Did Ichabod Practice Magic as a Child?
The practice of magic is a recurring theme in Sleepy Hollow. In the film, five* women are sisters of the dark and light arts; Lady Crane, Mary Archer, the Crone, Katrina, and her mother. However, there is another who was taught magic by their mother, one who was also conditioned to fear its ways: Ichabod Crane.
Young Ichabod in the novel is able to mimic a spell his mother completes before him.
From the novelization by Peter Lerangis (page 66)
"Milkweed seedlings. Millions of them. Filling the air, swirling like a snowstorm in summer.
In the dream, he is far from the Van Tassel house, far from the awful events that brought him there. He is home again, in the woods behind the house, with Mother.
She opens the milkweed pod and blows. The seedlings burst out. So many. They couldn't all have come from such a small place. It must be magic. He is giggling. The sound is high-pitched, like the pealing of a small bell. Mother hands him a pod and shows how to open it. He does, and he blows. But as the seedlings fly away wildly over the field, she is gone."
From The Art of Sleepy Hollow:
A MILLION WHITE MILKWEED SEEDLINGS are floating through the sunlight. Young Ichabod's laughter is heard.
Now we see that his Mother is blowing the seedlings for his delight. She gives him a milkweed pod and shows him how to do it for himself. Ichabod breaks the pod and releases another million. But when he looks around to share the delight, his Mother has gone . . . and he sees her disappearing among the trees. He goes to follow her.
The scene is from a dream sequence and is therefore confusing as to its true meaning. Also confusing is its place in Ichabod's life: memory or creation? However, to be able to produce a million seedlings from one pod, and to have them fill the air as though snow, seems a feat of magical proportions whether or not it is a dream.
In two of his dreams, Ichabod is witness to his mother practicing magic. In the novelization, he believes it is wrong to look at the designs his mother creates in the hearth ashes, but the temptation is there. He gives in, even if only in dreams.
Then, picking up a twig, she begins to draw strange, magical designs in the ashes.
They are enchanting, but they are dangerous. He must not look at them.
He, in his second dream, gives in to another forbidden temptation. This scene is partially deleted from the film.
"Ichabod watches as his Mother turns inside the Mushroom Circle, almost dancing. He smiles. Then he sees his Mother stoop to pick a mushroom. She eats it. She looks happy. She drops a small piece of the mushroom.
Ichabod sees it fall.
He runs forward and picks it up before she sees him. Ichabod eats it. His Mother sees him, takes his hands in hers and dances him around in a circle.
As Ichabod whizzes around laughing, his POV becomes Encircling Trees whizzing around, and suddenly he seems to be surrounded by the Menacing Headless Figures dressed all in black.
Ichabod falls over dizzy and when he looks up he sees that the Headless Figures have become his Father, watching his Mother headlessly dancing, his face like thunder. His Mother has loosened her clothes and is virtually barebreasted.
His Father's eyes begin to glow like live coals as Ichabod cowers away from him."
Lord Crane witnesses his wife practicing magic near their son more than once. Perhaps Lord Crane ended her life not only for the supposed purification of his wife's soul but for the soul of his son as well. He was more than likely aware of Ichabod's growing fascination.
I confess I haven't yet read all of the original Washington Irving novel, but have gathered from it that Ichabod is a believer of the dark arts. From the Ichabod Crane Wikipedia page: 'He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed. He took pleasure in reading old Mather’s direful tales till dusk after school. Moreover, no supernatural story or superstition was hard for him to believe.'
At one point in the film, Katrina says something I find unusual. When she and Ichabod first visit the ruins of her childhood cottage, Ichabod demonstrates the optical illusion created by the thaumatrope, the caging of a cardinal. Katrina is enchanted and says, "You can do magic! Teach me!"
Why does she respond with those words in particular? The emphasis on the word 'can.' "You can do magic!" It is almost as though she had wondered about it previously. Before this scene, she gave to him her mother's book, A Compendium of Spells, Devices and Charms of the Spirit World. Why give to Ichabod, a man she barely knows, a book so special to her; a book whose content is controversial. Granted, he was a nonbeliever she wished to convert, but how would the text, non-practiced, aid or convert him? It doesn't quite add up unless Katrina perhaps sensed the potential for magic within him.
