The Leyend of Sleepy Hollow

Ghost Stories

When the dancingwas over, Ichabod joined some people whoe were sitting with Van Tassel, gossiping about former times and telling long atories about the war. During the war the British and American lines wer close to this neighborhood, so the area was thescene of fighting. Each storyteller exaggerated his story with a little fiction and, in this way, made himself the hero of every adventure.

There was the story of a Dutchman called Doffue Maetling. He nearly captured a Brithish ship except that his gun broke when he fired it the sixth time. Then there was an old gentleman who, in the Battle of White Plains, managed to stop a bullet with a small swond. He felt it whizz around the sword, and then bounce off the handle . To prove it he could show them the sword and how it was bent a little at the handle. Several moreof these storytellers were equally great on the battlefield. They all thought they played an important role in bringing the war to a happy conclusion.

All these tales were nothing in comparison with the ghost stories that followed. Ghost stories and superstitions live best in the sheltered, long -settled places like Sleepy Hollow, but they are lost when the people move to big villages.

Besides, there is no encouragement for ghost in most of our villages. By the time they finish their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood.

So, when these ghost go out for their night walks, they have no friends left to visit.

Several Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's house and, as usual, they were busy telling everyone their wild and wonderful ghostly legends.

They told many depressing tales about funerals and about wailing ghost. They spoke about the woman in white, who haunted Raven Rock, having died there in the snow. Thet often heard her shrieking on wnter nights before a storm.

Most of the stories however, were about Sleepy Hollow's favorite ghost, the Headless Horseman. They heard him several times, patrolling the countryside. It was said he tied his horse up every night among the graves in the churchyard.

The church stands on a hill, and this quiet location seems to have made it favorite haunt for trouble spirits. A slope descends from the church to a silver sheet of water, bordered by highg trees. In such a sunny yard, overgrown with grass, the dead could certainly rest in peace. On one side of the church there was a stream and over the stream there was once a wooden bridge. The road and the brideg itself were shaded by overhanging trees, and these made it a gloomy place even in the daytime. At night the darkness was terrifying. This was one of the places where people most often met the Headless Horseman.

They told the tale of old Brouwer. All his life he never believed in ghosts, but, returning one night, he met the Horseman. The ghost made him get up behind him on his horse. Together they galloped over bushes and shrubs, over hill and swamps, until they reached the bridge. At this point the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton. He threw old Brouwer into the stream, and in clap of thunder, he disappeared over the tps of the trees.

Brom Bones inmediately told a story if his own that was three times as amizing. He described how when he returned one night from a neighborhood village, this Headless Horseman overtook him. Brom offered to race with him in order to win a bowl of punch. He should have won it too because his horse Daredevil easily beat the ghost horse. But just as they came to the church bridge, the Horseman galloped away, and then vanished in a flash of fire.

The men told these stories to each as they sat in the dark. From time to time faces of the listeners were lit by the gleam of light from someone's pipe. this made a deep iprossion on Ichabod, who told stories from the work of his favourite author, Cotton Mather. To these he added many remarkable events. some were stories from his native state of Connectitut, and some described tha fearful sights which he esperienced in his nightly walks around Sleepy Hollow.

When the party ended, the farmers gathered together thier falilies in their wagons, and were for some time rattling along the roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the ladies sat on horseback behind their favourite young men . Their light-hearted laughter, mixed with the clatter of hoofs, echoed through the silent woodlands, sounding fainter, until they gradually died away.

Soon all was silent and deserted. Only Ichabod remained to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress, fullt convinced that he was now an the road to success. What happened during this meeting I really do not know. I'm afraid something must have wrong, because after just a few minutes Ichabod left, looking quite upset.

Oh, these women! These women! Could that girl have used Ichabod? Was her encouragement of the poor teacher all a trick to secure her conquest of his rival? Heavin only knows!

It's enough to say that Ichabod went straight to the stable and, with several hearty kicks, woke up hip horse fromthe comfortable bed in which he was soundly sleeping dreaming of mountins of corn and oats, and grassy valleys.