WEBVTT

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Having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of

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battle in nightly quest of his head, and at the rushing speed with which he

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sometimes passes along the hollow in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

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I love that. Who wrote that?

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Oh, you’ve never heard of Diedrich Knickerbocker?

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No.

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How about Jonathan Oldstyle?

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No.

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Will Wizard?

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Nope.

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Come on, guys. It’s all Washington Irving.

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Well, I guess today we’re gonna be unfolding the story of Washington Irving

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and the legend of Sleepy Hollow.

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This week on Folktown, Sleepy Hollow, a town that’s anything but sleepy.

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Welcome to Folktown. Welcome back, residents of Folktown. We have reached the

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end of chapter one, Sleepy Hollow. Isn’t that crazy?

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It’s wild.

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I just, I don’t want to talk about it.

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So this is the big kahuna, as they say.

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This is the one we’ve been waiting for. This is actually the story and the reason

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that we did this podcast.

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And it is the Legend of the Headless Horseman and where it comes from and different iterations.

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But before we dive into that, we just want to say thank you.

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Right, ladies? This was a lot of learning, a labor of love for us.

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We were all really excited to do this. And for the first time,

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we’re all sitting in the same room. Wait, not the first time in life.

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Yeah, but like the first time recording. Yeah. We are coming to you live from

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Studio 7, Gotham West, first time that I’ve been here.

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And if you can hear the excitement, it’s probably because I’m just so happy

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to be here with everybody. But we are going to talk a little bit today about…

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The Headless Horseman, and we’re gonna dive into the man behind the myth,

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the legend, the beautiful story that is the legend of Sleepy Hollow.

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But stuff that we, in our research, did not know before.

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I did not know that, you know, Washington Irving, who wrote the legend of Sleepy

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Hollow, I did not know that all of these stories that existed in mythology were

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out there. All these Headless Horseman iterations throughout the world.

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Well, I think there’s that thing thing that all artists have,

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right? We all adapt our art based on life and anything can influence anybody, right?

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Absolutely, absolutely. And we will be diving into a lot about Washington Irving

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and his life and all of the characters and the real people that influence those characters.

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But first we kind of want to talk about the different stories.

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I mean, I’ll kick it off to you, Dina. No stress, no stress.

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You’re going to be telling us the Scottish version.

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I’m going to be telling you like a minute of the Scottish version.

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Okay, that’s fine.

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Because I think the real thing, which is why we want to start with the folklore,

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is because it’s so steeped in culture, right? You have Irish folklore,

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Scottish, German, you know, Native Americans have their own.

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And we all know that these stories are fictitious, if you will,

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but so much of their cultures and traditions are involved in this and that’s

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why people get so into it I think.

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And America is such a hodgepodge like

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meshing of all of these cultures that I think that’s why after 200 plus years

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we’re still telling this story because we’ve discovered you know it’s considered

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one of the original ghost stories slash American folk tales that really kind

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of started our country off.

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And, insanely enough, right by where we grew up.

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Again, so this is kind of where all of our interest into this season of Folktown started,

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and many more towns and many more spooky stories to come,

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but with all the different versions that we looked into,

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I think there’s something really beautiful about the fact that over hundreds

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and hundreds, thousands of years, these stories can evolve into a story that

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we read in school in New York State.

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You know, like I was saying, in the school district I went to,

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it’s required reading for 7th grade, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

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So we all know it. And then we go take the field trip.

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So I can’t imagine how you would go. I know you didn’t attend,

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but there is a Washington Irving Middle School in Tarrytown.

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How do you attend that school and then you don’t read the story,

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right? I mean, it’s embedded in curriculum.

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Don’t know the history, yeah.

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OK, so dive in. Tell us a little bit.

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So you know, I feel like it’s almost almost like which came first,

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the chicken or the egg here, you know, like which one of these stories really

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kind of started it all, but it kind of evolves and I don’t know,

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there’s just all this like backstory, origin stories we were calling it.

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So the Scot’s Tale of the Headless Horseman concerns a man named Ewen,

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who was decapitated in a clan battle at Glen Coneer on the Isle of Mull,

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and he died in battle, and that to me immediately set off that light bulb and

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I was like, the Hessian, you know?

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Like, that must have been him, you know? And that’s pretty much the whole story

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because it wasn’t just so much about somebody coming back to haunt, it was about.

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the killing of this person who lost his head.

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Yeah, and wasn’t there a bit that, like, he was super pissed that they wouldn’t

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make him a chieftain or something?

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The battle denied him any chance to be a chieftain.

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Because he got killed dead.

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Yeah, I mean, he died. So close. Poor guy.

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So close. Like you just said, that is, hello? Ringing that bell.

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And do you know his horse was headless too? Oh, wait. Poor horses during this time.

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Hold on. That means the poor horsey’s head got cut off?

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Yeah. Or blown off.

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I hate that. Yeah, I know.

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I hate that.

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Yeah.

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That’s a rough one.

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Yeah, that was really rough.

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Welcome, everyone.

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So mine is based in German folklore. And the reason I’m going next,

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because Dayelle is going to share the Irish version, and it is so damn creepy that it’s so creepy.

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So mine is based on the German folklore that in Germany, a headless horseman,

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um, mostly these stories mostly came from the Rhineland rather than using the decapitation.

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The headless horseman killed their victims simply by touching them.

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So apparently these headless horsemen, they were revenants who had to wander

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the earth until they atoned for all of their sins.

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So sometimes they would do a good deed for strangers and instead of showing

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their gratitude by shaking their hands, the stranger and the horseman would

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hold a tree branch between them and then the branch would wither and die rather

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than the stranger dying.

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And that’s eventually, as Revenants, how they would get back into the good graces

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and then be able to pass into the afterlife.

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For those of you that don’t know, a Revenant is an animated corpse. So we had zombies too.

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Perfect.

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Yeah.

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Excellent.

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I mean, again, like maybe this could have been an inspiration for a zombie story,

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right? A reanimated corpse? Absolutely.

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Say that, Irving, that we’re going to go ahead and we already can debunk the

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fact that this was an incorrect year of when they say he traveled to Germany,

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but that he had traveled to Germany and become quite familiar with the Dutch and German folklore,

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in particular the last of the legend von Rübsal, the legends of Rübsal from

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Johann Karl August Muschus’s Literary tellings, German folktales.

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I’m doing my best with the German here, guys. It’s said to have inspired the

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legend of Sleepy Hollow. And again, no way to prove this, but just some of those

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similarities there in the story.

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The Revenant thing is a little eh, but you know.

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The Headless Horseman is said to ride every Halloween.

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And I kind of dig that vibe that he can kill you just by touching you.

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It has that bridge to maybe the Headless Horseman was a character to resemble death.

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Yeah. Yeah, agreed.

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Which ties into Dale’s creepy story.

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So my story is the Irish legend of the Dalahan.

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And I’m probably not pronouncing that right, so just bear with me.

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But this is super fascinating because it’s a really eerie creepy And it’s deeply

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rooted in the Celtic mythology.

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So it’s said to originate from a Celtic God chrome Da which again?

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I’m probably not pronouncing that right? So I apologize.

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You really should brush up on your gala before but this guy was a It describes,

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this god was described as a dark, bent man who would ask for human sacrifices.

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And he also was the fertility god, which is quite interesting.

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That’s an interesting pairing.

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Yeah, yeah, like a very, okay. Take one out, put one in. Like,

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okay, I guess, I mean, I guess that works.

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But the doll hand is supposed to be based on this god-like character.

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But this guy is the Irish version of the Horseman.

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And in this version, it is him riding through the night, as most of the Horsemen

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do. They ride through the night.

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He holds his head on his shoulder, but instead of, I’m sorry,

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Correction, he does not have his head on his shoulders.

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He holds his head up very, very, very high, and it’s said that the head is a

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decaying severed head. Delicious. Yeah, that’s great.

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But then there’s also another little tidbit that I found super creepy and gross,

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that he also wields a whip made from a human corpse’s spine.

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I think you should have just touched straight to that.

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Yeah, can you imagine coming across this?

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headless horseman, this variation of him. But then it gets even crazier because

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he’s also depicted as riding in a black carriage or coach that is pulled by six black horses.

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And the carriage is often described as being made of dark materials and human bones. Fantastic.

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Yeah.

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And the carriage is supposed to be the symbol of death. So he is kind of death, right?

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And it said that when the doll hand stops writing, a death occurs and he calls out a name.

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And at which point that person’s name, whoever it might be, immediately dies.

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That’s great. So that’s where that story goes.

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You and creepiest story.

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Yeah.

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And I think that’s the point, right? We hear a creepy story like this.

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I mean, we really could have just like cut right to like, This guy’s got a whip

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that’s made of somebody’s spine.

