How Does Witchcraft Come Into Play In “Sleepy Hollow”?
Sleepy Hollow remains thoroughly female-dominated, meant to eradicate the weaker men like Ichabod. The tales circulated in Sleepy Hollow revolve around the masculine Headless Horseman, which haunts Ichabod on his ride home. Because of his belief in witchcraft from Cotton Mather’s works, he begins to see the Headless Horseman in his mind and tortures his body. In this way, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow turns its audience into Ichabod Crane, eradicating the weak men and women, making them firmly believe in witchcraft or not believe.
Vetere also states “In ‘Sleepy Hollow’ for instance, the narrator acknowledges the maleficia of the matrons’ storytelling, but attempts to limit it strictly to the home and even to label it a form of nurturing. Ichabod always listens to the tales of ‘the Old Dutch wives’ inside a cozy domestic space: by the hearth, ‘as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and sputtering along the hearth” (Vetere 137). With this statement, it was to show that the women of Tarrytown had the power over men, that they did not want the Old Dutch ways to die because of men who were not of that descent marrying their daughters.
Witchcraft plays a huge role in the short story, for Tarry Town is “a colonial American ‘bewitched’ rural community” (Vetere 131). The town is fascinated by stories of ghosts, spirits, witches, and hauntings which stoke the fires of the Galloping Hessian of the Hollow tale. Irving writes that Tarry Town is “under the sway of some witching power that holds a spell over the minds of the good people.” When Ichabod sits at the fire with the Old Dutch wives he listens “to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow.”
Women carry on the folktales of the town more so than the men, and because of the masculinity of the headless Hessian, the wives use his tale to eradicate men who of course threaten their way of life. Ichabod’s own belief of the folklore around the town caused him to be expelled from Tarry Town, which is what many townsfolk were hoping for, including Brom Bones. Though the headless horseman is seen as the elite male figure, Brom Bones is that physical force behind the verbal maleficia. The verbal maleficia is carried on by the women, the folktales they pass on to others through the generations. They are the “best judges” on the matters of history, for they are the ones who pass their history and tales verbally to others.