"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was originally published in 1820 as part of a series of sketches under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon. The short story recounts the "adventures" of Ichabod Crane - a superstitious school teacher - and how he is driven from the small town of Sleepy Hollow by a headless, horse-riding specter. The mythic horseman in Irving's Legend was rumored to be the ghost of a Revolutionary War soldier, tragically decapitated by a flying cannonball.