Oct. 26, 2022
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Pt 1
Herein lies the tale of the Headless Horseman of early New England: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving. The story is longer than I expected, so the second part will be released separately.
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Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hi folks.
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And welcome once again to another episode of forward into the past.
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I'm J.C.
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Rede, your host and narrator.
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And today we're completing our trilogy of haunted tales for the Halloween season, with Washington Irving's classic American ghost story from 1820, about a headless horseman, the legend of sleepy hollow.
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But before we go into that legend.
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I'm going to tell you the story of how that classic symbol of Halloween came to be.
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I'm talking about that grinning gourd, that the headless horseman himself was purported to wear the jack-o-lantern.
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Now, where did this tradition come from and how did we get the name?
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Well for the answer, we go back to the early 18 hundreds, when a wave of immigrants from the British Isles began to arrive at our shores here in America.
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The jack-o-lantern gets its name from an old Irish folk tale that goes back several centuries and spread its fame far and wide within the Irish and Scottish countrysides.
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That folk tale is the legend of stingy Jack.
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Now people have been making jack-o-lanterns at Halloween for centuries.
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The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed stingy, Jack.
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According to the legend stingy, Jack invited the devil to have a drink with him.
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True to his name.
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Stingy Jack did not want to pay for his own drink.
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So he convinced the devil to turn himself into some money that Jack could use to buy their drinks.
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Once the devil did so.
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Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket.
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Next was silver cross, which prevented the devil from changing back to his original form.
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Jack eventually freed the devil under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one full year and that should Jack die.
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The devil would not claim his soul.
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The very next year, Jack again, trick the devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit.
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While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into that tree's bark, so that the devil could not come down until the devil promised Jack not to bother him for 10 more years.
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However soon after this Jack died.
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Now as the legend goes, god would not allow such an unsavory character into heaven.
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And the devil upset by the tricks Jack had played on him.
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But still keeping his word, not to claim his soul, Would not allow Jack into hell.
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So he sent Jack into the dark countryside with only a burning coal to light his way.
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Jack put this coal into a carved out turnip and has been roaming the earth with it ever since.
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The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as Jack of the lantern.
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And over time simply became jack-o-lantern.
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In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack or other wandering evil spirits.
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In addition to potatoes and turnips in England, large beets were also used.
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Immigrants from these countries brought the jack-o-lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States.
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Upon arrival.
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They soon found that pumpkins a fruit native to America make perfect jack-o-lanterns and now, you know, the story of the jack-o-lantern and the legend of stingy Jack, and from the legend of stingy Jack, we go forward into the past once again, to hear the legend of sleepy hollow written by Washington Irving way back in 1820.
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Enjoy folks.
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The legend of sleepy hollow by Washington In the bosom of one of those spacious coves, which indent, the Eastern shore of the Hudson at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators, the Tappan Zee, and where the always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of Saint Nicholas when they crossed.
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There lies a small market town or rural port, Which by some is called Greensburg.
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But which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry town.
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This name was given, we are told in former days by the good Housewives of the adjacent country from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village Tavern on market days.
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Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it for the sake of being precise and authentic.
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Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather a lap of land among high Hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world.
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A small Brook glides through it with just murmur enough to lull one to repose.
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And the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquility.
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I recollect that when a Stripling, my first exploit in squirrel shooting was in a Grove of tall Walnut trees that shades one side of the valley.
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I had wandered into it at noontime.
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When all nature is peculiarly quiet and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and reverberated by angry echoes.
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If ever, I should wish for a retreat with her.
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I might steal from the world and its distractions and dream quietly away.
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The remnant of a troubled life.
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I know of none more promising than this little valley.
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From the listless repose of the place and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers.
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This sequestered glen has long been known by the name of sleepy hollow.
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And it's rustic lads are called the sleepy hollow boys throughout all the neighboring country.
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A drowsy dreamy influence seems to hang over the land.
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And to pervade the very atmosphere.
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Some say that the place was Bewitched by a high German doctor during the early days of the settlement.
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Others that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe held his powwows there before the country was discovered by master Hendrick Hudson.
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Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie.
