero of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane’s rival for Katrina Van Tassel. Washington Irving never says he was the Horseman that night, and never says he was not.
- Who was Washington Irving?Washington IrvingWashington Irving wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in 1820, in a book that also holds Rip Van Winkle. He was born in New York in 1783, spent his last years at Sunnyside on the Hudson, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
- What is the story of Rip Van Winkle?Rip Van WinkleRip Van Winkle is the other American tale in the book that holds The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. A good-natured idler walks into the Catskills, drinks with strangers, sleeps twenty years, and comes home to a village he no longer knows.
- Who is the Headless Horseman on Roblox?The Headless Horseman on RobloxRoblox players know the Headless Horseman twice over: as the ghost in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and as Roblox’s own avatar bundle. In The Sleepy Hollow Experience any player can put on his costume at the statue and ride as him.
Asked
What people ask about the story
No, it is a story by Washington Irving, published in 1820. The Hudson, Tarrytown and the valley are real, and the village of Sleepy Hollow, New York, took the story’s name in 1996. The ghost, the chase and the people in it are Irving’s.
Irving gives two accounts and chooses neither. The old wives say the Horseman carried him off; an old farmer reports years later that Ichabod was alive, had studied law and sat as a justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones laughs whenever the pumpkin is mentioned.
It runs just under 12,000 words and is in the public domain. Project Gutenberg has the full text free of charge as ebook 41. Our five short films read lines from it aloud.
Irving says he is the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head was carried away by a cannon-ball in the Revolutionary War. He is buried in the churchyard and rides out each night to look for his head, hurrying back before daybreak.
It is a ghost story with one chase and no blood: the Horseman throws his head, and in the morning it is a pumpkin. The hard part for younger readers is Irving’s long 1820 sentences. Historic Hudson Valley suggests ten and up for its live telling at Sunnyside.
Looking for the game itself? The village is on the home page.
On Roblox
The bell rings at nightfall.
Free to play. Nothing to buy right now. Alone or with friends.
Maturity: Mild
Violence (Repeated/Mild). Shown as Roblox shows it.
Ages 16+ for now
Roblox opens a new experience to age-checked players first. The Parents page has the detail.
5 badges
Every night you survive is kept on your name.