Sleepy Hollow, an area near Tarrytown, New
York, as Irving describes it, is particularly subject to
legends, superstitions, and unusual occurrences.
Having set the scene, he introduces the three prin-
cipal characters. Ichabod Crane is the local
schoolteacher, a man of no particular merit, with
little wealth, physically ungainly, well-read and ed-
ucated, but very superstitious. Crane is interested
in Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of the wealthi-
est farmer in the region, but faces a formidable
rival in Brom Van Brunt, an athletic, mischievous,
and determined young suitor. Through persever-
ance and the whims of Katrina, Crane seems to be
succeeding, much to Brom’s distress, and he and
his cronies play several pranks on Crane, although
without affecting his resolve.
The most frightening of the local legends is the
tale of the Headless Horseman, an image that Irving
may have borrowed from an earlier story by a Dutch
writer. The horseman is the spirit of a Hessian offi-
cer killed during the Revolutionary War when a
cannonball took off his head. Crane finds this image
particularly unnerving, which leads to blind panic
when, while riding home alone one evening, he en-
counters what appears to be the horseman himself.
A chase follows, at the climax of which the horse-
man throws his head at Crane, who is struck and
knocked senseless. The following day Crane is gone
and presumed to have been carried off by the Hes-
sian, although years later word comes that he is
alive and well. Irving clearly implies that this was
another prank perpetrated by Brom, but only after
the reader has been invited to assume that the de-
capitated soldier has, in fact, returned from the
dead. The story is a classic of American literature,
regardless of what label it bears.
Le Guin, Ursula K.(1929– )
Ursula K. Le Guin wrote mostly science fiction
during the early part of her career, although as
early as 1962 she completed “April in Paris,” a
short fantasy. It was with A Wizard of Earthsea
(1968) that she first made a major impact in that
genre, a novel written ostensibly for young adults
but that drew and still holds a significant adult au-
dience. A young would-be magician named Ged
releases his own death into the world in the form
of a shadow and spends the rest of the novel trying
to repair matters. Ged returned for two further ad-
ventures. In The Tombs of Atuan(1971) he meets a
young woman whose life has been so dedicated to
becoming a priestess that she has no experience of
the greater world, which changes as a result of
their meeting. Ged’s final appearance is in The Far-
thest Shore (1972). Magic has been disappearing
from the land, threatening to alter the world irre-
vocably. He travels to the underworld to confront
the force responsible. In each of the three novels,
the conflict comes from resolving the differences
between two polarized viewpoints, a theme that re-
curs in much of Le Guin’s other work.
After a gap of several years, Le Guin returned
to Earthsea for new titles, but with a different cast of
characters. Tehanu(1990), which won the Nebula
Award, is set after magic has begun to make a weak
recovery. Le Guin uses this volume to adjust certain
aspects of her imagined society about which she had
had second thoughts. Although it was subtitled The
Last Book of Earthsea,that was not the case. She has
since added Tales from Earthsea(2001), a collection
of loosely interconnected short stories using that
setting, and The Other Wind(2002), in which a wiz-
ard troubled by dreams of the dead sets out on a
quest accompanied by a shape-changing dragon.
The Other Windwon a World Fantasy Award.
Not all of Le Guin’s fantasy is set in Earthsea.
Orsinian Tales(1976) is a collection of stories set in
an imaginary variation of historical Europe, as is the
novel Malafrena(1979), both of which are slow-
paced, thoughtful, convoluted, and witty, but nei-
ther of which is among her best work. The Beginning
Place(1980, also published as Threshold) follows the
adventures of two young people who cross through
a gateway to another reality and experience a rapid
maturation, after which their apparently doomed
love affair triumphs over considerable adversity.
Gifts(2004) also uses young adults as its primary
characters. In a village where everyone has one or
another magical talent, a delicate balance of power
is based on fear of one’s neighbors. An adolescent
boy and girl decide to renounce their powers and
trust each other, which sends ripples of disquiet
throughout the community.
Le Guin has also written a considerable body
of short fantasy tales. The Cat Wings sequence hasLe Guin, Ursula K. 211