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They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions and frequently see strange sites and hear music and voices in the air.
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The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots and Twilight superstitions.
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Stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country.
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And the nightmare with her whole nine-fold seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.
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The dominant spirit, however that haunts this enchanted region and seems to be commander in chief of all the powers of the air.
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Is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head.
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It is said by some, to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head had been carried away by Cannonball in some nameless battle during the revolutionary war and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night as if on the wings of the wind.
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His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance.
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Indeed.
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Certain of the most authentic historians of those parts who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning the specter.
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Allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard.
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The ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head.
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And that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the hollow, like a midnight blast is owing to his being belated and in a hurry to get back to the church yard before daybreak.
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Such as the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many, a wild story in that region of shadows.
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And the specter is known at all the country firesides by the name of the headless horseman of sleepy hollow.
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It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by everyone who resides there for a time.
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However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, They are sure in a little time to inhale the witching influence of the air and begin to grow imaginative.
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To dream dreams.
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And see apparitions.
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I mentioned this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is in such little retired.
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Dutch valleys found here and there enbosomed in the great state of New York, that population manners and customs remain fixed while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, Sweeps by them unobserved.
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They are like those little nooks of Stillwater, which border or rapid stream where we may see the straw and bubble riding along quietly at anchor or slowly revolving in their mimic Harbor undisturbed by the rush of the passing current.
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Though many years have elapsed.
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Since I trod the drowsy shades of sleepy hollow yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
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In this by place of nature, their abode in a remote period of American history that is to say some 30 years since a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod crane who sojourned or as he expressed it tarried in sleepy hollow for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity.
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He was a native of Connecticut, a state which supplies the union with pioneers for the mind, as well as for the forest and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country school master.
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The cognomen of crane.
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I was not in applicable to his person.
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He was tall, but exceedingly lank with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves feet that might've served for shovels.
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And his whole frame, most loosely hung together.
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His head was small and flat at top with huge ears and large green glassy eyes and a long snipe nose so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew.
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To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day with his clothes, bagging and fluttering about him.
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One might have mistaken him for the genius of famine, descending upon the earth or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.
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His school house was a low building of one large room rudely constructed of logs.
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The window's partly glazed and partly patched with leaves of old copy books.
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It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door and stakes set against the window shutters.
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So that.
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Though a thief might get in with perfect ease.
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He would find some embarrassment in getting out.
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An idea, most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten from the mystery of an eel pot.
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The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely, but pleasant situation just at the foot of a woody hill, With a Brook running close by and a formidable Birch tree growing at one end of it.
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From hence the low murmur of his pupils voices conning over their lessons might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive, interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master in the tone of menace or command or peradventure by the appalling sound of the Birch as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge.
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Truth to say he was a conscientious man.
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And ever bore in mind, the golden Maxim, spare the rod and spoil the child.
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Ichabod cranes scholars certainly were not spoiled.
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I would not have it imagined however, that he was one of those Cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects.
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On the contrary he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity taking the burden off the backs of the weak and laying it on those of the strong.
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Your mere puny Stripling that winced at the least flourish of the rod was passed by with indulgence.
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But the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little tough, wrong headed, broad skirted, Dutch urchin.
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Who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the Burch.
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All this.
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He called doing his duty by the parents and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance so consolatory to the smarting urchin That he would remember it and thank him for it for the longest day he had to live.
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When school hours were over.
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He was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys.
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And on holiday afternoons would convoys some of the smaller ones home who happened to have pretty sisters or good Housewives for mothers noted for their comforts of the cupboard.
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Indeed it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils.
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The revenue arising from his school was small and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread.
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For, he was a huge feeder.
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And though Lank had the dilating powers of an Anaconda.
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But to help out his maintenance.
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He was according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children, he instructed.
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With these, he lived successfully a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.
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That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons who were apt to consider the costs of schooling, a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones.
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He had various ways of rendering himself, both useful and agreeable.
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He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms.
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Helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture and cut wood for the winter fire.
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He laid aside to all the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating.
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He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest and like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously, the lamb did hold.
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He would sit with a child on one knee and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours altogether.
