A narrow and broken path which sweeps along the south-east bank of the Hollow, leads to the foot of the redoubted hill where once stood the school-house, in which the celebrated Ichabod Crane " tarried," for the purpose of instructing the youth of this vicinity. "The whole of the neighborhood," observes the author of the Sketch Book, " abounds with local tales, haunted spots and twilight superstitions." " 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. It is said, by some, to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon ball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary war, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folks, hurrying along in the gloom of the night, as if on the wings of the wind."

" It is alleged that the body of the trooper having been buried in the

o Knickerbocker Magazine for 1S39.

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER.

church-yard, 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 church-yard before daybreak."

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition. The spectre is known by the name of the' "Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollo7o."a