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He says your name and you’re dead. Again, you don’t have to- As a child who

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would hear a story like that, that would be terrifying.

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And I think that’s the thing. These are the things that stick with us into adulthood.

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And that’s how we love kind of piecing the puzzles of folklore and different cultures together.

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And there were so many others, by the way. I don’t know if anyone,

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for the listeners, Start if you’re interested in this kind of stuff start researching

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because we there was it’s a rabbit hole it is intense the amount of Headless

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Horseman stories that exist out there in different cultures and I always find

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that interesting because if every culture has a version,

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Maybe there’s that kernel of truth somewhere, right? So if every culture across many centuries,

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different parts of the world, where they didn’t have ways to tell each other the stories,

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it’s not like they could look it up the internet, it’s not like they could read

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it in a book, these pieces of literature,

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this information was not being crossed oceans, not crossing oceans to other

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folks, how is everybody during very similar time periods creating these headless horseman stories?

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So true. It makes me think of like, I don’t know if you guys ever did this as

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kids, but when you had the game of telephone, where you had like the two cups,

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and like as the story goes down the line, it changes.

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Or like when you’re, I know in like school we had, the teacher would tell you

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one thing at the front of the line, and as the story went down the line,

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it would change drastically.

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They would have like maybe one or two little tidbits that were the same,

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but by the time it got to the end, it was a completely different story, but it all originated.

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with one story?

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Because we had oral tradition, right?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And obviously that is an epic game of telephone until people started writing

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things down and publishing them for everybody to be able to read in languages

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that everybody was able to read, not just Latin. Exactly, that language barrier.

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There’s also, you know, there’s a, I don’t know, maybe a selfishness that,

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you know, we’ve been blessed in the US with this, you know, version of the Headless

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Horseman, we’ve all grown up with it, but there are parts of culture.

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My dad grew up, my grandmother was, I think everyone had this shock and realization

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when they got 23andMe test that we are not Native American,

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so much so we thought we were Native American that my cousins had tribal cards

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because one of our great grandmothers was in a Native American Cherokee tribe,

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all this kind of stuff, right?

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So then you get your DNA, you’re not. But because that was such an important

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thing, my mom would bring us to powwow ceremonies to teach us better culture. And.

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beauty of sitting down and having a stranger tell you

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a story about your people and your culture just and even it had nothing to do

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with me but it just felt like I was part of something that was part of me and

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I think that like you brought up that’s a really beautiful tradition of oral

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tradition and telling stories and the Headless Horseman I think is ours.

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Without a doubt. In the U.S. that is our every Halloween you know to watch out

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for the Headless Horseman.

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that it’s part of our culture and not just here in New York.

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People, I would imagine, also that’s conjecture because I’ve never lived anywhere

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other than New York, but I would imagine that’s a story that everybody thinks of on Halloween, right?

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Without a doubt, without a doubt. And you know, a legend is just that.

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It’s based on history and people think it’s real. There’s no way to prove it.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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And that’s what makes it fun. Yeah, exactly. That’s why we’re here.

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Hold on, I just realized something. It’s Halloween, guys.

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Yeah, it is.

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Happy Halloween.

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Best day of the year.

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Best holiday of the year, in my opinion, because you get to celebrate it without

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having to give people presents, you know, just candy.

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Yeah, but my favorite language is spooky stories.

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Speaking of spooky stories.

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Perfect segue, because we’re going to take a short break.

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And when we get back, we are going to tell you the legend of the Headless Horseman.

00:15:59.888 –> 00:16:04.931
Welcome back, dear listeners. So we are almost to our favorite part of the episode,

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like I said before, which is the story.

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But I did just want to talk a little bit more on the Headless Horseman,

00:16:12.157 –> 00:16:20.523
and we’re not going to talk about the Sleepy Hollow movie, because the inaccuracies

00:16:20.523 –> 00:16:23.105
in that movie to this story are abundant.

00:16:23.945 –> 00:16:28.869
I did not rewatch it specifically because I did not want to be tainted and say

00:16:28.869 –> 00:16:33.432
something that was not factual in this episode. Dina, I know you did.

00:16:33.432 –> 00:16:36.432
You know, I tried because I watched it when it…

00:16:37.011 –> 00:16:40.533
originally came out and I really did like it. I did because it’s just another

00:16:40.533 –> 00:16:42.495
version of the story and I love adaptations.

00:16:43.136 –> 00:16:46.518
Tim Burton’s great, you know, and Johnny Depp again.

00:16:47.479 –> 00:16:52.133
But yeah, then I watched it the other night after now having been so engulfed

00:16:52.133 –> 00:16:56.726
in all of this and gone down that rabbit hole and now I can’t enjoy it because

00:16:56.726 –> 00:16:58.248
I’m like, that’s not what the church looks like.

00:16:58.248 –> 00:17:02.791
That’s not what’s happening. Nope. Nope. He was a teacher. He was not a concept. What is happening?

00:17:02.791 –> 00:17:04.413
He strayed too far.

00:17:05.233 –> 00:17:09.436
But he did and he didn’t. He created his own version of it, right?

00:17:09.436 –> 00:17:12.078
And Christopher Walken was such a great Hessian, you know?

00:17:13.340 –> 00:17:16.562
He was creepy with those shaved down teeth, like come on.

00:17:17.903 –> 00:17:22.887
But people who are watching that, thinking they know the legend of Sleepy Hollow,

00:17:22.887 –> 00:17:27.431
you don’t. You just know the Tim Burton version of Sleepy Hollow,

00:17:27.431 –> 00:17:29.932
which plays fast and loose.

00:17:30.413 –> 00:17:33.435
Now, I didn’t watch it, but Dale, didn’t you watch the Sleepy Hollow show?

00:17:33.435 –> 00:17:33.895
Yeah.

00:17:34.536 –> 00:17:36.217
Okay, and where are we at?

00:17:36.217 –> 00:17:37.597
It’s totally, no, no, no.

00:17:37.718 –> 00:17:40.660
Well, thank you, one listener told us it was from Wilmington,

00:17:40.660 –> 00:17:44.563
North Carolina, filmed in. That is awesome. Filmed in, yes.

00:17:44.563 –> 00:17:47.765
But it’s supposed to take place in the actual Sleepy Hollow,

00:17:47.765 –> 00:17:53.029
New York, like, which makes it even more interesting, but it’s nothing like

00:17:53.029 –> 00:17:55.370
the legend of Sleepy Hollow, the story.

00:17:55.751 –> 00:18:00.534
They took very creative, they took a very creative direction for it.

00:18:00.534 –> 00:18:03.255
I love the guy who plays Ichabod, but.

00:18:06.289 –> 00:18:11.153
Yeah. It’s not at all. It’s a lot more about the world ending and there being,

00:18:11.153 –> 00:18:15.636
you know, there’s four horsemen that are coming and that brings about…

00:18:16.097 –> 00:18:18.018
Yes, exactly. It’s the start of the apocalypse.

00:18:18.018 –> 00:18:19.620
Interesting. Okay.

00:18:19.620 –> 00:18:21.381
So, just another variation, but…

00:18:21.381 –> 00:18:27.886
So, is that horseman then that is after Ichabod one of the four horsemen of

00:18:27.886 –> 00:18:29.848
the apocalypse? Is that a tie?

00:18:29.848 –> 00:18:31.609
Yes. That’s clever. That’s kind of…

00:18:31.609 –> 00:18:32.350
I like that.

00:18:32.350 –> 00:18:36.673
Yeah, I mean, again, I liked the show. I like the show. I think,

00:18:36.673 –> 00:18:41.156
though, if you’re looking for something that is the story, the main story,

00:18:41.156 –> 00:18:43.878
that’s not the show, Sleepy Cow.

00:18:43.878 –> 00:18:48.802
Okay. All right. Well, we have two no’s on the accuracy there,

00:18:48.802 –> 00:18:52.835
but I will say I did enjoy the movie when I watched it. And…

00:18:52.835 –> 00:18:54.066
Entertaining.

00:18:54.066 –> 00:18:57.348
Yeah, very entertaining. And there’s nothing wrong with taking creative liberties

00:18:57.348 –> 00:19:01.110
and going your own direction, but that’s not what we did today.

00:19:01.511 –> 00:19:05.433
And how would Irving had made his legend legend if he didn’t technically do the same thing.

00:19:05.433 –> 00:19:06.073
Yeah, absolutely.

00:19:07.755 –> 00:19:13.078
So he pulled from, like we said, all of these different folklore versions from

00:19:13.078 –> 00:19:17.381
all over the world and created his own, the one that we know and love.

00:19:19.142 –> 00:19:24.085
So cozy up, dear listener, because now we will be telling you the legend of Sleepy Hollow.

