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Washington Irving’s The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow · The American Soul: America's Christian Heritage

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of America's Christian Heritage Podcast.
• 0:08
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• 0:13
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• 0:20
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• 0:25
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• 0:31
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• 0:39
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• 0:41
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• 0:45
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• 0:47
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• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace, and your forgiveness of sins through the merit of your son, Jesus Christ.
• 1:00
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• 1:08
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• 1:12
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• 1:19
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• 1:20
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• 1:24
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• 1:25
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• 1:30
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• 1:32
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• 1:37
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• 1:41
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• 1:44
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• 1:47
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• 1:48
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• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we talked about it on the last podcast.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Gonna take a little break from our normal podcasting for just a couple episodes.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna read through the legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: If you get a chance uh to look at the original illustrations by Arthur Rackham, they're great if you like book art.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So he first, Washington Irving first printed Sleepy Hollow in 1819.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: So way back toward the beginning of the revolution or the country, you know, not that long after the revolution.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And in 1928 was when they issued the edition that had the paintings and drawings of Arthur Rackham, so a century later.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: But at any rate, it's a little piece of American history and heritage.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Irving was born in New York, lived in multiple places United States, England, Spain.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Wrote biographies on George Washington, Christopher Columbus, other histories.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Rip Van Rinkel, Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, at any rate, we'll read through the first half give or take on this podcast and then come back and hit it again.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Seemed like a good October read.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: The legend of Sleepy Hollow found among the papers of the late Dietrich Nickenbacher.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, of dreams that wave before the half-shed eye, and of gay castles in the clouds that pass, forever flushing round of summer sky, the castle of indolence.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river dominated by the ancient Dutch navigators, the Tapanze, and where they always prudently shortened sell and implored the protection of St.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburg, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Terrytown.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: The name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the invenerate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it for the sake of being precise and authentic.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather, lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose, and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquility.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: I recollect that when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had wandered into it at noontime when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its distractions and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: From the listless repose of the place and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land and to pervade the very atmosphere.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor during the early days of the settlement.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Others that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Certain it is the place still continues under the sway of some witching power that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambles.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head has been carried away by a cannonball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of the night, as if on the wings of the wind.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper, having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the hollow like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Such is the general purpose of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows, and the spectre is known at all the country firesides by the name of the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by everyone who resides there for a time.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure in a little time to inhale the witching influence of the air and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams and see apparitions.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is in such a little retired Dutch valleys found here and there embosomed in the great state of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: They are like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Though many years have elapsed since I've trod the drowsy shades of sleepy holla, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: In this by place of nature there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy white of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, tarried, in Sleepy Hollow for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: He was a native of Connecticut, a state which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: The cognomen of crane was not inapplicable to his person.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: His head was small and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: One might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: His heist his schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs, the windows partly glazed and partly patched with leaves of old copy books.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was most ingenuously secured at vacant hours by a wide twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the window shutters so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: An idea most probably borrowed by the architect Jost von Hutten from the mystery of an eel pot.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices coning over their lessons might be heard in the drowsy summer's day like the hum of a beehive, interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master and the tone of menace or command, or per adventure, by the appalling sound of the birch as he urged some tardy loiter along the flowery path of knowledge.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim spare the rod and spoil the child.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: On the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity, taking the burden off the backs of the weak and laying it on those of the strong.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Your mere puny stripling that winced at the least flourish of the rod was passed by with indulgence.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: But the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little tough, wrong headed, broad skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: All this he called doing his duty by their parents, and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys, and on holiday afternoons he would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters or good housewives or mothers noted for the comforts of the cupboard.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and though Lank had the dilating powers of an anaconda.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: But to help out his maintenance he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons who were apt to consider the cost of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: He had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: He laid aside too all the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And like the lion bold which Willom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing master of the neighborhood and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays to take his station in front of the church gallery with a band of chosen singers, where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Certain it is his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation, and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off quite to the opposite side of the mill pond on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Chicobod Crane.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thus, by divers little makeshifts in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated by hook and by crook, the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork to have a wonderfully easy life of it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood, being considered a kind of idle, gentlemanlike personages of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and indeed inferior in learning only to the parson.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, for adventure, the parade of a silver teapot.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels, how he would figure among them in the churchyard between services on Sundays, gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees, reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones, or sauntering with a whole bevy of them along the banks of the adjacent mill pond, while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: From his half-interant life, also he was a kind of traveling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from one house to the next, so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great irritation, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's history of New England witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: His appetite for the marvelous and the powers of digesting it were equally extraordinary, and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capricious swallow.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was often his delight after his school was dismissed in the afternoon to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather's direful tales until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Then, as he winded his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature at that witching hour fluttered his excited imagination.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: The moan of the whipper wheel from the hillside, the brooding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the street child, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: The fireflies too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if by chance a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging by his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: The whipperwheel is a bird which is only heard at night.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: It receives its name from its note which is thought to resemble those words.