Sleepy Hollow’s Headless Horseman: A Halloween Ghost Story | Thursday Thrills

0:00 In Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane has acquired some company on his ride. A stranger on a black horse, close enough to follow his pace. Silent enough that Ichabod gets no answer when he calls into the darkness. He makes his horse go faster. The stranger speeds up. He slows down. And so does the stranger. Then they reach higher ground, and the rider's outline rises against the sky. There should be a face above his shoulders. A hat, perhaps.

0:43 Something looking back at him. There's nothing. The head is down by the saddle, and Ichabod has just left an evening that ended with stories about what exactly rides through this valley. After Dark Thursday Thrills This is Thursday Thrills, a quick weekly ride into the creepy stories, haunted places, weird obsessions, and eerie little corners of the world worth talking about. I'm Enrique Couto, and with Halloween just two days away, We're heading into Sleepy Hollow, New York. Get comfortable.

1:34 Ichabod Crane is about to have the sort of evening that makes walking home with a friend seem like the best idea you've ever heard. Before we follow him, let's take a look at where he's headed. The old Dutch church is still there in Sleepy Hollow, a small stone church with a burying ground beside it. Washington Irving put his horsemen among those graves. I like a ghost story that gives you an actual place to be nervous about. You could spend an afternoon reading the stones, admiring the church, feeling perfectly sensible. You might even decide this would be a lovely place for an evening walk. Then the light starts going, and you notice something. just how much those stones seemed to hide. Somebody could be standing just a few rows back. You might only see a shoulder. All of a sudden, you would very much like to see the rest of them before you get any closer. In Irving's telling, a soldier lies buried in that churchyard, a Hessian.

2:54 One of the German soldiers who fought on Britain's side during the American Revolution, a cannonball took his head in battle. After dark, he rides out, looking for it. If you hear him coming quickly, the story has an explanation. He needs to get back to his grave before daylight. I'm not sure if I'd find that comforting, per se. Now the thing coming up behind you is in a hurry, great. And there are other headless travelers to worry about. In an older German tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, a woman gathering acorns hears a hunting horn. Along comes a rider without a head. When she encounters him again, he's on foot, carrying it under his arm. So getting away from the horses isn't going to solve every problem. But tonight, let's stay close to the people telling stories after supper.

4:02 It's warm in there. Somebody has to be sensible about all this, right? Ichabod Crane is exactly the sort of person who wants to hear every word. He teaches schools. gives singing lessons, and is very happy to be invited over, especially if there's dinner and a ghost story. My kind of guy. Give him a warm seat near the fire and something about a haunted field and he's perfectly content. Eventually, though, someone has to open the door and allow him to walk home. That's when every sound Requires investigation. A bird moving in a bush. An owl. His own footsteps. He sings religious songs to settle his nerves, which means people sitting at home can hear this lonely voice drifting through the darkness. He's already providing his neighbors with a pretty decent haunting. Then there's Katrina Von Tassel. Ichabod is... romantically interested in her and he's very interested in the prosperous farm she stands to inherit when he looks around that property he can practically see dinner arranging itself on plates

5:35 nice silver plates his rival is Brom Bones a powerful young man who knows his way around a horse and enjoys making Ichabod miserable Brahm and his friends play tricks on the schoolteacher. They even get into his schoolhouse and turn things upside down, leaving him to wonder whether witches have been holding their meetings in his classroom. Brahm would prefer a fight. Ichabod has heard him boast that he could fold the schoolmaster up and put him on a shelf, so he wisely avoids giving him the opportunity to prove it.

6:17 So Brahm keeps finding other ways to reach him. Even his singing becomes a target. Brahm teaches a dog to whine along in mockery. So we have a man who frightens easily and another man who knows it. At an autumn gathering at the Van Tassel farm, there's dancing, company, and enough food to make leaving seem like a personal failure. Apple pie, pumpkin pie, cakes, donuts. Shouldn't record this before lunch. Ichabod has borrowed an old plow horse named Gunpowder, just for the occasion. Gunpowder is a lot of name for an old plow horse, but what's in a name anyway?

7:09 As the evening goes on, the guests start trading stories. First the war, then the ghosts. The horseman is said to tie his horse among the graves. Somebody tells of a man forced to ride behind him. I'm not a huge fan of that arrangement personally. I mean, you're pressed up against the thing you're scared of and then it has the reins. Doesn't sound so good. At the bridge, the horseman turns into a skeleton, throws his passenger into the brook, and leaps away over the treetops. Then Brahm has a story all his own. He says he raced the horsemen for a bowl of punch. Brahm was winning, naturally, when they reached the church bridge and the phantom vanished in a brilliant flash of fire. Remember that bridge. Ichabod certainly will. For the rest of his life, however short it just may be, Make sure to follow or subscribe to Weekly Spooky for more ghost stories and something scary to listen to every single day of the week with many little extras all through the Halloween season. And share this one with the friend who'd walk you home after a Halloween party. Preferably somebody who'd wait if you fell behind. Alright,

8:46 the company is breaking up and Ichabod still has to get home. After the party, Ichabod stays for a private conversation with Katrina. Whatever happens between them, he leaves looking thoroughly defeated. The laughter of the departing guests fades. The road that brought him past such promising food that afternoon now takes him into the dark with every ghost story from the party coming back to him I'd have been just as eager to hear those stories not gonna lie ask for the worst one lean in a little closer then I'd suddenly remember I arrived alone and become very interested in whether anybody else was leaving just coincidentally he can hear a dog barking across the Hudson gotta hate that kind of distance close enough to hear somebody's dog, nowhere near close enough to knock on their door. Then Ichabod passes a great tree, a pigsty, shape turns out to be wood exposed by lightning. A groaning sound comes from branches rubbing together. For a moment, everything has an explanation.