00:19:25.846 –> 00:19:30.750
Welcome, dear listeners, to a chilling tale of the supernatural that has haunted

00:19:30.750 –> 00:19:33.173
the quiet village of Sleeping Hollow for generations.

00:19:35.437 –> 00:19:40.502
This is the legend of the Headless Horseman and the Hapless Schoolteacher.

00:19:48.400 –> 00:19:54.524
In the early 19th century, Sleepy Hollow was a place where time seemed to stand still.

00:19:56.385 –> 00:20:03.370
Nestled in the Hudson Valley, the town was known for its tranquil beauty and, of course, its legends.

00:20:04.191 –> 00:20:10.415
Our story begins on a crisp autumn evening, as the leaves fell from the trees

00:20:10.415 –> 00:20:13.778
and the town prepared for the annual Harvest Festival.

00:20:15.209 –> 00:20:22.263
Among the villagers was Ichabod Crane, a tall, lanky schoolteacher with a penchant

00:20:22.263 –> 00:20:25.264
for fanciful tales and an insatiable appetite.

00:20:29.107 –> 00:20:34.380
Ichabod’s days were filled with lessons and laughter as he regaled his students

00:20:34.380 –> 00:20:40.814
with stories of ghosts, goblins, and the legend of the Headless Horseman.

00:20:44.296 –> 00:20:50.399
One evening, as Ichabod made his way home on his horse from a particularly raucous

00:20:50.399 –> 00:20:57.965
gathering, he found himself on a desolate path, surrounded by the eerie quiet of the forest.

00:20:59.686 –> 00:21:04.640
And then, out of the shadows, emerged a figure on horseback,

00:21:04.640 –> 00:21:07.652
its head severed from its shoulders.

00:21:10.215 –> 00:21:15.679
The headless horseman, a phantom said to be the spirit of a Thessalian soldier

00:21:15.679 –> 00:21:20.562
who had lost his head to a cannonball during the Revolutionary War.

00:21:22.223 –> 00:21:26.265
Panic surged through Ichabod as he urged his horse to move faster.

00:21:28.537 –> 00:21:34.731
The headless horseman pursued him relentlessly, his ghastly laughter echoing through the night.

00:21:35.872 –> 00:21:40.936
Ichabod knew that he had to reach the safety of the bridge that crossed the nearby creek.

00:21:42.218 –> 00:21:46.660
For it was said that the headless horseman could not cross running water.

00:21:48.142 –> 00:21:53.786
But just as Ichabod reached the bridge, the headless horseman threw his severed

00:21:53.786 –> 00:21:57.088
head, a flaming pumpkin at the terrified schoolteacher.

00:22:06.035 –> 00:22:11.639
The next morning, all that remained of Ichabod Crane were his abandoned horse

00:22:11.639 –> 00:22:13.881
and a shattered pumpkin.

00:22:15.542 –> 00:22:21.466
Some said he’d been spirited away by the ghostly rider, while others believed he’d fled in terror.

00:22:22.788 –> 00:22:28.191
To this day, the legend of the Headless Horseman haunts Sleepy Hollow,

00:22:28.191 –> 00:22:33.715
and the townsfolk still share the tale of Ichabod Crane and the ghostly rider

00:22:33.715 –> 00:22:35.797
who roams the woods in search of a head.

00:22:36.718 –> 00:22:41.601
And so, dear listeners, as the moon rises over Sleepy Hollow,

00:22:41.601 –> 00:22:48.386
remember the cautionary tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.

00:22:49.707 –> 00:22:56.151
For in this quiet village, where legends come to life, the line between reality

00:22:56.151 –> 00:23:02.916
and the supernatural is as thin as the mist that hangs in the autumn air.

00:23:04.337 –> 00:23:11.382
Sleep well, and beware the headless spectre that rides through the night.

00:23:24.331 –> 00:23:27.163
Okay, so that is the legend of Sleepy Hollow.

00:23:27.163 –> 00:23:28.133
The real one.

00:23:28.133 –> 00:23:30.455
The real one. Written by?

00:23:31.176 –> 00:23:33.637
Washington Irving, the native son of New York.

00:23:33.998 –> 00:23:35.098
What a title, right?

00:23:36.399 –> 00:23:37.780
I mean, big shoes to fill.

00:23:37.780 –> 00:23:38.341
Yeah.

00:23:38.681 –> 00:23:44.225
Big shoes to fill. But I think we probably had the most fun talking about how

00:23:44.225 –> 00:23:50.790
he has a hand in so much of today’s his pop culture and so many of us know nothing about it.

00:23:50.790 –> 00:23:56.014
Like being tied back to him, we’re like, how is this Irving as well? Like the name Gotham.

00:23:57.255 –> 00:23:58.035
I love that.

00:23:58.035 –> 00:24:02.799
Yes, it’s such a fun story. Like he didn’t invent the word Gotham.

00:24:02.799 –> 00:24:04.901
It again, originated somewhere else.

00:24:05.321 –> 00:24:11.356
There was some sort of story about the small village where the king was supposedly

00:24:11.356 –> 00:24:14.714
going to pass through and they didn’t want him to. So they all decided to act

00:24:14.714 –> 00:24:19.428
crazy and hopes he would just pass them by, and he did. So Gotham is…

00:24:20.334 –> 00:24:23.476
Actually implying that you know the people who live there are crazy.

00:24:23.476 –> 00:24:28.640
Oh Welcome to New York. And then when he yeah when he came out with his first

00:24:28.640 –> 00:24:34.844
book he Nicknamed Gotham for New York City, and I guess everything kind of went

00:24:34.844 –> 00:24:38.026
from there But seriously, how would you equate Washington Irving with Gotham?

00:24:38.026 –> 00:24:40.668
I never would have thought of that before never reading that.

00:24:41.429 –> 00:24:47.913
I didn’t know that until I started a podcast here a couple years ago with Gotham

00:24:47.913 –> 00:24:51.135
West Studios if you guys didn’t know and And you told me that story.

00:24:52.036 –> 00:24:55.038
When we first started talking about this, I was like, I’m about to blow your

00:24:55.038 –> 00:24:58.021
mind, guess what? And she was like, oh my God, Tom is gonna love that.

00:24:58.021 –> 00:25:04.186
Fantastic. Another fun fact, did you guys know the earth was flat?

00:25:04.766 –> 00:25:06.107
Oh, yes, I heard this, yes.

00:25:06.107 –> 00:25:09.990
Yeah, Irving, again, one of his books,

00:25:09.990 –> 00:25:18.317
very satirical, introduced, and it is quoted, the erroneous idea that Europeans

00:25:18.317 –> 00:25:22.520
believed the world was flat prior to the discovery of the new world by Christopher Columbus.

00:25:23.241 –> 00:25:26.333
And again, people just really believed him that they were like,

00:25:26.333 –> 00:25:28.825
oh, okay, the world is flat. Okay, got it.

00:25:28.825 –> 00:25:29.845
Perfect.

00:25:29.845 –> 00:25:33.948
That one’s really fun. I like that one. I love that one. Especially since,

00:25:33.948 –> 00:25:37.211
what, 200 plus years later, people are still believing it’s true?

00:25:38.182 –> 00:25:43.335
Yeah, we won’t talk about that. But yes, people do believe that’s true.

00:25:44.657 –> 00:25:49.060
And I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the fact that he started public libraries,

00:25:49.060 –> 00:25:51.802
right? The Astor Free Public Libraries in New York.

00:25:53.544 –> 00:25:57.426
Hashtag, thank a teacher, you know? Yeah, yeah.

00:25:57.426 –> 00:26:02.250
So, like, what… I know that you know a lot more about this than Dale and I

00:26:02.250 –> 00:26:07.554
do, but who were the people in his life that influenced these characters?

00:26:07.554 –> 00:26:10.396
Yeah, I was just gonna say that. Like, where did they come from?

00:26:10.396 –> 00:26:18.402
We might need more time. So, okay, take the journey back with me, right?

00:26:18.402 –> 00:26:23.486
So Irving’s born in New York, but gets shipped up to Tarrytown to stay with

00:26:23.486 –> 00:26:27.129
close personal friends during this yellow fever outbreak in 1798, right?

00:26:28.150 –> 00:26:31.793
Because he didn’t have the best of health as a child. His parents were very

00:26:31.793 –> 00:26:35.496
concerned with him, for him, because he was the youngest of 11,

00:26:35.496 –> 00:26:38.678
eight of whom survived to adulthood.

00:26:38.678 –> 00:26:43.141
So they’ve already lost children, possibly at this point. So they let him stay

00:26:43.141 –> 00:26:47.544
with his friend, James Kirk Paulding, who also became a writer.

