Episode 172 of the popular television show, Seinfeld (the number
one show on NBC at the time) contains a joke in which an industrial smoothing company has
accidentally made the head of a statue too small. One of the characters suggests that the best
way to deal with this would be to get rid of the head entirely, put a pumpkin under the statues
arm and change the inscription to Ichabod Crane.
Any reader of will
realize the mistake: confusing Ichabod himself with the headless horseman who terrifies him.
This, however, is part of the point: the name of Ichabod Crane and his connection with headless
figures and pumpkins is well-known to millions of Americans who have never read The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow. Irving has created one of the select band of literary characters who are
instantly recognizable and seem always to have existed: Scrooge, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Philip
Marlowe and Holden Caulfield. Even among major authors, the creation of...
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