10:15 Farther along, Gunpowder refuses a small crossing. Ichabod tries to push him forward. The horse edges away. And there beside the brook, the schoolteacher notices something large and motionless in the shadow. He calls out. There's no answer. The shape moves into the road on a black horse. For a moment, another traveler ought to be good news. Somebody else knows this road. Perhaps they can ride together. The buddy system.

10:55 Then Ichabod speeds up. And the stranger speeds up. He slows down. And so does the stranger. On a lonely road, I'd want another traveler to make some ordinary gesture. Say, Good evening. Complain about the weather. Give me something I could answer without wondering whether I should be running for my life. This rider offers nothing. He just adjusts his pace as though the two of them have already agreed to finish the journey together. Then comes that rise in the ground, the empty space above the shoulders. And all the stories Ichabod enjoyed at the party have now caught up with him. The chase is a mess. Ichabod's clothes fly, the horses pound along, and Gunpowder takes a turn his rider did not intend. Then the saddle starts slipping. Ichabod grabs at his horse's neck as the saddle falls beneath the pursuer's hooves. Even now, with a headless rider behind him, a little part of his mind is worried about the man who lent him that saddle. I do understand that worry.

12:27 Somehow you're going to have to explain that you're fine, the horse is fine, but the saddle got trampled by a ghost. I'd prefer to have a witness. one with a head. Through the trees, Ichabod sees the church. The bridge is ahead. He has something to aim for now. Brahm's horsemen vanished there, so get across and this can end. Gunpowder reaches the wooden planks. They rumble like thunder underneath him. Horse and rider make it to the opposite side, and Ichabod looks back for the flash of fire That will mean he's safe. Instead, the horseman rises in his stirrups.

13:16 He throws the head. It strikes Ichabod and sends him tumbling into the dust. The horses rush past. He made it across. That's the part I can't quite shake. He reached the place he believed would save him. And there was still something coming. Straight through the air. By morning, Gunpowder is home, eating grass, Sans' saddle. Ichabod doesn't appear for breakfast. He doesn't turn up at school. People go looking. They find the damaged saddle and follow the hoofprints. Beyond the bridge, near the water, there sits Ichabod's hat. Beside it lies a shattered pumpkin. The brook is searched. There's no body. Now Brahm's earlier performance starts to feel different.

14:20 The expert horseman, the practical jokes, the helpful explanation of exactly where the phantom would disappear. Later, he marries Katrina. Whenever somebody mentions the pumpkin, he laughs as though he knows something that... Others do not. He never gives a confession. There's also a farmer who brings word that Ichabod survived, moved away, studied law, and eventually became a judge. That would be a pretty impressive recovery from such a terrible evening.

15:01 But some people in Sleepy Hollow keep telling it the other way. The horsemen carried him off. the schoolteacher never came home. Now, in daylight, I could sit there with you and make a very convincing case for a practical joke. I might even laugh at Ichabod just a little. If our walk home happened to pass that very churchyard, though, I'd want us to finish the conversation before we arrived, and you had better keep up. The old Dutch church still stands, the original wooden bridge is gone. Washington Irving himself is buried nearby in the separate Sleepy Hollow Cemetery beside the old burying ground. The man who sent a headless rider out of this very landscape eventually came back to rest in it. With Halloween almost here, it's easy and almost preferable To imagine the horseman carrying a glowing jack-o'-lantern, that bright, grinning face has become part of the pleasure of seeing him return each autumn. But there's one more sound you want to listen for before we leave. After Ichabod disappears, his schoolhouse is abandoned and falls into decay.

16:36 People say it's haunted. A passerby on a summer evening may think he hears the schoolmaster's melancholy singing at a distance. All that talk about the horsemen, and now there's another lonely presence in the hollow. Think of that little building at dusk. No pupils waiting at their desks. No reason for anybody to be inside. From somewhere across the hollow comes a familiar tune. You might tell yourself it's just someone passing the time. You might even recognize the song.

17:24 But I think I'd keep walking until I could hear somebody else's footsteps beside my own. I'm Enrique Couto. Thank you for spending this last Thursday before Halloween with me. I hope you have a wonderfully spooky weekend. And remember, Saturday is our seven-year anniversary episode. It'll be airing in the afternoon after another big compilation of Halloween scary stories. And if I may say one more thing before I let you get on your pony and ride, ride, ride. Thank you for enjoying a little bit of the spooky season with me. And if you're one of those oddballs out there that never really stop celebrating Halloween, not really, this is a home just for you. So make sure you subscribe, and I'll see you very soon. Come back tomorrow for more fear. Until then, lock your doors. As if that will help.