The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was originally published in 1820 as part of a series of sketches under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon. The short story recounts the "adventures" of Ichabod Crane—a superstitious school teacher—and how he is driven from the small town of Sleepy Hollow by a headless, horse-riding specter. The mythic horseman in Irving's Legend was rumored to be the ghost of a Revolutionary War soldier, tragically decapitated by a flying cannonball.
