The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

This post is in honor of Halloween. Sleepy Hollow terrifies me this time of year. When I lived in the woods in Northern MN., and I would walk to the shed or down the dirt driveway in Oct. I was on edge. The leaves were gone from the trees and the branches were like sharp gray spikes thrashing in the wind. It was easy to get goosebumps thinking "The Horseman" could burst out of the woods at any moment. During the day, or in the city this seems silly, but at night in the seclusion of woods, you would believe too. I took this illusion and ran with it at some "killer" Halloween  trail of terror parties for my teenage kids. Irving took a legend, or created one, put it in words and succeeded in speaking to something primal in all of us. I love this short novel with it's fireside dance in the colonial home, the dork Ichabod and the bully Brom Bones.