00:26:47.945 –> 00:26:52.527
And I mean, I also love the fact that it’s all these little boys who are loving

00:26:52.527 –> 00:26:55.369
all of these legends that they’re hearing.

00:26:56.731 –> 00:27:01.133
They’re obsessed with the Hudson Valley and the beauty that is it,

00:27:01.133 –> 00:27:04.475
the nature of it. And this is the romantic period of writing, right?

00:27:04.855 –> 00:27:09.897
And it’s in stark contrast to what’s going on in the literary world in England.

00:27:11.618 –> 00:27:16.339
And I think Irving was smart enough to play up and kind of develop that because

00:27:16.339 –> 00:27:18.700
of all the influences around him. So…

00:27:20.438 –> 00:27:25.261
In his first book, The History of New York, he writes it under a pseudonym.

00:27:26.543 –> 00:27:27.523
Did you know what that was?

00:27:27.523 –> 00:27:29.144
No. Nope.

00:27:29.144 –> 00:27:29.885
Diedrich Knickerbocker?

00:27:30.685 –> 00:27:33.558
Ha ha. Well. There’s that name.

00:27:33.558 –> 00:27:34.488
There it is.

00:27:34.488 –> 00:27:38.631
I mean, we have an amazing basketball team that is really living up to this

00:27:38.631 –> 00:27:41.533
legend. It’s like legendary title. Oh, maybe.

00:27:45.397 –> 00:27:49.379
Maybe when we were kids. Yeah. Not so much recently.

00:27:49.379 –> 00:27:53.402
But, you know, technically we are all Knickerbockers because we are all New Yorkers.

00:27:54.263 –> 00:27:58.046
But in terms of his characters, when we’re talking about the legend,

00:27:58.046 –> 00:28:03.089
I mean, again, influences, you know, fiction is influenced by reality,

00:28:03.089 –> 00:28:09.254
right? So, War of 1812, everybody wants to begin with that, but we could work back further.

00:28:09.855 –> 00:28:15.179
There really is a Colonel Ichabod B. Crane.

00:28:15.179 –> 00:28:17.961
Yes, I found that story when I was doing the research.

00:28:17.961 –> 00:28:18.841
I was like, who is this?

00:28:18.841 –> 00:28:21.023
Did you see his picture? Yes, who is this man?

00:28:21.023 –> 00:28:22.354
What did you think of his picture?

00:28:22.354 –> 00:28:25.206
I thought, I mean, it was good.

00:28:27.268 –> 00:28:29.049
I thought he looked very angry.

00:28:29.049 –> 00:28:29.830
Yes. Okay.

00:28:29.830 –> 00:28:36.635
Yes. Like he did not want his picture taken. No, no. Now there’s no documentation

00:28:36.635 –> 00:28:38.797
that the two of them ever met.

00:28:38.797 –> 00:28:39.638
Yeah.

00:28:39.638 –> 00:28:44.161
But they were stationed in the area. I mean, there is definite possibility that

00:28:44.161 –> 00:28:50.025
he at least heard the name. I mean, the name Ichabod is very, That’s unique. Unique.

00:28:50.025 –> 00:28:50.566
That’s the word.

00:28:50.566 –> 00:28:50.826
Yep.

00:28:51.466 –> 00:28:54.589
That’s not a family name. That’s not like, this is Ichabod Junior,

00:28:54.589 –> 00:28:58.511
Ichabod Senior. That’s not a popular name.

00:28:58.511 –> 00:29:02.214
I would think, unless maybe back in the time it was, but you don’t find- That’s

00:29:02.214 –> 00:29:06.617
too coincidental. Yeah, no, you can’t find anybody with that name except for this other person.

00:29:07.278 –> 00:29:13.763
And that’s, I had originally heard that they had met and he didn’t like the

00:29:13.763 –> 00:29:18.827
colonel. and that’s why he had based the character on him and kind of poked fun at him.

00:29:19.908 –> 00:29:24.871
But I actually don’t think that’s true because in terms of just physical characteristics,

00:29:24.871 –> 00:29:26.512
they don’t look anything alike.

00:29:26.512 –> 00:29:27.573
Not even a little bit.

00:29:27.573 –> 00:29:31.396
No, and I did read somewhere, and again, it has contrasting views.

00:29:31.396 –> 00:29:34.259
Some people said he loved the fact that everybody knew his name,

00:29:34.259 –> 00:29:38.582
but I read a lot that he hated the fact that Irving used his name,

00:29:38.582 –> 00:29:40.563
and that just makes it so funny to me.

00:29:40.563 –> 00:29:43.105
Man, that’s good. That’s good if you hate someone.

00:29:43.105 –> 00:29:47.789
That’s good. Like people come up to you and they ask you if you’re the Ichabod from the story.

00:29:47.970 –> 00:29:48.970
Imagine he’s like, no.

00:29:49.651 –> 00:29:51.432
Stop it, I’m not that guy.

00:29:52.013 –> 00:29:52.853
That’s so funny.

00:29:52.853 –> 00:29:54.434
I have it written down that.

00:29:56.349 –> 00:30:00.072
there can be little doubt he provided the writer with an irresistible moniker,

00:30:00.072 –> 00:30:04.235
and even less doubt that Halloween wasn’t exactly his favorite time of year.

00:30:04.235 –> 00:30:08.238
And I just was like, yeah, this sounds like Irving, because he was quite the

00:30:08.238 –> 00:30:13.682
prankster. And that’s another thing in folktales that they have in common,

00:30:13.682 –> 00:30:15.884
is there usually is a prankster.

00:30:16.485 –> 00:30:20.007
And that really is a great segue to the Brom Bones character.

00:30:20.007 –> 00:30:23.309
I was gonna say, I was like, Brom was a trickster, so that’s like perfect.

00:30:23.309 –> 00:30:24.451
He was, he was a little prank master, yeah.

00:30:24.611 –> 00:30:29.774
And we were kind of debating before, you know, who did kill Ichabod Crane?

00:30:30.535 –> 00:30:34.678
Or did he, in fact, die at the end? They leave him very ambiguous at the end.

00:30:34.678 –> 00:30:39.822
Some people say he met a fate worse than death, which was becoming a lawyer.

00:30:41.304 –> 00:30:45.827
Which Washington Irving in real life was a lawyer, but didn’t like doing it.

00:30:46.347 –> 00:30:48.789
And self-proclaimed bad at it, barely even passed the bar.

00:30:49.049 –> 00:30:54.733
And there were, I’ve read stories that he was cited upstate,

00:30:54.733 –> 00:30:59.997
upstate New York, which is pretty fun because we actually talked about this

00:30:59.997 –> 00:31:06.842
in one of our little meetings today that there’s an Ichabod Crane School in upstate New York.

00:31:06.842 –> 00:31:07.883
Kinderhook.

00:31:07.883 –> 00:31:12.266
In Kinderhook, New York, where people get really mad because there could be

00:31:12.266 –> 00:31:16.409
one snowflake, a very small dusting, and they will close school.

00:31:16.409 –> 00:31:22.494
And if you live in the Northeast, you know it takes quite a bit of snow to close

00:31:22.494 –> 00:31:26.657
school, and this school’s renowned for being like, one snowflake,

00:31:26.657 –> 00:31:28.618
we’re done. We’re closing school.

00:31:29.179 –> 00:31:31.500
Except in New York City, where it’s not an option.

00:31:31.641 –> 00:31:32.281
I’m sorry.

00:31:33.242 –> 00:31:35.183
I’m sorry for New York City teachers.

00:31:35.644 –> 00:31:42.109
But this real life character, his name is Abraham Martling, who is buried at

00:31:42.109 –> 00:31:44.070
the Old Dutch Church in their burying ground.

00:31:44.611 –> 00:31:46.812
His nickname was Brom. Really?

00:31:46.812 –> 00:31:47.773
That’s crazy.

00:31:47.773 –> 00:31:52.437
And I don’t think that Irving had any vendetta against him, I think,

00:31:52.437 –> 00:31:56.400
again, like, maybe physical characteristics and his mannerisms,

00:31:56.400 –> 00:31:57.180
like, he was a blacksmith.

00:31:57.611 –> 00:32:01.384
He had a very big black horse that he rode.

00:32:01.724 –> 00:32:05.967
I mean, we’ve all seen someone where we’re like, -“Ooh, that could be a main character.”.

00:32:05.967 –> 00:32:06.248
Right? -“Yeah.”.

00:32:06.248 –> 00:32:07.909
Like, maybe he just had that look.

00:32:07.909 –> 00:32:09.910
That inspiration to a character.

00:32:09.910 –> 00:32:10.411
Main character energy.

