Ichabod Crane is the main protagonist of the the story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, famously adapted by Disney for the 1949 film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
Role in Story[]
Life and vocation[]
Ichabod Crane is a schoolteacher with strong beliefs in the supernatural. He is described as "a conscientious man and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, 'Spare the rod and spoil the child.'" However, "Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. 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."
He made little money as a schoolmaster; his wages were "scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread." He was able to sustain this work through the help of locals, who "according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed . . . 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."
Ichabod was also known as "the singing-master of the neighborhood" and often on Sundays would "take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers; where, in his own, he completely carried away the psalm from the parson." In addition to his work as a schoolmaster, "instructed young folks in psalmody."
Caleb Stegall suggests that "the most distinctive characteristic Irving gives Ichabod is that of a psalm singer," and that Ichabod Crane is the "most celebrated Covenanter in all of the literature."
Supernatural beliefs and local renown[]
Ichabod was described as being well-read in the literature of the supernatural and superstition. In the story, he was "esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was regarded a master of Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed." In addition, he "took pleasure in reading old Mather's direful tales till dusk after school. Moreover, no supernatural story or superstition was hard for him to believe." He would often share his beliefs and readings with others. Indeed, in the story, he "would delight listeners equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous 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 fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!"
Irving describes Ichabod as "a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle, gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson." Ichabod spent ample time in the company of the locals telling tales of the supernatural and discussing local gossip. He is described as "like a travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction." It is also said that "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 with the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales 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."
Katrina Van Tassel[]
Ichabod is said to have a "soft and foolish heart towards the [opposite] sex." In the story, Irving writes regarding Ichabod: "he would have passed a pleasant life of it, despite 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."
A turning point in the story occurs when Ichabod becomes enamored of one Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a wealthy farmer named Baltus Van Tassel, who pays little attention to his daughter other than to be proud of her merits when they are praised. On account her father's wealth (which Ichabod is eager to inherit), he begins to court Katrina, who seems to respond in kind. This attracts the attention of the town rowdy, Abraham "Brom Bones" Van Brunt, who also wants to marry Katrina and is challenged in this only by Ichabod. Despite Brom's efforts to humiliate or punish the schoolmaster, Ichabod remains steadfast, and neither contestant seems able to gain any advantage throughout this rivalry.
Later, both men are invited to a harvest festival party at Van Tassel's where Ichabod's social skills far outshine Brom's. After the party breaks up, Ichabod remains behind for "a tête-à-tête with the heiress", where it is supposed that he makes a proposal of marriage to Katrina but, according to the narrator, "Something, however ... must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chapfallen", meaning that his proposal is refused, allegedly because her sole purpose in courting him was either to test or to increase Brom's desire for her. Therefore, Ichabod leaves the house "with the air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather than a fair lady's heart."
Encounter with the Headless Horseman[]
During his journey home, Ichabod encounters another traveler, who is eventually revealed to be the legendary Headless Horseman; the ghost of a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball during the American Revolutionary War. Ichabod flees with the Headless Horseman pursuing him, eventually crossing a bridge near the Dutch burial ground. Because the ghost is incapable of crossing this bridge, Ichabod assumes that he is safe. However, before Ichabod can react, the Headless Horseman throws his severed head at him, knocking him from the back of his own horse and sending "tumbling headlong into the dust." The next morning, Ichabod's hat is found abandoned near the church bridge, and close beside it is a shattered pumpkin. Ichabod is never seen in Sleepy Hollow again and is therefore presumed to have been spirited away by the Headless Horseman.
Later, "an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received" suggests that Ichabod had been frightened by both the Horseman and the anticipated anger of his current landlord into leaving the town forever, later to become "a justice of the ten pound court" in "ten-pound part of the country." Katrina marries Brom, who is said to look "exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always laughed heartily at the mention of the pumpkin." These events "led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell." Therefore, it can be assumed that Brom himself was the Horseman, whose legend he took advantage of to rid himself of his rival.
Portrayals[]
Live Action[]
- Will Rogers - The Headless Horseman (1922)
- James Munshin - Shirley Temple's Storybook, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1958)
- Rene Auberjonois - Once Upon a Midnight Scary (1979)
- Jeff Goldblum - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980)
- Ed Begley, Jr. - Shelly Duvall's Tall Tales and Legends, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1985)
- Arthur Holden - Are You Afraid of The Dark?, "The Tale of the Midnight Ride" (1994)
- Johnny Depp - Sleepy Hollow (1999)
- Brent Carver - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1999)
- Tom Mison - Sleepy Hollow (2013)
Animated[]
- Bing Crosby - The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
- The Amazing Kreskin - The New Misadventures of Ichabod Crane (1979)
- William H. Macy - The Night of The Headless Horseman (1999)
- Ben Small - The Haunted Pumpkin of Sleepy Hollow (2003)