I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of the valley. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St.

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye Īnd of gay castles in the clouds that pass, “Great minds have purposes others have wishes.”įOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER. Main Body 1 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (1820)

Bear witness meaning sleepy hollow