00:32:11.172 –> 00:32:16.546
And Irving really has this, uh, love triangle, right? Between him,

00:32:16.546 –> 00:32:19.658
Brom, and Katrina Van Tassel.

00:32:21.380 –> 00:32:25.662
where the Van Tassels are a very big staple in the Sleepy Hollow community.

00:32:25.662 –> 00:32:30.025
They were absolutely real. They are buried at the Old Dutch Church as well.

00:32:30.606 –> 00:32:34.509
Could that character have been based on Katrina herself?

00:32:34.729 –> 00:32:37.814
Some people say yes. Some people say it was her niece, Eleanor,

00:32:37.814 –> 00:32:42.061
like Eleanor’s personality, but he had used Katrina’s name.

00:32:43.552 –> 00:32:44.612
Why? I don’t know.

00:32:44.612 –> 00:32:48.936
I feel like Katrina’s on the opposite side of like Ichabod. Katrina is a very

00:32:48.936 –> 00:32:52.098
popular name from that time. Like I feel like there’s a lot of Katrinas.

00:32:52.458 –> 00:32:54.830
So it could have just been, he liked that name.

00:32:55.701 –> 00:33:00.404
Well, I think the name, right? I think the name was with a C and it was Katarina.

00:33:02.086 –> 00:33:02.807
But still.

00:33:02.807 –> 00:33:06.970
Yeah, like I mean, close enough, absolutely. And you know, the Van Tassels are

00:33:06.970 –> 00:33:09.472
still very much a staple in the community as well.

00:33:09.472 –> 00:33:10.653
Yeah.

00:33:10.653 –> 00:33:17.337
Now, when we, didn’t you say that there was a tie to him with our Hold of the Witch story?

00:33:17.878 –> 00:33:21.900
Ah, yes, which, you know, and I think that was always our essential goal,

00:33:21.900 –> 00:33:26.744
right? We are making four episodes on the town of Sleepy Hollow and all of these

00:33:26.744 –> 00:33:32.247
legends and lores all kind of tie together or stemmed from each other, right?

00:33:33.688 –> 00:33:39.873
And yeah, in the story itself, what’s his name? Sorry. Irving, yeah, him.

00:33:39.873 –> 00:33:42.254
The main guy.

00:33:42.254 –> 00:33:43.635
Who are we talking about?

00:33:43.635 –> 00:33:44.736
This guy.

00:33:44.736 –> 00:33:47.338
Right at the beginning, I want to say it’s on maybe like the second or third

00:33:47.338 –> 00:33:50.260
page, depending on which version you’re looking at.

00:33:51.141 –> 00:33:55.284
It says, a drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land and to pervade

00:33:55.284 –> 00:33:59.547
the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German

00:33:59.547 –> 00:34:02.189
doctor during the early days of the settlement.

00:34:04.050 –> 00:34:05.591
That’s incredible. I love that.

00:34:05.591 –> 00:34:10.074
I do too, because I think it’s also, Irving wasn’t one, and I think this was

00:34:10.074 –> 00:34:14.078
a very Dutch thing to do, even though Irving was not Dutch, but in terms of

00:34:14.078 –> 00:34:16.219
tying it to the original settlers.

00:34:16.680 –> 00:34:20.682
I had mentioned it during the witches that they didn’t want to get involved, right?

00:34:21.183 –> 00:34:25.626
They didn’t do anything, you know, horrible to these people or any,

00:34:25.626 –> 00:34:31.831
you know, that we know of maybe, but they also didn’t do anything to stop the

00:34:31.831 –> 00:34:32.812
persecution or anything.

00:34:32.812 –> 00:34:37.996
And I think Irving, if we really wanted to spiral down that,

00:34:37.996 –> 00:34:39.197
he was kind of like that too.

00:34:39.857 –> 00:34:45.622
He was kind of like, well, I’m just gonna get back on my sloop and see y’all later.

00:34:45.622 –> 00:34:46.883
Yeah.

00:34:46.883 –> 00:34:49.244
Thanks for the idea. Thanks for the idea.

00:34:49.244 –> 00:34:52.787
I feel like that’s pretty common with writers from that time period.

00:34:53.288 –> 00:34:56.170
They were the lurkers on the outside looking in.

00:34:57.671 –> 00:35:02.975
Kind of not really related to this story, but you had told me a fun fact about

00:35:02.975 –> 00:35:06.757
Edgar Allan Poe in Washington Irving that I loved. If you could share that one. Well,

00:35:08.819 –> 00:35:09.039
being.

00:35:10.077 –> 00:35:13.773
I always say he was like a Kardashian of his time, you know,

00:35:13.773 –> 00:35:19.684
people knew him after the legend came out in 1820 here in the States,

00:35:19.684 –> 00:35:23.667
because it came out first in England where he was living at the time.

00:35:24.388 –> 00:35:30.192
And it was unheard of for, especially an American writer to have such success

00:35:30.192 –> 00:35:33.214
in both the States and overseas. So he was a big deal.

00:35:34.976 –> 00:35:39.118
People wanted to know him. And Edgar Allan Poe was one of them.

00:35:39.118 –> 00:35:42.421
He was coming up in this time, he was a struggling writer at this time,

00:35:42.421 –> 00:35:47.600
and it has been said that he sent some of his writing to Irving,

00:35:47.600 –> 00:35:51.187
including the fall of the House of Usher, to get his feedback on.

00:35:51.187 –> 00:35:51.888
That’s wild.

00:35:51.888 –> 00:35:56.411
That’s incredible, and if you have not watched that show on Netflix, highly recommend it.

00:35:56.411 –> 00:35:56.671
Do it.

00:35:57.052 –> 00:36:01.395
But what’s a little salty was, I don’t know what happened with that.

00:36:01.395 –> 00:36:05.298
Maybe Irving didn’t get the mail, or, you know, something didn’t,

00:36:05.298 –> 00:36:08.720
you know, he didn’t like it. maybe he gave him some harsh feedback.

00:36:10.682 –> 00:36:17.827
Because later on, Poe becomes one of Irving’s critics. And I feel like that’s a little salty.

00:36:17.827 –> 00:36:21.249
But can you imagine back in that time period,

00:36:21.249 –> 00:36:28.974
like, having so many writers, like, the competition to make a book that is as

00:36:28.974 –> 00:36:34.640
big as Washington Irving’s was, like, that had to be huge.

00:36:35.282 –> 00:36:39.539
just based on the fact that he was as popular as he was, then to have another

00:36:39.539 –> 00:36:42.714
writer, who is also a very good writer…

00:36:43.836 –> 00:36:47.699
you know, like that, I mean, I can only imagine what that competition felt like.

00:36:47.699 –> 00:36:53.023
And I’m sure there was a lot of like cutthroat, you know, because during that

00:36:53.023 –> 00:36:57.547
time, there wasn’t like all these publishing houses and places to get your book out.

00:36:57.547 –> 00:37:01.690
So like, yeah, you become a critic of the person you’re trying to bring down.

00:37:01.690 –> 00:37:05.272
It’s almost like that old adage that, you know, the people that are putting

00:37:05.272 –> 00:37:08.155
you down are usually the ones that you’re in greatest competition with,

00:37:08.155 –> 00:37:09.756
right? The ones that don’t want to see you win.

00:37:10.056 –> 00:37:14.900
I’m sure Poe thought, let me knock this guy down a couple notches to then elevate myself.

00:37:14.900 –> 00:37:18.983
I mean, exactly. And like, this is all totally speculation. But like,

00:37:18.983 –> 00:37:26.248
I can only imagine, especially for that time. Like, it makes sense. It makes sense.

00:37:26.248 –> 00:37:28.750
Now, he did not marry, right, Dina?

00:37:29.871 –> 00:37:34.835
No, he didn’t. And he did not father any children. So anything that we really

00:37:34.835 –> 00:37:38.457
could have found out probably didn’t get passed down.

00:37:38.778 –> 00:37:43.621
Or it might’ve gotten passed down to his nephew who did publish a book of their

00:37:43.621 –> 00:37:44.942
letters and correspondence,

00:37:44.942 –> 00:37:50.447
which I think a lot of people, historians and so on, have gotten as much as

00:37:50.447 –> 00:37:54.230
they can from those letters. But again, isn’t that interpretive, right?

00:37:55.411 –> 00:37:57.772
This information is never going to be confirmed.

00:37:58.143 –> 00:37:58.653
Yeah.

00:37:58.653 –> 00:38:01.975
But that love story- And I think it ties into it.

00:38:02.776 –> 00:38:07.464
It feels like it was written by somebody who lost a great love.

00:38:08.806 –> 00:38:09.707
Something that was unattainable.

00:38:10.088 –> 00:38:10.689
Yeah.

