RIP VAN WINKLE AND OTHER STORIES - Wordsworth

Rip van Winkle is a man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect; a familiar figure about the village, he is loved by all except his wife. One autumn day, he escapes her nagging to wander up into the mountains, and there after drinking some liquor offered to him by a band of strange folk, he settles down under a tree and falls asleep. He wakes up twenty years later and returns to his village to find that not only is his wife dead, but war and revolution have changed many things. He, on the other hand, although older is not appreciably wiser and soon slips back into his idle habits. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow tells of conscientious schoolmaster Ichabod Crane. Orderly and strict in school, out of school his life is disorderly and his head full of fearful fantasies. He is in love with the beatiful Katrina but has a rival for her hand, a dashing young hero who together with his prankster friends, plays on Ichabod's superstitions, notably with the story of a headless horseman who haunts the region. Tragedy strikes when their hapless victim encounters just such an apparition when returning home one dark and especially dismal night...