Set in the autumn of 1790 in the secluded glen of Sleepy Hollow in the countryside near Tarrytown, New York, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of Icabod Crane, a gangly, superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut who competes with a town rowdy for the hand of the daughter of a wealthy farmer. He attends a harvest party to propose and is rejected. Returning home with a heavy heart and his mind alive with imaginings from ghost stories told at the party, he encounters a Headless Horseman. Thinking it the ghost of a Hessian soldier, he races off to the bridge by a burial ground, where legend says the ghost will disappear, but is overtaken by the specter, who hurls his head into Crane’s horrified face. Crane disappears, and the rowdy seems to have some inside information whenever the matter comes up.  The story was the longest in The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. and has remained a staple of horror and supernatural fiction, inspiring numerous adaptations for film, television and the stage for nearly 200 years.

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