50 Fun Facts About The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, what is found smashed beside Ichabod Crane's hat the morning after he vanishes?

A pumpkin lies in pieces by the brook, Irving's sly hint that no real ghost was involved. The water was searched, but the schoolmaster's body was never discovered.

Washington Irving wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in which country, where he had gone to rescue the family firm?

England was Irving's home when he wrote this very American tale. He had sailed over in 1815 for the family business, which went bankrupt, and he turned to writing for a living.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, what does the Headless Horseman do just as Ichabod Crane thinks he has reached safety?

The rider rises in his stirrups and hurls his head at him, a missile Ichabod tries too late to dodge. It strikes his skull with a tremendous crash and tumbles him into the dust.

Which actor plays an eccentric, science-minded Ichabod Crane in Tim Burton's 1999 horror film Sleepy Hollow?

Johnny Depp described his Crane as a very delicate, fragile person. Burton sends him to investigate a string of beheadings, a far bloodier plot than Irving's comic tale.

In Sleepy Hollow lore, the Headless Horseman is said to be the ghost of what kind of Revolutionary War soldier?

A Hessian trooper is the ghost named at every fireside in the valley. His body lies in the churchyard, and he gallops out each night in search of his missing head, hurrying back before daybreak.

In Disney's 1949 cartoon of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Brom Bones says the Headless Horseman rides on which night?

Halloween is the night Brom names, claiming the ghost hunts for a living head to replace his own. Irving's original story never mentions the holiday at all.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, wives named nearby Tarry Town because their husbands lingered where on market days?

The village tavern kept the men so long that, Irving jokes, the good housewives named the whole place for their tarrying. His narrator slyly adds that he does not vouch for the fact.

Irving writes that Sleepy Hollow's lanky Ichabod Crane, clothes fluttering on a windy hill, could be taken for what?

A scarecrow eloped from a cornfield is Irving's image for the gangly teacher. He adds that Crane's small head sat on his spindle neck like a weathercock telling which way the wind blew.

In Sleepy Hollow, which animal does Brom Bones teach to whine and introduce to Katrina as Ichabod Crane's rival?

A dog, a scoundrel in Irving's words, was taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner so Brom could ridicule the teacher in front of Katrina. Ichabod had wisely refused to fight him.

Which nickname for New York City did Sleepy Hollow author Washington Irving first use in his 1807 magazine Salmagundi?

Gotham, an Anglo-Saxon word meaning Goat's Town, appeared in the seventeenth issue of Salmagundi. Irving and his friends used the magazine to lampoon New York's culture and politics.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, what is the name of the broken-down plow horse Ichabod Crane borrows for the party?

Gunpowder had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. Gaunt and shaggy, with one eye missing its pupil, he still had more lurking devil in him than any young filly in the country.

Ichabod Crane of Sleepy Hollow is a native of which state, said to send forth legions of country schoolmasters?

Connecticut, Irving writes, supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest. Crane thrills his hosts with tales of the omens and witchcraft of his home state.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane firmly believes a witchcraft history written by which colonial minister?

Cotton Mather was Crane's favorite author. He would lie in the clover by the brook poring over the book's direful tales until dusk, then walk home startled by every sound.

Which horse, a creature full of mettle and mischief, does Brom Bones ride to the Van Tassel party in Sleepy Hollow?

Daredevil was a horse no one but Brom could manage. He preferred vicious animals that kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, and thought a well-broken horse unworthy of a lad of spirit.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, what is said to have carried away the Headless Horseman's head in a nameless battle?

A cannonball took it off, and the ghost is said to ride to the scene of battle each night to look for it. Real records note a soldier beheaded that way at White Plains in 1776.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a rider on a half-broken colt invites Ichabod Crane to what kind of party?

A quilting frolic at the Van Tassel farm was the invitation, and the school was turned loose an hour early. Ichabod then spent an extra half hour grooming with a bit of broken looking-glass.

On dark walks home in Sleepy Hollow, what does a frightened Ichabod Crane do to drive away evil spirits?

