The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow: An authenticly American ghost story
>> Friday, October 31, 2008
Based on Washington Irving's classic short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Walt Disney recreated this colorful legend using music and animation for the silver screen in 1958. Featuring the vocal and narration talents of Bing Crosby, this version of Irving's tale is the most popular and beloved of generations of Disney fans.
Washington Irving was born in New York City (near present-day Wall Street) at the end of the Revolutionary War on April 3, 1783. His parents, Scottish-English immigrants, were great admirers of General George Washington, and named their son after their hero. He died on November 28th, 1859 and was buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.
One of the reasons this story is so dear to me is that Washington Irving and I share the same ancestry. We are both descendants of the Irvines of Drum near Aberdeen, Scotland, a fact of which I am very proud!
Happy Halloween!
3 comments:
I adore the Disney animation of Sleepy Hollow! Especially the music. Are they shovels...or are they feet?
Happy Halloween! :)
I love that story as well as the film. Both are excellent and were a part of my young years that I passed on to my own children.
The Dennisons are Scots, too! A branch of Clan Stewart.
Then our Clans merged somewhere down the line because the Irvines were in the same line as Robert the Bruce who was a Stewart. My ancestor, William de Irwyn was Bruce's first cousin. The Stewarts, (Stuart), were the royal line of Scotland, descending down from King Duncan, (of Shakespeare's "McBeth" fame), Mary Queen of Scots, (who lost her head to Elizabeth I), and James I,(commissioned the King James version of the Bible), son of Mary Queen of Scots who ascended to the throne after Elizabeth died and left no heir.
So we're clan in there somewhere!
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