The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad Irving. Although the film introduces the story as "Ichabod Crane", later individual releases retained the story's original title. (As a short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was originally published in "The Sketch Book" with other stories, not as a single volume as pictured in the film.) In October 1790, Ichabod Crane, a lanky, gluttonous, superstitious yet charming dandy arrives in Sleepy Hollow, New York, a small village north of Tarrytown and New York City, New York, United States that is renowned for its ghostly hauntings, to be the town's new schoolmaster. Despite his odd behavior, appearance, and effeminate mannerisms,
Ichabod Crane take care to feed him in the evenings, during which he is happy to listen to their tales about supernatural events in the settlement. Ichabod is said to have carried a copy of Cotton Mather's "History of New England Witchcraft", which he firmly believes. He was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled. He administered justice with discrimination rather than severity; taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. The revenue arising from