The Headless Horseman: How an Old World Ghost Rode Into Halloween, for Sleep

On 15 March 1820, the sixth number of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman went on sale in New York, a slim part in paper covers. Its last piece was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the story that first brought the Headless Horseman into print, and it ends with a teller who believes no more than half of it. This long history for sleep asks whether the Horseman was an old ghost of the Old World or one man's invention, and how a half-comic tale became one of Halloween's most serious ghosts. Also on Spotify, to listen with your screen off: https://open.spotify.com/show/78KYY13... Along the way: Diedrich Knickerbocker's missing-person hoax of 1809; Tarrytown, Kinderhook and the schoolmaster Jesse Merwin; the Philipse manor at the Upper Mills and the people named in its 1750 inventory; the Hessians, White Plains and General Heath's memoir; the Neutral Ground and the capture of Major André; the phantom hunt at Peterborough; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Addison's headless horse that was a cow; Tam o' Shanter's bridge; Croker's dullahan; Musäus and the prank in the Giant Mountains; Walter Scott at Abbotsford; Quidor's paintings and Darley's prints; Mayne Reid's rider in Texas; Will Rogers, Ub Iwerks and Disney's Halloween party; the vote that renamed North Tarrytown; Tim Burton's film; and the Legend told by candlelight in the Old Dutch Church. Told calmly, with the evidence named, for listening late at night or drifting off to sleep. Where are you listening from tonight, and do you think the rider was a ghost or Brom Bones in disguise? Chapters: 0:00 A Book Sold in Parts 6:45 The Ride and the Bridge 13:04 The Missing Historian 19:06 Tarrytown and Kinderhook 24:59 The Pocantico Manor 31:20 The Hessians 37:54 The Neutral Ground 44:10 England's Phantom Riders 50:33 Scottish and Irish Riders 57:03 The German Prank 1:03:34 Scott and German Tales 1:09:59 Courtship and Postscript 1:16:43 Painters Chose the Chase 1:22:59 Irving Comes Home 1:29:07 A Second Horseman 1:35:13 The Halloween Turn 1:41:13 The Valley Restored 1:47:32 A Village Renamed 1:54:00 The Ghost Made Certain 2:00:22 The Horseman's October 2:06:37 Claims on the Story 2:12:37 Back to the Sixth Number #historyforsleep #headlesshorseman #halloween #sleepyhollow #sleephistory