In the following essay, Plummer and Nelson maintain that the women in Sleepy Hollow maintain their power through the tales that they tell. The tales of the women retain their strength as men measure their strength by defeating the evils in the women's tales and the women's tale of the Headless Horseman is a means of removing the aggressive Ichabod Crane from the maternally controlled Sleepy Hollow.

Discussions of Washington Irving often concern gender and the artistic imagination, but these topics are usually mutually exclusive when associated with the two most enduring stories from the Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819-20): "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Many readings of the former focus on gender, while discussions of the latter most often explore its conception of the artist's role in American society. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" does indeed address this second theme...