The Truth About Sleepy Hollow

Sleepy Hollow on Fox with Tom Mison

By Anthony Vandagriff

A classic piece of literature that many are familiar with is, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” This tells the story of a man named Ichabod Crane who moves from Connecticut to Sleepy Hollow, New York. He is a teacher and a talented singer but most people don’t recall him when they think of Sleepy Hollow. The sinister character we all know and love is the headless horseman. The headless horseman has been used for TV Commercials, a villain in Scooby-Doo, and Halloween gags. There have been a couple of movies about this character too but in 2013 a TV show was made, revolving around the story of the headless horseman titled none other than, “Sleepy Hollow.”

 

 

I personally haven’t seen one episode of this program but I know people who have. I have seen commercials which pretty much summarize the whole show for you in some cases but regardless, I know what this show is all about. This version of “Sleepy Hollow” is about the return of the headless horseman but he isn’t just a Hessian soldier who lost his head to a cannon ball during the Revolutionary War. In this program, the headless horseman is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse mentioned in Revelation. I will admit this is a rad turn of events! Who thinks of this stuff?! Although it makes for an interesting spin on things, it’s not true. So if you enjoy the show, forgive me for spoiling it.

 

The Four Horsemen

Sleepy Hollow was never about the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the way the four horsemen are portrayed is completely wrong. First of all, the word “apocalypse” actually means “revelation.” I know a lot of people think it refers to the end of the world and zombies and all that. So the four horsemen of the apocalypse are the same as saying the four horsemen of Revelation. Next, they aren’t literally scary horsemen who will ride through earth terrorizing all the people. Zechariah 6 talks about them and says they are spirits. The descriptions found in Revelation allow us to understand what spirit, idea, or belief system these horsemen symbolize. Allow me to briefly explain them to you using the colors. The first was white and there is a major belief system in the world today symbolized by the color white. I’ll give you a hint, think about the Pope. That’s right; Catholicism is represented by the first horseman. The next was red, so start thinking about nations like China and Russia. The color red represents Communism. After that horseman we see a black one. Now the color does symbolize this idea but it helps when you consider the horseman had a pair of balances in his hand and you see an old school stock report given directly after the horseman is described. The third horseman represents capitalism. The last guy was described a pale in the KJV but the original word actually meant green. Honestly though, you have to cut the translators some slack seeing they were trying to make things logical. I mean, have you ever seen a green horse? That’s what I thought. Anyway, what movement today is represented by the color green? Islamism, and yes that is an accepted term now days. When we understand these things, the four horsemen aren’t so scary but unfortunately it kind of takes the fun out of the show “Sleepy Hollow.”