At last a school-teaching hero

Well no, not really. You’re thinking of Johnny Depp in the film Sleepy Hollow. Ichabod in Washington Irving’s story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, is an underpaid, gangly Connecticut schoolmaster.

But he does do battle with the ghost of the Headless Horseman (aka Hessian)?

Not exactly. Ichabod takes the Bush option.

What’s that?

He runs away very fast. Only unlike George W, our Ichabod is never seen again.

But I thought this man was the “hero” of Irving’s story?

Indeed he is. If a man with “huge ears, long snipe nose, flat head and hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves” can be called heroic. Ichabod is likened, by his creator, to a scarecrow but that’s only when he dresses up to woo the wealthy Katrina Van Tassel.

So Ichabod is more of a lover than a warrior?

Not really. He’s only after Katrina for her huge acreage. Ichabod wants to trade in his old schoolhouse for Katrina’s plush Dutch homestead. In fact, Ichabod has been writing dubious sonnets in praise of Miss Van Tassel in between stuffing newspapers into cracks in his draughty lodging and walloping the local urchins.

So he believes in corporal punishment then?

Oh yes. “He ever bore in mind the maxim ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’,” says Irving.

So he beats his class, writes bad poetry, looks like a dork and is hoping to marry his way out of teaching.

You forgot to say that he flees at the first sight of the Headless Horseman.

Is there anything to commend him?

Well he does dance rather well at Mynnheer Van Tassel’s “quilting frolick” but then, as Irving puts it: “How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous; the lady of his heart was his partner in the dance.” Unfortunately, Ichabod and Katrina quadrille so closely that Brom van Brunt (Ichabod’s rival) is made jealous. Brom also has his sights on Katrina’s acreage and dresses up as the Headless Hessian after the party to chase Ichabod away.

Ah that explains it.

All Ichabod leaves behind at the school house is two-and-a-half shirts, a book of psalms, an old rusty razor and his broken pipe. As for the people of Sleepy Hollow, they close the school, deciding that they could just as easily beat their own children.

And the moral of this tale?

Who needs schoolmasters?