The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and other stories

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow All the people were very curious, so Rip started telling his story. He told them about the bizarre18 group of people he had met in the forest, their peculiar behaviour and their strange clothes, the keg, the liquor he had drunk, the game of nine-pins everything! He told them about the mystery of his long grey beard and also about his gun that had rusted in just one night! and they were all so serious and silent I was so scared! So I decided to drink that delicious liquor, hoping to find the courage to escape! But after that I fell asleep and here I am! concluded Rip. The man with the cocked hat shook his head and didn t know what to think. He decided to ask the opinion of Peter Vanderdonk, the oldest inhabitant of the village and a famous historian, an expert in all the customs and traditions of the Caatskill mountains. He said that those mountains had always been haunted by strange beings, ghosts and goblins. He added that there was a legend about the presence of the great general Hendrick Hudson and his crew19 near the river Hudson: he came back every twenty years with the half-moon to control his territory. His father reported that he had once seen them with his own eyes playing nine-pins and wearing the traditional Dutch clothes. Peter Vanderdonk himself had heard a noise like the thunder of the nine-pins one summer afternoon After these frightening words all the people started looking at one another with perplexity. They were obviously asking themselves how it was possible that all those mysterious facts had happened in their valleys and fear appeared on everybody s face the atmosphere was becoming gloomier and gloomier20 even Rip felt uncomfortable. Suddenly, as if they had woken up from a dream, they all decided that it was better to forget about those extraordinary events and began to talk again about the most important matter of that day: the elections. 20. gloomier and gloomier: more and more depressing. 18. bizarre: strange. 19. crew: a group of people working together. 78