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In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing master of the neighborhood and picked up many, a bright shilling by instructing the young folks in psalmody.
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It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays to take his station in front of the church gallery with a band of chosen singers, where in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the Parson.
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Certain it is his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation.
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And there are peculiar.
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Quavers still to be heard in that church.
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And which may even be heard half a mile off quite to the opposite side of the mill pond on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod crane.
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Thus by divers little makeshifts in that ingenious way, which is commonly denominated by hook and by crook.
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The worthy pedagog got on tolerably enough and was thought by all, who understood nothing of the labor of head work to have a wonderfully easy life of it.
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The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood being considered a kind of idle gentleman-like personage of vastly superior tastes and accomplishments to the rough country Swains and indeed inferior in learning only to the Parson.
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His appearance, therefore is apt to occasion, some little stir at the tea table of a farmhouse and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats or peradventure.
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The parade of a silver teapot.
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Our man of letters, therefore was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels, how he would figure among them in the church yard, between services on Sundays, gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees reciting for their amusement, all the epitaphs on the tombstones or sauntering with a whole bevy of them along the banks of the adjacent mill pond.
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While the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back.
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Envying his superior, elegance and address.
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From his half itinerant life.
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Also, he was a kind of traveling Gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction.
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He was more over esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition for, he had read several books quite through and was up perfect master of cotton.
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Mather's history of new England witchcraft.
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In which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed.
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He was in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity.
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His appetite for the marvelous and his powers of digesting.
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It were equally extraordinary.
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And both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region.
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No tail was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow.
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It was often his delight after school was dismissed in the afternoon to stretch himself on the rich bed of Clover, bordering the little Brook that whimpered by his school house.
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And there, con over old Mather's direful tales until the gathering dusk of evening made the printed page, a mere mist before his eyes.
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Then as he winded his way by swamp and stream and awful Woodland to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered.
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Every sound of nature at that witching hour fluttered his excited imagination.
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The moan of the Wipper will from the hillside.
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The boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm.
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The dreary hooting of the screech owl or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds, frightened from their roost.
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The fireflies to which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places.
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Now, and then startled him as one of uncommon, brightness would stream across his path.
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And if by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost.
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With the idea that he was struck with a witch's token.
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His only resource on such occasions.
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Either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits.
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Was to sing Psalm tunes.
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And the good people of sleepy hollow as they sat by their doors of an evening were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody floating from the distant hill or along the dusky road.
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Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire with a row of apples, roasting and spluttering along the hearth and listened to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins and haunted fields and haunted Brooks and haunted bridges and haunted houses.
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And particularly of the headless horseman or the galloping Hessian of the hollow as they sometimes called him.
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He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft and of the dire full omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut.
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And would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars.
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And with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round and that they were half the time topsy turvy.
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But if there was a pleasure in all this while snugly cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber, that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood-fire.
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And where of course no specter dared show its face.
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It was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards.
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What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night.
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With what wistful look did he eye every trembling Ray of light streaming across waste fields from some distant window.
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How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which like a sheeted specter be set his very path.
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How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps in the frosty crust, beneath his feet and dread to look over his shoulder lest he should be hold some uncouth being trampling close behind him And how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast howling among the trees in the idea that it was the galloping Hession on one of his nightly scourings.
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All these however were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness.
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And though he had seen many specters in his time and been more than once be set by Satan in diverse shapes in his lonely perambulations yet daylight put an end to all these evils and he would have passed the pleasant life of it.
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In, despite of the devil end all his works if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man, then ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together.
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And that was.
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A woman.
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Among the musical disciples who assembled one evening in each week.
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To receive his instructions in Psalmody, It was Katrina van tassel, the daughter, and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer.
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She was a blooming lass of fresh 18 plump as a Partridge, ripe and melting and rosy cheeked as one of her father's peaches and universally famed, not merely for her beauty but her vast expectations.
00:23:59.101 --> 00:24:10.740
She was withal a little of a coquette as might be perceived, even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions as most suited to set off her charms.
