The covered bridge

The bridge in the story

Washington Irving puts the bridge below the church in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. A wooden bridge crosses a deep black part of the brook not far from the church. The road to it and the bridge itself are thickly shaded by overhanging trees, gloomy by day and fearfully dark at night. Irving calls it one of the Headless Horseman’s favorite haunts and the place where he is most often met. On the last night Ichabod reaches it through a sandy hollow a quarter of a mile long, the bridge the goblin stories are told about. Just beyond it rises the green knoll with the whitewashed church.

Why he cannot cross

Irving never says that the Horseman cannot cross. He gives two stories told at the Van Tassel party. Old Brouwer, who did not believe in ghosts, had to ride behind the Horseman to the bridge, where the rider turned into a skeleton, threw him into the brook and sprang away over the treetops. Brom Bones raced him home from Sing Sing, and just as they came to the church bridge the Hessian bolted and vanished in a flash of fire.

On the dark road Ichabod remembers Brom’s story, and Irving writes: “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Irving calls it a rule and never explains it. Ichabod looks back from the far side to see if his pursuer will vanish “according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone.” The first telling may hold the reason: the Horseman is buried in the churchyard, and the bridge sits right below the church. Irving leaves you to connect the two.

What happens at the bridge

Gunpowder springs onto the bridge, thunders over the planks and gains the far side. Ichabod turns to look. The goblin rises in his stirrups and hurls his head. Ichabod tries to dodge and is knocked headlong into the dust. The next morning the hoof tracks lead to the bridge, and beyond it, on the bank of the brook, lie Ichabod’s hat and a shattered pumpkin. So the bridge did not save him. Irving adds that it became more than ever an object of superstitious awe, which may be why the road was later moved to reach the church by the millpond.

The bridge is not covered

Irving’s bridge is a wooden bridge with resounding planks, shaded by trees. He never calls it covered, and nothing in the story puts a roof on it. The covered bridge is ours. In The Sleepy Hollow Experience the bridge is covered a bay at a time with planks from the sawpit, and it has to be done before nightfall, because once the Horseman rides it is the only safe place there is. Irving gave the village a bridge the Horseman will not cross. We built one you have to close.