THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW (1949)
It lives once more: Halloween has returned! Within the custom of my favourite vacation, I would prefer to honor one of many tremendous fiends of concern fiction… however which one? For these of us weirdos who reside the Halloween life-style every single day of the yr, deciding on a monster that feels particularly Halloween-y is a frightening job. Whereas any ol’ boogeyman is completely acceptable round this time, I wish to spotlight a horror that may solely exist within the chill of an October night time: a creature emblematic of all that spooky season stands for! Effectively, after a lot gravedigging and coffin-breaking, I’ve discovered my good Halloween monster: girls and gents, take away your tops (open to interpretation) for… The Headless Horseman!
Tales of headless phantoms on horseback have existed lengthy earlier than Washington Irving’s seminal story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hole.” The truth is, they have been galloping about for the reason that Center Ages. Irish mythology has the Dullahan, a decapitated rider who rides a black steed, tucks their very own head below one arm, and makes use of a spinal wire as a whip (probably probably the most metallic sentence you will learn right this moment). “Sir Gawain and the Inexperienced Knight,” a 14th-century Arthurian poem, additionally featured a person with an unadorned neck. And in Scottish folklore, there may be Ewen the Headless, a spectre who’s…effectively, you realize.
Haunting as these legends are, probably the most direct inspiration for Washington Irving’s Horseman was Sir Walter Scott’s The Chase from 1796, itself a translation of the German poem, “The Wild Huntsman” by Gottfried August Bürger, which was primarily based on Norse mythology (and I assumed Bing Crosby made all of it up). Based on Irving skilled Elizabeth Bradley, “Irving had simply met and turn out to be mates with Scott in 1817, so it is very probably he was influenced by his new mentor’s work.” The historian says that the poem is “a couple of depraved hunter who’s doomed to be hunted endlessly by the satan and the ‘canines of hell’ as punishment for his crimes.”
Regardless of its apparent European roots, “The Legend of Sleepy Hole” is as American as MAD Journal. The 1820 brief story, which first appeared in Irving’s assortment entitled The Sketch E book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., is presumably the primary true horror story to come back out of america and positively one of the crucial celebrated. Set within the Dutch settlement of Tarry City (historic Tarrytown, New York) and incorporating historic particulars from the Revolutionary Warfare, “Sleepy Hole” introduced ghosts to U.S. literature. And whereas the Horseman hails from Germany inside his fictional realm, I like to think about the noggin-free nightmare as the primary nice American bogeyman.
In Irving’s story, the Headless Horseman is believed to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head was blown off by a stray cannonball throughout “some anonymous battle” of the Revolutionary Warfare. The first haunting in Irving’s story entails a lanky, superstitious schoolmaster by the identify of Ichabod Crane. After a harvest celebration and a few ghost tales, Crane is menaced by the legendary spook, head on his saddle as an alternative of the extra trendy shoulders. The Horseman pursues Crane till the schoolmaster crosses the bridge adjoining to the Outdated Dutch Burying Floor, the place our pricey Horseman is claimed to “vanish, in keeping with rule, in a flash of fireside and brimstone” upon crossing it. However, being relatively artful for a headless gentleman, our Horseman lobs his head at poor Ichabod, sending the schoolmaster tumbling into the mud.
The following morning, ol’ Ichabod is nowhere to be seen, as if he had vanished from the face of the earth. All that continues to be of the previous schoolmaster’s horrific trip are a wandering horse, a trampled saddle, a discarded hat… and a shattered pumpkin. Now, it’s closely implied that the “ghost” was actually simply Ichabod’s romantic rival, Brom Bones, and that fateful night time of fright was only a mundane prank, fully devoid of the uncanny. Nevertheless, the story is ambiguous sufficient that one might imagine that Crane was “spirited away by supernatural means”. And that is what I select to imagine, pricey readers!
The Horseman’s energy extends far past the printed web page. North Tarrytown, the city that impressed the Legend, formally grew to become Sleepy Hole in 1996. Washington Irving, who lived in Tarrytown, is now buried at Sleepy Hole Cemetery. Their highschool soccer workforce is the Horsemen, and there is even a monument devoted to Ol’ Headless. If there really is a real-life Halloween City, it is Sleepy Hole.
For the reason that silent period, lots of of movies and exhibits have featured Irving’s specter, the primary being a 1922 image starring Will Rogers. Maybe probably the most beloved of those cinematic takes is 1949’s “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad’,” an animated characteristic that pairs “The Legend of Sleepy Hole” with a telling of “The Wind within the Willows.” Although we aren’t bereft of choices, the Disney adaptation is my decide for the very best. It combines slapstick and scares in a manner that may solely be achieved via animation. One other notable take is Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hole, a free adaptation of the story. It owes way more to Hammer than Irving, nevertheless it’s a wonderfully eerie yelp-yarn. And whereas the Burton movie reinvents the story right into a supernatural whodunit, it does retain the important components of the Legend. There was additionally a Sleepy Hole TV collection from 2013 to 2017, however I am unable to think about a present that ran for 4 years being notably devoted to a twenty four-page story.
The aforementioned shattered pumpkin is a curious side of the Horseman. What was as soon as a clue to the spurious nature of the spirit has turn out to be a part of its mystique. Not the software of a charlatan, it has turn out to be the weapon of one in all horror’s most commemorated villains. Through the years, the pumpkin has morphed right into a surrogate head, which I discover way more novel than a indifferent one. That pumpkin noggin is what separates our Horseman from the others. It has elevated him above the common apparition. It’s the motive why he’s Halloween’s chosen monster. Might the Horseman trip endlessly!
