The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Beginning with the chilling preface Found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker. Washington Irvings classic short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow tells the story of Ichabod Crane a lean lanky and extremely superstitious schoolmaster from Connecticut who competes with Abraham Brom Bones Van Brunt the town rowdy for the hand of 18-year-old Katrina Van Tassel the daughter and sole child of a wealthy farmer. As Crane leaves a party he is pursued by the Headless Horseman who is supposedly the ghost of a Hessian trooper who had his head shot off by a stray cannonball during some nameless battle of the American Revolutionary War and who rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head.