Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley by Jonathan Kruk

Author:Jonathan Kruk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2012-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

The mention made in The Legend of the White Lady’s warning cries, hints of her shape shifting in the snow and pelting Ichabod Crane with “witch tokens,” indicates something deeper than ghosts at play. Our wailing woman echoes Irish lore of the “Bean Si” (Banshe) who screams before a death. Katherine Briggs, in her Encyclopedia of Fairies, notes White Ladies are a mix between fairy and ghost. Specifically, the Dutch version, known in Holland as “Wiite Juffern,” commonly dwelled in cavelike shelters near small towns. Our White Lady takes up such a residence at Raven Rock.

The presence of several melancholy protective entities near “Slaaper’s Hol” gives evidence of Dutch fairy tale traditions in Washington Irving’s Legend, and in regional lore as well. They are similar to the ship-sinking imps of the Hudson Highlands. Both are spirits of the dead acting in fairylike roles.

Fairy tale traditions transported from Europe to America, like folk music, were adapted to the new landscape. Once upon a time, in the Old World, people left fields fallow for the little people. Peasants gave gifts in return for medicine from the fairies. Caves and crags were left open for the ancient enchanted races. Passersby sang psalms to ward off those old ones. The New World, especially around Sleepy Hollow, developed its own cautionary ways. Thus tip your hat to salute the imps of Donder-Berg. Sing a psalm like Ichabod Crane’s to frighten away ghosts. And heed the wailings of the White Lady who cries before coming storms.

The protective nature spirits of Old World White Ladies reappear indeed in Sleepy Hollow’s folklore. Originally these nature fairies captivated lovers, gave gifts of precious stones and spread seeds that eventually became spirits of the wind. Around Sleepy Hollow, heartbreak led them to sound storm warnings.

The primordial White Lady emerges in another epic story: the Legend of King Arthur. The chieftain who first united tribal Britain against Saxon invaders had a “white phantom” or “apparition” of a wife. Guinevere translates from the ancient Brythonic as “Gwenhwyvar,” meaning white ghost. Clearly, Arthur’s queen foreshadows Sleepy Hollow’s White Ladies.

Across the ocean, colonists frightened by the wilderness felt something unearthly in the winds off the Hudson. There’s a Native story of an aggravated young woman transformed, like a New World Daphne, into a manitou. Following her to Raven Rock, some European women ignore or miss the Native spirit’s warning. They become fairy-ghosts themselves, wailing new warnings in the wind.

The Dutch settlers of the lower Hudson Valley may have been the “hard blond traders” described by Carl Carmer. Pragmatists when facing the raw wilderness, strange Native peoples and rival European powers, the Dutch also encountered things unknown. They never experienced the dense forests, jagged palisades and misty coves found along the Hudson. The Tappan Zee’s sudden sail-sheering wind, the moaning in the hills and the gloomy atmosphere turned them back to folklore from home for explanations. Thus new phenomena encountered in the New Netherlands made White Ladies at Raven Rock, imps in the Highlands and other spirits too.

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