Irving, Washington / 2008-07-14 00:00:00

1819-20
THE SKETCH BOOK
RIP VAN WINKLE
A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER
by Washington Irving
By Woden, God of Saxons,
From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday.
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre-
CARTWRIGHT.
[The following Tale was found among the papers of the late
Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very
curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the
descendants from its primitive settlers. His historical researches,
however, did not lie so much among books as among men; for the
former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics; whereas he
found the old burghers, and still more their wives, rich in that
legendary lore, so invaluable to true history. Whenever, therefore, he
happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed
farmhouse, under a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little
clasped volume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a
book-worm.
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