He sings psalm tunes, and villagers sitting by their doors were often filled with awe at his nasal melody floating from a distant hill. Giving music lessons was also his side job.

How does Brom Bones look whenever the tale of Ichabod Crane's disappearance is told in Sleepy Hollow?

Exceedingly knowing is Irving's phrase, and it led some to suspect Brom knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. He had led Katrina to the altar soon after his rival vanished.

An old farmer back from New York reports that Ichabod Crane survived Sleepy Hollow and ended up as what?

A court justice was his final post, on what Irving calls the Ten Pound Court. He had moved away, kept school while studying law, been admitted to the bar, turned politician and written for the newspapers.

After Ichabod Crane vanishes from Sleepy Hollow, what does farmer Hans Van Ripper do with his books of witchcraft?

He burns them, along with Ichabod's blotted attempts at verses for Katrina. Van Ripper then resolved to send his children to school no more, saying no good ever came of reading and writing.

When Ichabod Crane first sees the Headless Horseman against the sky in Sleepy Hollow, where is the rider's head?

On his saddle pommel sat the head that should have rested on his shoulders, and the sight turned Ichabod's terror to desperation. He rained kicks and blows on his old horse to give the rider the slip.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which landmark does the fleeing Ichabod Crane believe he must reach to be safe?

The church bridge was where the ghost had vanished in Brom Bones's tale, so Ichabod expects the same. The spot later inspired such superstitious awe that, Irving suggests, the road was altered to avoid it.

At the Van Tassel party in Sleepy Hollow, Brom Bones boasts he once raced the Headless Horseman for what prize?

A bowl of punch was the stake, and Brom swears his horse was winning until the ghost bolted and vanished in a flash of fire. He says it happened as he rode home from Sing Sing.

In a Sleepy Hollow ghost tale, the Headless Horseman throws old Brouwer into a brook after turning into what?

A skeleton is what he became before springing away over the treetops with a clap of thunder. Old Brouwer had been a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts until that ride.

Irving says lank Ichabod Crane of Sleepy Hollow, a huge feeder, has the dilating powers of which animal?

An anaconda is the comparison, and the feast at the Van Tassel farm shows why. Irving says Ichabod's spirits rose with eating as some men's do with drink.

How does the poorly paid schoolmaster Ichabod Crane keep a roof over his head in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

Lodging with pupils' families a week at a time, he went the rounds of the farms with all his worldly effects tied up in a handkerchief. He made himself useful with chores and by minding the babies.

Which 'golden maxim' does Irving say schoolmaster Ichabod Crane ever bore in mind in his Sleepy Hollow classroom?

Spare the rod, spoil the child was his rule, and Irving dryly notes that Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. He went easy on the weak and gave the tough ones a double portion.

Which fried treat heads Irving's list of Dutch cakes on the Van Tassel tea table in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

The doughnut, which Irving calls doughty, comes first, followed by the tender oly koek and the crisp and crumbling cruller. Such cakes, he says, were known only to experienced Dutch housewives.

Irving compares Ichabod Crane's clattering dancing at the Sleepy Hollow party to which saint, the patron of the dance?

St. Vitus himself seemed to be figuring before you in person, Irving writes, with not a limb or fibre of the lanky teacher idle. Katrina was his partner while Brom Bones sat brooding in a corner.

What does Ichabod Crane daydream of doing with the Van Tassel farm once he has married Katrina in Sleepy Hollow?

Selling it for cash was his plan, with the money sunk into tracts of wild land. He pictured Katrina and a wagonload of children setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee or the Lord knows where.

Which Washington Irving tale about a man who sleeps twenty years shares a collection with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

Rip Van Winkle appeared in the collection's first installment, which was an enormous success. Irving is said to have written it overnight while staying at his sister's house.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, what does the narrator say perplexes mortal man more than ghosts, goblins and witches?

A woman, the narrator jokes, and for Ichabod it was Katrina Van Tassel, a rich farmer's only child. Irving calls her a blooming lass of fresh eighteen and a little of a coquette.

The nickname of Katrina's suitor Brom Bones in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow comes from which of his traits?

