Vocab in the Classics: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Part III
Welcome to Vocab in the Classics. In our final post about The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, we look at selections from Washington Irving’s short story.
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. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. 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.
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 descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall.
He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived.
That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures.
There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling.
Ichabod Crane was famously portrayed by Johnny Depp in the 1999 film, Sleepy Hollow, although it’s clear from the description above that Depp is substantially more handsome and less ridiculous than Crane was meant to be.
Read the original story here.
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kOK5HMdo_E