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She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great, great grandmother had brought over from Saardam the tempting stomacher of an olden time.
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And with all a provokingly short petticoat to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.
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Ichabod crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex and it is not to be wondered at that.
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So tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes.
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More especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion.
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Old Balthus vantassle was a perfect picture of a thriving contented liberal hearted farmer.
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He seldom it is true sent either his eyes or his thoughts.
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Beyond the boundaries of his own farm.
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But within those, everything was snug happy and well conditioned.
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He was satisfied with his wealth But not proud of it and piqued himself upon the Hardy abundance rather than the style in which he lived.
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His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson in one of those green sheltered fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling.
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A great Elm tree spread its broad branches over it at the foot of witch bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water in a little well formed of a barrel and then stole sparkling away through the grass to a neighboring Brooke that babbled among alders and dwarf willows.
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Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn that might've served for a church.
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Every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm.
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The flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night, swallows and Martins skimmed Twittering above the eaves.
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And rows of pigeons.
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Some with one eye turned up as if watching the weather some with their heads under their wings or buried in their bosoms and others, swelling and cooing and bowing, about their Dames were enjoying the sunshine on the roof.
00:26:18.266 --> 00:26:24.715
Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens from whence sallied forth now.
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And then troops of sucking pigs as if to snuff the air.
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A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond Convoying whole fleets of ducks.
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Regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard and Guinea fowls fretting about it like ill tempered Housewives with their peevish discontented cry.
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Before the barn door, strutted the Gallant cock that pattern of a husband warrior and fine gentlemen clapping his burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet and then generously calling his ever hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel, which he had discovered.
00:27:10.945 --> 00:27:18.016
The pedagogues mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fair.
00:27:18.625 --> 00:27:20.425
In his devouring mind's eye.
00:27:20.635 --> 00:27:27.115
He pictured to himself, every roasting pig, running about it with a pudding in his belly and an apple in his mouth.
00:27:27.836 --> 00:27:35.096
The pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie and tucked in with a coverlet of crust.
00:27:35.695 --> 00:27:46.655
The geese were swimming in their own gravy and the ducks pairing cozily in dishes like snug, married couples with a decent competency of onion sauce.
00:27:47.395 --> 00:27:54.415
In the porkers, he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon and juicy relishing ham.
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Not a Turkey, but he beheld daintily trust up with its gizzard under its wing and per adventure on necklace of savory sausages.
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And even bright Chanticleer himself, lay sprawling on his back in a side dish with uplifted claws as if craving that quarter, which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask, while living.
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As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this.
00:28:21.276 --> 00:28:55.175
And as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadowlands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains and his imagination expanded with the idea how they might be readily turned into cash and the money invested in immense tracks of wild land and shingle palaces in the wilderness.
00:28:55.536 --> 00:29:04.385
Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes and presented to him, the blooming Katrina with a whole family of children.
00:29:05.026 --> 00:29:13.726
Mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household Trumpery with pots and kettles dangling beneath, and he beheld himself.
00:29:14.006 --> 00:29:20.786
bestriding, a pacing mare with a Colt at her heels setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or.
00:29:21.405 --> 00:29:22.286
Lord knows where.
00:29:23.836 --> 00:29:27.736
When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete.
00:29:28.276 --> 00:29:38.625
It was one of those spacious farmhouses with high ridged, but lowly sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers.
00:29:38.925 --> 00:29:45.625
The low projecting eaves, forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather.
00:29:46.786 --> 00:29:47.986
Under this were hung.
00:29:47.986 --> 00:29:54.125
Flails harness various utensils of husbandry and nets for fishing in the neighboring river.
00:29:54.915 --> 00:30:06.796
Benches were built along the sides for summer use, and the great spinning wheel at one end and a churn at the other showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted.
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From this piazza the wandering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the mansion and the place of usual residence.
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Here rows of resplendant pewter ranged on a long dresser dazzled his eyes.
00:30:24.365 --> 00:30:27.336
In one corner stood a huge bag of wool.
00:30:27.486 --> 00:30:28.806
Ready to be spun.
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In another, a quantity of Lindsey Woolsey, just from the loom.
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