00:38:11.130 –> 00:38:16.394
And that is the embodiment of the Katrina character, right? Because she does

00:38:16.394 –> 00:38:20.057
marry Brombone in the end. She does not pick Ichabod Crane.

00:38:20.457 –> 00:38:24.020
And they, I feel like with our legend that we went to watch,

00:38:24.020 –> 00:38:27.803
Jonathan Crook, you know, hey-o, he implies, you know, that he,

00:38:27.803 –> 00:38:33.827
Ichabod had written her a poem or a letter of some kind and presented it to her at their party.

00:38:34.588 –> 00:38:37.090
And she could have possibly rejected him.

00:38:37.550 –> 00:38:41.132
Yeah, it seems like she just kind of brushed it aside. Like, ah, okay.

00:38:41.433 –> 00:38:42.254
No, you’re cute.

00:38:42.254 –> 00:38:43.274
Yeah, that’s cute.

00:38:43.595 –> 00:38:45.296
She friend zoned him. Look at Brom.

00:38:45.697 –> 00:38:49.979
You know what? I think it was a friend zoned situation because he was teaching

00:38:49.979 –> 00:38:53.362
her to sing, that, you know, he was a teacher. So, you know,

00:38:53.362 –> 00:38:58.666
he was kind of like, creepily cornering her under that guy’s, like.

00:38:59.487 –> 00:39:00.928
Well, that doesn’t seem great.

00:39:00.928 –> 00:39:05.871
But no, but she wasn’t this, you know, young underage girl. Okay, okay, okay.

00:39:05.871 –> 00:39:08.294
Disclaimer, not like that.

00:39:08.294 –> 00:39:12.537
Yes, but yes, Irving’s real-life love was such a sad story,

00:39:12.537 –> 00:39:15.499
and unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of details about it,

00:39:15.499 –> 00:39:20.563
but he was working for a Judge Josiah Hoffman in the city after he passed his

00:39:20.563 –> 00:39:26.768
bar, and he had a daughter named Matilda that, if you read any of the things

00:39:26.768 –> 00:39:29.169
that Irving wrote about her,

00:39:29.810 –> 00:39:32.192
it’s exactly what you would want somebody to say.

00:39:32.192 –> 00:39:35.614
You know, he, at one point, says how much he idolized her,

00:39:35.614 –> 00:39:40.158
And then of course in 1809, while he’s writing his first book,

00:39:40.158 –> 00:39:45.281
his first attempt at this, she catches a cold that winds up being tuberculosis

00:39:45.281 –> 00:39:48.504
or consumption at this time, right, and passes away.

00:39:49.685 –> 00:39:50.425
That’s so sad.

00:39:50.425 –> 00:39:52.346
So he had his one great love.

00:39:52.346 –> 00:39:52.627
Yeah.

00:39:52.627 –> 00:39:58.832
It really seemed like he did and she’s not buried at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery with him.

00:39:59.753 –> 00:40:03.455
I’m assuming it’s because they lived in New York City that she’s buried in the

00:40:03.455 –> 00:40:05.197
Bowery supposedly in St.

00:40:06.418 –> 00:40:09.980
Mark’s, where some other big names are, I’ve come to learn.

00:40:10.882 –> 00:40:15.575
But I don’t even think my fun fact really is about that. It’s about the fact

00:40:15.575 –> 00:40:19.018
that I never really thought, I was like, oh, okay, so his heart was broken,

00:40:19.018 –> 00:40:21.870
he never marries, he never has kids.

00:40:21.930 –> 00:40:24.201
That doesn’t mean he didn’t date, though.

00:40:24.201 –> 00:40:25.252
Yeah, that’s true.

00:40:25.252 –> 00:40:26.513
Very true, very true.

00:40:26.513 –> 00:40:27.013
It’s true.

00:40:27.254 –> 00:40:31.936
And did you read who had the hots for him, apparently?

00:40:31.936 –> 00:40:32.397
No.

00:40:32.397 –> 00:40:33.457
No, I wanna know.

00:40:34.398 –> 00:40:35.758
Deets Mary Shelley? Oh.

00:40:38.208 –> 00:40:38.778
Frankenstein writer.

00:40:38.778 –> 00:40:40.029
Oh, oh yeah.

00:40:41.130 –> 00:40:41.790
Okay, a literal…

00:40:42.150 –> 00:40:43.331
Again with the writers.

00:40:44.032 –> 00:40:46.794
I mean, they probably all flocked together.

00:40:46.794 –> 00:40:48.895
I was just gonna say, they probably all hung out together.

00:40:48.895 –> 00:40:52.037
So this is, again, this is television and movie,

00:40:52.037 –> 00:40:55.980
and I read so much that sometimes these stories just kind of all meld together,

00:40:55.980 –> 00:41:01.864
but from what I remember during my brief obsession with American literature

00:41:01.864 –> 00:41:07.809
and English literature, they would frequent the same pubs and they were known as writers’ pubs.

00:41:07.809 –> 00:41:12.432
And it was kind of like, you went in there, you sat in your dark corner with your candlelight,

00:41:12.432 –> 00:41:16.469
you drank your ales and your, you know, unless you’re Edgar Allan Poe and you

00:41:16.469 –> 00:41:19.858
were chugging Jack Daniels in the mean streets of Baltimore,

00:41:19.858 –> 00:41:24.201
but you drank in the same, as they used to call, the haunt, right?

00:41:24.201 –> 00:41:27.383
That’s where the local haunt were, where the writers would go and they would

00:41:27.383 –> 00:41:32.467
all hang out together. So, I mean, that to me is, yeah, they were probably there at the same time.

00:41:32.748 –> 00:41:36.290
Maybe she also had a great love. I don’t know her story, so I can’t speak on

00:41:36.290 –> 00:41:40.313
it, but if she had a great love that she lost, maybe, maybe he was her great love.

00:41:41.154 –> 00:41:43.935
That’s very possible. And he was like, eh, had mine, thanks,

00:41:43.935 –> 00:41:45.396
my new love is literature, bye.

00:41:46.107 –> 00:41:50.040
Yeah, I had heard, I had read, I should say, that, you know,

00:41:50.040 –> 00:41:53.142
he did fall for someone else who had rejected him.

00:41:53.723 –> 00:41:58.546
And I think Mary Shelley was afterwards, and he rejected her,

00:41:58.546 –> 00:42:03.011
and I’m just like, all right, keep it real, people.

00:42:03.011 –> 00:42:04.592
People just throwing it everywhere.

00:42:04.592 –> 00:42:06.635
But you know what, though? Everybody was on a clock back then, so.

00:42:06.635 –> 00:42:07.536
It’s true.

00:42:07.536 –> 00:42:10.039
It’s very true. You weren’t living till 80.

00:42:10.039 –> 00:42:13.163
You catch a cold, bye. Bye.

00:42:13.163 –> 00:42:14.985
And ironically, he did not live to 80. Yeah.

00:42:15.926 –> 00:42:18.629
So tell us, how old was he when he did die?

00:42:19.719 –> 00:42:26.064
I believe he was 76, so that kind of brings us back to the cemetery,

00:42:26.064 –> 00:42:30.988
to tie it all kind of back to that and how Sleepy Hollow became Sleepy Hollow

00:42:30.988 –> 00:42:35.652
and why, because I think when people first find out it’s a real place,

00:42:35.652 –> 00:42:38.774
they equate it to the story and they wanna go check it out and stuff.

00:42:38.774 –> 00:42:45.039
And this little town, this little hamlet, really does owe a lot to this story

00:42:45.039 –> 00:42:50.203
because General Motors was the big employment spot, you know,

00:42:50.203 –> 00:42:52.345
during the 90s in this area.

00:42:52.345 –> 00:42:57.309
And they decided to close down that location and move to someplace cheaper.

00:42:57.309 –> 00:43:00.031
And it put about 4,000 people out of a job.

00:43:00.431 –> 00:43:06.956
So in order to kind of revive this town and generate that economy again,

00:43:06.956 –> 00:43:11.800
you know, they decided to rebrand North Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow,

00:43:11.800 –> 00:43:13.961
at the end of 96, beginning of 97. That is pretty genius though.

00:43:13.961 –> 00:43:16.143
It is. Marketing.

00:43:16.143 –> 00:43:17.184
I think so too.

00:43:19.025 –> 00:43:27.351
I think a lot of the locals, and just because this is Halloween and obviously their peak of season.

00:43:27.351 –> 00:43:28.151
Absolutely.

00:43:28.151 –> 00:43:35.296
And it is insane there. Like the traffic is wild, which obviously puts everybody into a bad mood.

00:43:35.296 –> 00:43:39.129
There’s block parties, there’s, they do, they do it up now.