His powerful frame, which Irving calls Herculean, earned Abraham Van Brunt the name Brom Bones. Broad-shouldered and double-jointed, he was the umpire in every local dispute.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow first appeared in which Irving collection, issued in installments in 1819 and 1820?

The Sketch Book brought Irving fame, and the ghost story was the longest piece in it. It came out in the sixth of seven installments printed in New York.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is credited to a fictional Dutch historian whose surname gave New Yorkers which nickname?

Knickerbockers took their name from Diedrich Knickerbocker, the invented scholar among whose papers the tale is supposedly found. The name lives on in the New York Knicks basketball team.

The huge tulip tree that terrifies Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow is named for which British officer captured nearby?

Major André ran British intelligence and was caught in 1780 while plotting with Benedict Arnold to hand over West Point, then hanged as a spy. Locals told of doleful lamentations around his tree.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, what do Dutch sailors call the broad stretch of the Hudson where they shortened sail?

Tappan Zee is the name, and Irving says the old sailors always implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed it. Ichabod rides home above its dusky waters on the fatal night.

What tops the fur cap that tells Sleepy Hollow gatherings Brom Bones and his hard riders are coming?

A fox's tail flaunted on his cap, and folk who spotted that crest at a distance always stood by for a squall. Old dames woken at midnight would say there went Brom Bones and his gang.

In the postscript to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, what does the storyteller admit when an old man questions the tale?

He doubts half of it himself, telling the skeptic that he does not believe one-half of it. The joke closes a mock-solemn debate about the tale's moral among the city's burghers.

Which phrase about money is Washington Irving, author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, credited with inventing?

The almighty dollar, which Irving called that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, comes from his story The Creole Village. Charles Dickens borrowed the phrase a few years later.

Disney's 1949 film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad pairs Sleepy Hollow with which British children's novel?

The Wind in the Willows fills the film's other half, narrated by Basil Rathbone. Both stories were planned as full-length features before production delays cut them down and merged them.

Which crooner narrates the Sleepy Hollow half of Disney's 1949 film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad?

Bing Crosby voices the whole segment and signs off by exclaiming that he is getting out of here. He re-created the narration for a Decca record the same year.

Disney's 1949 cartoon of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ends with a rumor that Ichabod Crane survived and married whom?

A wealthy widow in a distant county is the rumor, though the film's Dutch settlers remain certain he was spirited away by the Headless Horseman. Brom marries Katrina either way.

In Tim Burton's 1999 film Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane is no longer a teacher but what kind of New York City official?

A police constable in love with modern science and deduction, he is sent upstate to investigate a series of brutal murders. As in Irving's story, he ends up courting Katrina Van Tassel.

Which actor plays the Headless Horseman in his true form, head still attached, in Tim Burton's 1999 film Sleepy Hollow?

Christopher Walken plays the Horseman in his true form, while Ray Park performs the headless scenes. In Burton's version the ghost is summoned by Katrina's stepmother to kill off her enemies.

In the Fox series Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman turns out to be which of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

Death is his true identity in the series, which wakes Ichabod Crane in 2013 to work beside sheriff's lieutenant Abbie Mills. The pair learn they are the two Witnesses of Revelation.

What did Sleepy Hollow author Washington Irving name the neglected riverside cottage he bought near Tarrytown?

Sunnyside needed constant repair and renovation for the next twenty years. Irving died in his bedroom at the house in 1859.

Which carmaker closed its assembly plant in 1996, the year North Tarrytown, New York, renamed itself Sleepy Hollow?

General Motors employed some 5,000 people there at its peak and was the region's largest employer. With the factory gone, the village voted to take the name Irving made famous.

Which Tony-winning Canadian stage star played Ichabod Crane in a 1999 TV film of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

Brent Carver, who won his Tony on Broadway in 1993, played the schoolmaster in the film first shown on Odyssey, the cable network rebranded as the Hallmark Channel two years later.

How do Brom Bones and his gang smoke out Ichabod Crane's evening music class in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

Stopping up the chimney was one prank among many. The gang also broke into the schoolhouse at night and turned everything topsy-turvy, until the teacher thought witches were meeting there.