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: His only resource on such occasion, either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing song tunes, and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody and linked sweetness long drawn out, floating from the distant hill or along the dusky road.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listened to their marvelous tells of ghosts and goblins and haunted fields and haunted brooks and haunted bridges and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or galloping hessian of the hollow, as they sometimes called him.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: He would delight them equally by his antidotes of witchcraft and by the direful omens and portonous sights and sounds in the air which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut, and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round and that they were half the time topsy turvy.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: But if there was a pleasure in all this while snugly cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all the ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and where of course no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards, what fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which like a sheeted spectre beset his very path?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet, and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: And how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the galloping hessian on one of his nightly scourings?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness, and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes and his lonely preambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils, and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was a woman.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Among the musical disciples who assembled one evening in each week to receive his instructions in psalmity was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen, plump as a partridge, ripe and melting and rosy cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: She was, with all, a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions as most suited to set off her charms.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold which her great great grandmother had brought over from Sardom, the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and with all a provokingly short petticoat to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex, and it is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal hearted farmer.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm, but within those everything was snug, happy, and well conditioned.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it, and piqued himself upon the hardy abundance rather than the style in which he lived.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: A great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, and a little well formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the grass to a neighboring brook that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn that might have served for a church, every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: The flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves and rows of pigeon, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling and cooing and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth now and then troops of suckling pigs as if to snuff the air.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, conveying whole fleets of ducks.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea fowl fretting about it, like ill tempered housewives with their peevish, discontented cry.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart, sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon his sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: In his devouring mind's eye he pictured to himself every roasting pig running about with a pudding in his belly and an apple in his mouth.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: The pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie and tucked in with a coverlet of crust.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: The geese were swimming in their own gravy, and the ducks pairing cozily in dishes like snug married couples with a decent competency of onion sauce.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon and juicy relishing ham.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not a turkey but he beheld, daintily trussed up with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausage and even bright chantelesser himself lay sprawling on his back in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadowlands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these demands, and his imagination expanded with the idea how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land and shingle palaces in the wilderness.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nay his busy fancy already realized his hopes and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath, and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, for the Lord knows where.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of those spacious farmhouses with high ridged but lowly sloping roofs, built in a style handed down from the first Dutch settlers, the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Under this were flung were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Benches were built along the sides for summer use, and a great spinning wheel at one end and a churn at the other showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: From this piazza, the wandering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the mansion, and the place of usual residence.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Here rows of resplendent pewter ranged on a long dresser dazzled his eyes.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun, in another a quantity of Lindsay Woolsey just from the loom.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: Ears of Indian corn and strings of dried apples and peaches hung in gay festoons along the walls mingled with the gauge of red peppers, and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlour, where the cloth footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: And irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops, mock oranges and comp shells decorated the mantelplace.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended above it.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: A great ostrich egg was hung from the center of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well mended china.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight errant of gore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like, easily conquered adversaries to contend with, and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined, all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the center of a Christmas pie, and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impedements, and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Among these the most formidable was a burling, roaring, roystering blade of the name of Abraham.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Braun van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with shirt, short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of Brawn Bones, by which he was universally known.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: He was foremost at all races and cockfights, and with the ascendancy which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, he was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsain or appeal.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic, but had more mischief than ill will in his composition, and with all his overbearing roughness there was a strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: He had three or four boon companions who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles around.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail, and when the folks at a country gathering described this well known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight with hoop and halloo like a troop of Don Cossacks, and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry scurry clattered by, and then exclaim, Ah, there goes Brombones and his gang.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and goodwill.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when any mad cat prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity always shook their heads and warranted Brahm Bones was at the bottom of it.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: This Rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his amorous toys were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Certain it is his advances were signals for rival candidates to retire who felt no inclination to cross a line in his amoors, insomuch that when his horse was seen tied at Van Tassel's paling on a Saturday night, a sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed, sparking, within all other suitors passed by in despair and carried the war into other quarters.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: He was in form and spirit like a supple jack, yielding, but tough.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: Though he bent, he never broke, and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet the moment it was away, jerked, he was erect, and carried his head high as ever.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness, for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours any more than that stormy lovered Achilles.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Ichabod therefore made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Under cover of his character of singing master he made frequent visits at the farmhouse, not that he had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling block in the path of lovers.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Balt Van Tassel was an easy, indulgent soul.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: He loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in everything.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry, for as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things and must be looked after.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: But girls can take care of themselves.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thus, while the busy dame bustled about the house or plied her spinning wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Vault would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior who armed with a sword in each hand was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: I profess not to know how women's hearts are woe wooed and won.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Some seem to have but one vulnerable point or door of access, while others have a thousand avenues and may be captured in a thousand different ways.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: For a man must battle for his fortress at every door and window.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown, but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Certain it is this was not the case with the redoubtable wrong bones, and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: His horse was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Holler.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll come back and finish this up on the next podcast.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I hope y'all are enjoying it.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh hope it's a little bit entertaining at least.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is a kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: God bless y'all, God bless your families, your marriages, your nation, wherever you are around the world listening.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: God bless America.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Looking forward to it.