World classic, retold in simple Mandarin
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
睡谷传说
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (睡谷传说, Shuì gǔ chuánshuō) is a classic by Washington Irving, retold in simple Mandarin as a 4-chapter story with audio for learners at about HSK 2 (Elementary).
Retold from Washington Irving's 1820 classic: a hungry schoolteacher, a rich farmer's daughter, a jealous rival, and one very dark ride home past the Headless Horseman.
Meet the voices
- Narrator · 旁白 — An old storyteller who tells the tale of Sleepy Hollow calmly, like a grandfather by the fire.
- Ichabod Crane · 伊卡博德 — The tall, thin, always hungry schoolteacher of Sleepy Hollow, who loves ghost stories, good food and the Van Tassel money, and is scared of his own shadow.
- Katrina Van Tassel · 卡特里娜 — The rosy, clever daughter of the richest farmer in the valley, who likes to tease both of the men who want to marry her.
- Brom Bones · 布罗姆 — A big, loud, laughing young farmer who loves horses and practical jokes and wants Katrina for himself.
- The Headless Horseman · 无头骑士 — The ghost rider of Sleepy Hollow, who is said to ride at night looking for his lost head.
- Mr. Van Tassel · 范塔塞尔 — Katrina's father, a jolly, rich farmer who loves feeding his guests.
- A Schoolboy · 学生 — One of Ichabod's cheeky students, who notices everything, especially his teacher's hunger.
- Old Grandmother · 老奶奶 — A village grandmother who tells the ghost stories at the party in a slow, spooky voice.
4 chapters, one journey
Chapter 1: The Hungry Teacher
很饿的老师
Hungry Teacher Crane hopes to marry a rich farmer's daughter and eat his way into a fortune, but loud Brom Bones has a ghostly warning for him.
Free to read
Chapter 2: The Harvest Party
秋天的晚会
At the Van Tassel harvest party Ichabod eats, dances and hears ghost stories by the fire, and then has to ride home the very way Brom warned him about.
SayMei Stories
Chapter 3: The Dark Road
半夜的路
Alone on the dark road home, Ichabod jumps at every owl and branch until a rider with no head begins to follow him.
SayMei Stories
Chapter 4: The Smashed Pumpkin
桥边的南瓜
Ichabod races for the bridge with the rider close behind him. By morning, the teacher is gone, and only a hat and a smashed pumpkin are left.
SayMei Stories
Key words in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Behind the story
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was written by the American author Washington Irving and first published in 1820 in his collection The Sketch Book. It is set in a quiet Dutch farming valley near the Hudson River in New York, not long after the American Revolution, and it is one of the first great ghost stories of the United States.
Chinese readers call the ghost 无头骑士, the “headless rider,” and the tale is a favorite around Halloween, which is known in Chinese as 万圣节. Irving never says for certain whether the rider was a ghost or a clever trick, and readers are still happily arguing about it.
Did you know?
- There is a real village called Sleepy Hollow in New York. It used to be named North Tarrytown, and it chose its new name in 1996 because of Irving's story.
- Irving borrowed the idea of a headless rider from old European folktales, then gave it a Dutch-American home in the Hudson Valley.
- The story never shows what happened to Ichabod Crane. The last thing anyone finds is a hat and a smashed pumpkin, and Brom Bones smiles whenever someone mentions it.