00:43:39.129 –> 00:43:42.041
We talked about the witches on the paddle board, right? I mean,

00:43:42.041 –> 00:43:43.583
the whole month they just pack it.

00:43:43.583 –> 00:43:49.187
So those poor locals, you know, that are just trying to like hit up CVS and

00:43:49.187 –> 00:43:54.651
they got no parking, you know, it takes an hour to, I mean, South Broadway is so congested.

00:43:55.111 –> 00:43:59.174
So you can imagine that some people are thankful for it, but probably are like,

00:43:59.174 –> 00:44:00.856
hmm, can’t wait till October’s over.

00:44:01.396 –> 00:44:05.099
Yeah, I understand that. And I’m sure that’s the same in Salem.

00:44:05.099 –> 00:44:07.040
I’m sure Salem feels the same way.

00:44:07.040 –> 00:44:10.193
I was just gonna say that, I was like, I can’t believe how many videos I’ve

00:44:10.193 –> 00:44:14.826
seen where people are like, don’t come to Salem in October.

00:44:15.858 –> 00:44:17.809
You won’t be able to move.

00:44:19.010 –> 00:44:19.991
And it’s true.

00:44:19.991 –> 00:44:24.895
It’s true. I’ve seen the videos. I’ve seen the TikToks. So what is,

00:44:24.895 –> 00:44:28.597
as someone who’s studied Washington Irving and you’re really,

00:44:28.597 –> 00:44:33.802
I mean, I would say that you’re definitely a student of Washington Irving as someone who knows you.

00:44:33.802 –> 00:44:36.224
I think we could have been best friends. I do think so as well.

00:44:36.224 –> 00:44:41.409
But like, what is your favorite thing about him, especially with the story and

00:44:41.409 –> 00:44:46.633
his life. And like, he really has had such an impact on American culture,

00:44:46.633 –> 00:44:47.934
but also New York culture.

00:44:48.475 –> 00:44:51.678
That is actually a wonderful question. And what you just said,

00:44:51.678 –> 00:44:53.840
like, it just popped it right into my head.

00:44:54.681 –> 00:44:56.882
He, to me, is so funny.

00:44:57.530 –> 00:45:02.253
Okay, just the pseudonyms, the pen names that he chose to use.

00:45:02.253 –> 00:45:05.656
You know, if you think back to when he first started writing he was writing

00:45:05.656 –> 00:45:09.759
essays for the Morning Chronicle whom his older brother was an editor,

00:45:09.759 –> 00:45:13.983
got him the job, right? And he’s putting out these essays in the paper that

00:45:13.983 –> 00:45:16.805
probably weren’t even that long, probably like got paid, what, pennies, you know?

00:45:18.146 –> 00:45:20.467
And he decides to write them under Jonathan Oldstyle.

00:45:22.510 –> 00:45:26.132
And the name’s just, I have no idea what the meaning is behind the name,

00:45:26.132 –> 00:45:30.176
but it’s funny to me. Like, old style, like, where did you come up with that? You know?

00:45:30.536 –> 00:45:33.438
And then he has the Diedrich Knickerbocker name.

00:45:33.939 –> 00:45:38.502
But he also used, in other things, Will Wizard, Langston, Langstaff,

00:45:38.502 –> 00:45:40.484
you know? And he had this group.

00:45:40.484 –> 00:45:41.625
He really likes alliteration.

00:45:42.706 –> 00:45:47.199
As do I. I mean, it really does work. It rolls off the tongue.

00:45:47.770 –> 00:45:52.993
But they had a group, one of his brothers, James Kirk Paulding as well,

00:45:52.993 –> 00:45:56.936
where they called themselves the Lads of Kilkenny. and they were huge pranksters.

00:45:57.557 –> 00:46:02.260
In fact, I know I’ve referenced this book multiple times by Johnathan Crook,

00:46:02.260 –> 00:46:05.803
but that’s where I first heard the story, and I have not been able to find it

00:46:05.803 –> 00:46:09.306
anywhere else, where they were out one night just in the area,

00:46:09.306 –> 00:46:13.809
and there was a guard posted up because they just kind of kept watch,

00:46:13.950 –> 00:46:18.853
and they tied a rope around the guard’s post and dragged him by horse through the town.

00:46:19.613 –> 00:46:23.836
Like really messed with people, and I’m just like, these crazy kids.

00:46:24.737 –> 00:46:28.159
And then with Diedrich Knickerbocker, he decided, I always joke,

00:46:28.159 –> 00:46:32.482
like he created viral marketing, 200 plus years before there were like,

00:46:32.482 –> 00:46:34.424
viral marketing was a thing.

00:46:34.824 –> 00:46:39.167
So when this book comes out, and again, remember, his beloved,

00:46:39.167 –> 00:46:43.949
his fiance has now just passed, okay? This is, it’s almost happening all simultaneously.

00:46:46.095 –> 00:46:50.318
The book is about to come out at the beginning of December. He starts placing

00:46:50.318 –> 00:46:58.805
missing person ads in the newspaper saying that this old crusty historian was staying in a hotel.

00:46:59.465 –> 00:47:03.168
His name was Diedrich Knickerbocker and he’s gone missing. Has anybody seen him?

00:47:04.289 –> 00:47:10.353
But then places another ad in another paper responding to the ad like,

00:47:10.353 –> 00:47:13.255
oh I think I saw that guy like wandering around, you you know,

00:47:13.255 –> 00:47:17.018
blah, blah, blah. And then the hotel allegedly posts one saying,

00:47:17.018 –> 00:47:19.120
he’s disappeared and hasn’t paid his bill.

00:47:19.440 –> 00:47:23.583
And if he doesn’t come back, they’re gonna publish his manuscript and keep the proceeds.

00:47:24.064 –> 00:47:26.926
And I mean, we all love our gossips. Can you imagine reading this,

00:47:26.926 –> 00:47:29.388
being like, this is a start, what is happening right now?

00:47:29.388 –> 00:47:32.170
If podcasts existed, that would be the true crime podcast.

00:47:32.170 –> 00:47:33.871
Yeah, it would be.

00:47:33.871 –> 00:47:34.612
Where is?

00:47:36.374 –> 00:47:40.346
Yes, I mean, he does reveal it is him, you know, after the book comes out,

00:47:40.346 –> 00:47:42.798
but everybody bought the book. because everybody had to know what was going

00:47:42.798 –> 00:47:43.679
on with Diedrich Knickerbocker.

00:47:43.679 –> 00:47:45.500
Yeah, they’re like, wait, what is this story?

00:47:45.500 –> 00:47:46.240
Hysterical.

00:47:46.240 –> 00:47:50.644
I love, that’s like, genius. I was just gonna say, very ingenious.

00:47:50.644 –> 00:47:57.808
And I feel like prolific is too soft of a word to describe his influence.

00:48:00.131 –> 00:48:05.114
And a lot of the things that I’ve learned about him just doing this podcast

00:48:05.114 –> 00:48:08.116
kind of reshaped the way you think about New York.

00:48:08.877 –> 00:48:12.399
People that live in New York, sometimes we get a little bit of a bad taste for New York.

00:48:12.399 –> 00:48:18.224
But if we think about where New York culture came from and how this state became

00:48:18.224 –> 00:48:21.906
New York state, there’s a pride I think New Yorkers have, even when we hate

00:48:21.906 –> 00:48:24.248
New York, even when we’re like, oh, this is the worst.

00:48:25.149 –> 00:48:29.572
Just me trying to get here, you know, it’s always a debacle trying to get from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

00:48:31.354 –> 00:48:34.296
And there’s still that thing inside of all of us where we’re like,

00:48:34.296 –> 00:48:39.139
I’m so proud to be from New York. And a lot of that came from people like him

00:48:39.139 –> 00:48:43.722
who created this culture of New York is like a part of you. Once you are a New

00:48:43.722 –> 00:48:45.663
Yorker, you’re always a New Yorker.

00:48:46.244 –> 00:48:47.865
It’s true, it’s very true.

00:48:48.305 –> 00:48:53.729
I think also, and again, this is just my interpretation of a lot of the things

00:48:53.729 –> 00:48:57.491
that he’s written, because I haven’t read everything. I’m definitely not speaking

00:48:57.491 –> 00:49:01.955
as someone who has read every single, I’m catching up.

00:49:02.875 –> 00:49:06.498
But between the history of New York coming out and some of his other stories

00:49:06.498 –> 00:49:11.401
later on, he seemed to really want to point out to people, like,

00:49:11.401 –> 00:49:14.743
yes, the Dutch settled here, but look at how much it keeps changing.

00:49:14.743 –> 00:49:21.167
Things change, you know? And he wound up leaving New York for 17 years.

