Editing The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (section)

==Background==
[[File: John Quidor - The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane - Google Art Project.jpg|left|thumb|''The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane'' (1858) by [[John Quidor]]]]

The story was the longest one published as part of ''[[The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.]]'' (commonly referred to as ''The Sketch Book''), which Irving issued serially throughout 1819 and 1820, using the pseudonym "Geoffrey Crayon".<ref>{{cite book |author=Burstein, Andrew |url=https://archive.org/details/originalknickerb00burs/page/143 |title=The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving |date=2007 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-0-465-00853-7 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/originalknickerb00burs/page/143 143] |url-access=registration}}</ref> Irving wrote ''The Sketch Book'' during a tour of Europe, and parts of the tale may also be traced to European origins. Headless horsemen were staples of [[European folklore#Regional traditions|northern Europe storytelling]], featured in German, Irish (e.g., [[Dullahan]]), Scandinavian (e.g., [[Wild Hunt|the Wild Hunt]]), and British legends, and included in [[Robert Burns]]'s Scots poem "[[Tam o' Shanter (poem)|Tam o' Shanter]]" (1790) and [[Gottfried August Bürger]]'s ''Der Wilde Jäger'' (1778), translated as ''The Wild Huntsman'' (1796). Usually viewed as omens of ill fortune for those who chose to disregard their apparitions, these specters found their victims in proud, scheming persons and characters with hubris and arrogance.<ref>{{cite book|author=Haughton, Brian |title=Famous Ghost Stories: Legends and Lore|date=2012}}</ref> One particularly influential rendition of this folktale is the last of the "{{lang|de|Legenden von Rübezahl|italics=no}}" ({{gloss|Legends of [[Rübezahl]]}}) from [[Johann Karl August Musäus]]'s literary retellings of German folktales, {{lang|de|[[Volksmärchen der Deutschen]]}} (1783).<ref>{{cite book|title=Form and Fable in American Fiction|first=Daniel|last=Hoffman|authorlink=Daniel Hoffman|publisher=University of Virginia Press|year=1961|page=85 (footnote)|isbn=9780813915258|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p0qlvRNwSp4C&pg=PA85}}</ref>

After the [[Battle of White Plains]] in October 1776, the country south of the [[Bronx River]] was abandoned by the [[Continental Army]] and occupied by the [[Red coat (British Army and Royal Marines)|British]]. The Americans were fortified north of [[Peekskill]], leaving [[Westchester County]] a 30-mile stretch of scorched and desolated no-man's-land, vulnerable to outlaws, raiders, and vigilantes. Besides droves of Loyalist rangers and British light infantry, Hessian [[Jäger (military)|Jägers]]—renowned sharpshooters and horsemen—were among the raiders who often skirmished with Patriot militias.<ref>{{cite book|author=Ward, Harry M.|title=The War of Independence and the Transformation of American Society|year=1999|publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=185728657X}}</ref> The Headless Horseman may have indeed been based loosely on the discovery of such a corpse found in [[Sleepy Hollow, New York|Sleepy Hollow]] after a violent skirmish and later buried by the Van Tassel family in an unmarked grave in the [[Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow|Old Dutch Burying Ground]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Kruk, Jonathan |title=Legends, and Lore of Sleepy Hollow & the Hudson Valley|year=2011|publisher=History Press |isbn= 978-1596297982}}</ref> Two possible inspirations for the Headless Horseman were two actual incidents during the October 1776 Battles of White Plains: Lt Abraham Ondernock of the Orange County Militia, was beheaded by a cannonball; during the battle of Chatterton Hill One of the veterans of the battle, Gen. William Heath, noted in his journal that he witnessed a Hessian artilleryman lose his head on October 31st.<ref>[https://casanders.net/new-york-city-history/who-was-the-headless-horseman/ CS Standers who was the Headless Horseman]</ref>