00:49:21.828 –> 00:49:25.050
Like it was a 17 year stretch that he was gone. And when he came back,

00:49:25.050 –> 00:49:27.871
he even admitted, it wasn’t the New York he remembered. Yeah.

00:49:29.332 –> 00:49:32.694
I feel like that’s something that a lot of people say when they leave New York

00:49:32.694 –> 00:49:36.116
and they come back after a long time, they’re like, this is not the New York

00:49:36.116 –> 00:49:38.778
I remember. Because it changed, it does, it changes.

00:49:39.279 –> 00:49:42.581
And especially during that period of our history. Yeah.

00:49:42.581 –> 00:49:44.002
Everything was changing.

00:49:44.002 –> 00:49:49.696
It blew up, yeah. Everything was changing, but that was lucky for us because

00:49:49.696 –> 00:49:55.150
instead of staying in New York, he decided to settle in what is now known as

00:49:55.150 –> 00:49:57.972
Irvington, named after him or Sunnyside.

00:49:59.093 –> 00:50:03.957
His house is named Sunnyside, which allegedly he purchased from the Van Tassels.

00:50:04.378 –> 00:50:06.259
It was the Van Tassel farm originally.

00:50:06.259 –> 00:50:06.959
And it’s beautiful.

00:50:06.959 –> 00:50:08.721
I love that full circle.

00:50:08.721 –> 00:50:10.422
The views from that place are ridiculous.

00:50:11.483 –> 00:50:17.447
I wanna know how much that would go for now. I mean. When you see the view, okay?

00:50:17.988 –> 00:50:20.930
And I think I have a video of it from when I was walking around the house because

00:50:20.930 –> 00:50:22.631
you get to walk through his house.

00:50:22.631 –> 00:50:26.134
You don’t get to go upstairs. I’m sure that could be dangerous now at this point.

00:50:26.134 –> 00:50:30.357
but they have it fully furnished, you know, like set up as if it’s being lived

00:50:30.357 –> 00:50:35.461
in. And he has this beautiful outdoor patio facing the Hudson River.

00:50:35.461 –> 00:50:40.124
You see the beautiful mountains that I would assume would be the Palisades, I believe.

00:50:40.565 –> 00:50:44.508
And it’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen. I just wanna bring my cup of

00:50:44.508 –> 00:50:48.150
coffee and a blanket and my book, and I wanna sit on that patio.

00:50:48.711 –> 00:50:51.313
He’s your bestie, ask him if we can go. Yeah, exactly. I mean,

00:50:51.313 –> 00:50:56.617
I saw it at night. No, and it was beautiful. Do you remember?

00:50:56.617 –> 00:51:02.102
Okay, the train. So we’re sitting there watching this performance at Sunnyside

00:51:02.102 –> 00:51:06.125
and I keep hearing something and I know there are no cars around where we are

00:51:06.125 –> 00:51:08.046
because we had to park and then walk down.

00:51:09.308 –> 00:51:13.370
And I’m looking around and I’m looking at her, like, is she hearing this too?

00:51:13.370 –> 00:51:16.913
Is it me? Like, what’s happening right now? And then I remembered the train

00:51:16.913 –> 00:51:19.155
goes right past his home.

00:51:19.155 –> 00:51:23.479
Like, there are railroad tracks now right behind his home and I remembered from

00:51:23.479 –> 00:51:27.362
previous research from wherever, I don’t even know where this one came from,

00:51:27.362 –> 00:51:31.085
but they put that railroad down and he was pissed about it.

00:51:31.846 –> 00:51:35.368
He actually, I think he sued them because they kept blowing their horn and waking

00:51:35.368 –> 00:51:38.309
him up. He won $5,000 from that. You gotta pay him. I mean, listen.

00:51:41.988 –> 00:51:46.932
That sucks. If you spend all this money to be in a very serene, beautiful place.

00:51:48.013 –> 00:51:49.334
And then there’s just a train.

00:51:49.334 –> 00:51:50.755
And then they put a train behind your house.

00:51:50.755 –> 00:51:53.557
It’s very close. It’s very close.

00:51:53.557 –> 00:51:59.641
I mean, okay. So, I hate that I’m even saying this, but to kind of wrap up.

00:52:00.262 –> 00:52:04.165
I know, I know. But to kind of wrap up this story,

00:52:04.165 –> 00:52:10.150
do you think he knew when he was writing the legend of Sleepy Hollow,

00:52:10.150 –> 00:52:16.995
what an impact it was going to have on American ghost story culture.

00:52:17.775 –> 00:52:21.538
I mean, like, as a, as, you know, someone that loves reading books,

00:52:21.538 –> 00:52:26.882
like, I don’t know that people, authors, go into writing books thinking that they’re gonna be…

00:52:26.882 –> 00:52:27.773
Yeah.

00:52:27.773 –> 00:52:33.087
…this, you know, like, I can’t imagine he went into writing that thinking

00:52:33.087 –> 00:52:34.548
it would be what it is today.

00:52:34.708 –> 00:52:36.009
I agree. I agree.

00:52:36.809 –> 00:52:40.552
I would say he could have maybe I

00:52:40.552 –> 00:52:43.414
don’t think he thought it was gonna be to this

00:52:43.414 –> 00:52:46.536
degree that 203 years later and I just

00:52:46.536 –> 00:52:51.239
want to as we’re wrapping it up just throw it out there again being it’s Halloween

00:52:51.239 –> 00:52:58.223
the Battle of White Plains which is allegedly where this Hessian soldier lost

00:52:58.223 –> 00:53:04.587
his head by way of cannonball was on October 28th 1776 I don’t think it’s a

00:53:04.587 –> 00:53:06.068
coincidence friends Nope.

00:53:06.068 –> 00:53:12.333
OK. So he is a smart man. Maybe he wasn’t so book smart, you know?

00:53:12.333 –> 00:53:15.256
But he was a very smart man. He could piece together a story.

00:53:15.256 –> 00:53:20.340
And I think he knew this would be a great Halloween story if I took this battle, right?

00:53:20.720 –> 00:53:24.943
Based on facts, because there was a lot of communication between soldiers,

00:53:24.943 –> 00:53:30.808
diaries, letters, things like that, that told of a Hessian losing his head.

00:53:30.808 –> 00:53:33.508
Someone saw it happen. It didn’t mean it’s necessarily.

00:53:35.313 –> 00:53:39.056
this person’s coming back, you know, tying up his horse and trying to find a head.

00:53:39.056 –> 00:53:42.739
And especially since White Plains is, what did we see, like nine miles away

00:53:42.739 –> 00:53:46.301
from the old Dutch church where he would have had to have been buried?

00:53:46.301 –> 00:53:49.454
Like why would you bring a decapitated, not even decapitated,

00:53:49.454 –> 00:53:51.606
like his head was blown off, you know?

00:53:51.606 –> 00:53:52.266
How would you?

00:53:52.266 –> 00:53:58.251
Yeah, so you know, like we can debunk that, but I think he was inspired by these

00:53:58.251 –> 00:54:00.713
amazing folktales and he loved them so much

00:54:00.973 –> 00:54:05.196
that he wanted, he wanted some sort of legacy, you know, to leave behind within

00:54:05.196 –> 00:54:08.839
that realm, and boy did he do it. Yeah, he did.

00:54:08.839 –> 00:54:09.399
He really did.

00:54:09.399 –> 00:54:13.622
He didn’t have anything else to be proud of. I mean, I think he could definitely rest in peace.

00:54:14.453 –> 00:54:20.447
Ah, that’s a beautiful way to end it. And, you know, to our residents of Folktown,

00:54:20.447 –> 00:54:25.651
this was so fun. Thank you, everyone, for giving us a chance to to share this

00:54:25.651 –> 00:54:28.693
with you and I can’t wait to do it again.

00:54:28.753 –> 00:54:33.196
I do just wanna tease a little. We do have something a little bit special coming

00:54:33.196 –> 00:54:35.818
up for you guys soon. We’re not gonna reveal that here though.

00:54:36.799 –> 00:54:41.462
So we might be on a hiatus, gone, but do not forget.

00:54:41.462 –> 00:54:45.244
We will be back. This is just the end.

00:54:45.244 –> 00:54:46.944
Yeah, this is just one, exactly.

00:54:47.045 –> 00:54:50.828
We just wanted to nerd out with you guys for a little bit and have someone to

00:54:50.828 –> 00:54:55.191
share some spooky, creepy thoughts stories with, but we’re gonna be back.

00:54:55.191 –> 00:55:01.435
We will be back. So thank you residents of Folktown. We will see you next time. Bye!

00:55:01.435 –> 00:55:02.351
Bye!

00:55:02.351 –> 00:55:03.122
Happy Halloween!