According to another hypothesis, Irving could have drawn the figure of the "headless rider" from German Silesian literature, precisely from the Chronicle of [[Szprotawa|Sprottau]] (since 1945 Polish Szprotawa) by J.G. Kreis, written in the first half of the 19th century. In the 19th century, the police counselor Kreis noted that, in the previous century, the inhabitants of this city were afraid to move after dusk on ''Hospitalstrasse'' (now Sądowa Street) due to the headless rider apparition seen there.<ref>{{cite web |author=Boryna, Maciej |url=https://borynam.wixsite.com/zwiedzamyszprotawe/nawiedzona-ulica-w-szprotawie |title=Nawiedzona ulica w Szprotawie |publisher=Zwiedzamy Szprotawę |access-date=April 16, 2021}}</ref>
In support of the hypothesis, according to information in ''Polish Reception of Washington Irving's Work: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism'' by Zofia Sinko, [[Walter Scott]] encouraged Irving to learn German to be able to read stories, ballads, and legends in their native language.<ref>Sinko, Zofia (1988). [https://bazhum.muzhp.pl/media//files/Pamietnik_Literacki_czasopismo_kwartalne_poswiecone_historii_i_krytyce_literatury_polskiej/Pamietnik_Literacki_czasopismo_kwartalne_poswiecone_historii_i_krytyce_literatury_polskiej-r1988-t79-n4/Pamietnik_Literacki_czasopismo_kwartalne_poswiecone_historii_i_krytyce_literatury_polskiej-r1988-t79-n4-s141-173/Pamietnik_Literacki_czasopismo_kwartalne_poswiecone_historii_i_krytyce_literatury_polskiej-r1988-t79-n4-s141-173.pdf ''Polska recepcja twórczości Washingtona Irvinga: między Oświeceniem a romantyzmem'']. Pamiętnik literacki 79/4.</ref>

Irving, while he was an ''[[aide-de-camp]]'' to New York Governor [[Daniel D. Tompkins]], met an army captain named [[Ichabod Crane (colonel)|Ichabod Crane]] in [[Sackets Harbor, New York]], during an inspection tour of fortifications in 1814. Irving may have patterned the character after [[Jesse Merwin]], who taught at the local schoolhouse in [[Kinderhook (town), New York|Kinderhook]], further north along the [[Hudson River]], where Irving spent several months in 1809.<ref>A letter from Merwin Irving was endorsed in Irving's handwriting {{cite news|title=From Jesse Merwin, the original of Ichabod Crane|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l7-UqRn_BkgC&q=merwin+inauthor:washington+inauthor:irving&pg=PA184|work= Life and Letters of Washington Irving|location= New York|publisher= G.P. Putnam and Son|date= 1869| volume= 3|pages= 185–186}}</ref> Alternatively, it is claimed by many in [[Tarrytown]] that [[Samuel Youngs]] is the individual from whom Irving drew his character.<ref name="NYT">{{cite news |date=1894-10-14 |title=In Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Monument in Memory of Soldiers of the Revolution |page=17 |work=The New York Times |location=New York |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9804E4D91131E033A25757C1A9669D94659ED7CF |access-date=2009-02-20}}</ref> Author [[Gary Denniss]] asserts that while Crane is loosely based on Merwin, it may include elements from Youngs's life.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Denis |first1=Gary |title=Sleepy Hollow: Birth of the Legend |date=2015 |isbn=978-1-5116-4546-1 |location=Charleston, SC}}</ref>
[[File:Ichabod crane.jpg|thumbnail|right|''Ichabod Crane'', Respectfully Dedicated to [[Washington Irving]]. William J. Wilgus (1819–53), artist chromolithograph, c. 1856]]With "[[Rip Van Winkle]]", "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is one of Irving's most anthologized, studied, and adapted sketches. Both stories are often paired together in books and other representations, and both are included in surveys of early [[American literature]] and [[Romanticism]].<ref>{{cite journal|author=Puertas, Manuel Herrero |title=Pioneers for the Mind: Embodiment, Disability, and the De-hallucination of American Empire|journal=Atlantis|volume= 34 |date=2012|issue=1}}</ref> Irving's depictions of [[cultural region|regional culture]] and themes of progress versus tradition, [[supernatural]] intervention in the commonplace, and the [[romantic hero|plight of the individual outsider in a homogeneous community]] permeate both stories and helped develop a unique sense of American cultural and existential selfhood during the early 19th century.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Martin, Terence |title=Rip, Ichabod, and the American Imagination|journal=American Literature|volume= 31 |date=1953|issue=2}}</ref>