Ichabod's abilities and intellect in regards to scientific deductive methods surpass that of his colleagues and the townspeople of Sleepy Hollow. A fact of which he is not unaware. He is, however, a subject of ridicule and contempt in New York and distrust and disrespect in Sleepy Hollow. He seemingly lives a life of relative isolation, in part due to his devotion to his studies and, overall, a lack of desire to engage in social activity. Isolated like his mother, isolated like Katrina. They are in the room but not of it. To see them is to see in them the unknown, and that is frightening to some. As with so many things in life, fear or misunderstanding leads people to respond with hate or derision.
Friendship for Ichabod is achieved only with someone younger than him because, despite his countenance, he is at heart closer in age to Young Masbath than his fellow man. Though Ichabod does certainly have unique characteristics which set him apart, his oddities lie beneath the skin. How is it that Ichabod alone developed such advanced insight concerning forensic science and became, as it were, an innovator of such techniques? Perhaps, though he bases himself in ration, reason and science, his inventions and methods come to him by means he cannot understand, long kept buried.
It would be the ultimate justice for Ichabod, a character so initially steadfast in his refusal to believe in the supernatural, to have once used magic himself.
Young Ichabod in the novel is able to mimic a spell his mother completes before him.
From the novelization by Peter Lerangis (page 66)
"Milkweed seedlings. Millions of them. Filling the air, swirling like a snowstorm in summer.
In the dream, he is far from the Van Tassel house, far from the awful events that brought him there. He is home again, in the woods behind the house, with Mother.
She opens the milkweed pod and blows. The seedlings burst out. So many. They couldn't all have come from such a small place. It must be magic. He is giggling. The sound is high-pitched, like the pealing of a small bell. Mother hands him a pod and shows how to open it. He does, and he blows. But as the seedlings fly away wildly over the field, she is gone."
From The Art of Sleepy Hollow:
A MILLION WHITE MILKWEED SEEDLINGS are floating through the sunlight. Young Ichabod's laughter is heard.
Now we see that his Mother is blowing the seedlings for his delight. She gives him a milkweed pod and shows him how to do it for himself. Ichabod breaks the pod and releases another million. But when he looks around to share the delight, his Mother has gone . . . and he sees her disappearing among the trees. He goes to follow her.
The scene is from a dream sequence and is therefore confusing as to its true meaning. Also confusing is its place in Ichabod's life: memory or creation? However, to be able to produce a million seedlings from one pod, and to have them fill the air as though snow, seems a feat of magical proportions whether or not it is a dream.
In two of his dreams, Ichabod is witness to his mother practicing magic. In the novelization, he believes it is wrong to look at the designs his mother creates in the hearth ashes, but the temptation is there. He gives in, even if only in dreams.
Then, picking up a twig, she begins to draw strange, magical designs in the ashes.
They are enchanting, but they are dangerous. He must not look at them.
He, in his second dream, gives in to another forbidden temptation. This scene is partially deleted from the film.
"Ichabod watches as his Mother turns inside the Mushroom Circle, almost dancing. He smiles. Then he sees his Mother stoop to pick a mushroom. She eats it. She looks happy. She drops a small piece of the mushroom.
Ichabod sees it fall.
He runs forward and picks it up before she sees him. Ichabod eats it. His Mother sees him, takes his hands in hers and dances him around in a circle.
As Ichabod whizzes around laughing, his POV becomes Encircling Trees whizzing around, and suddenly he seems to be surrounded by the Menacing Headless Figures dressed all in black.
Ichabod falls over dizzy and when he looks up he sees that the Headless Figures have become his Father, watching his Mother headlessly dancing, his face like thunder. His Mother has loosened her clothes and is virtually barebreasted.
His Father's eyes begin to glow like live coals as Ichabod cowers away from him."
Lord Crane witnesses his wife practicing magic near their son more than once. Perhaps Lord Crane ended her life not only for the supposed purification of his wife's soul but for the soul of his son as well. He was more than likely aware of Ichabod's growing fascination.
I confess I haven't yet read all of the original Washington Irving novel, but have gathered from it that Ichabod is a believer of the dark arts. From the Ichabod Crane Wikipedia page: 'He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed. He took pleasure in reading old Mather’s direful tales till dusk after school. Moreover, no supernatural story or superstition was hard for him to believe.'
At one point in the film, Katrina says something I find unusual. When she and Ichabod first visit the ruins of her childhood cottage, Ichabod demonstrates the optical illusion created by the thaumatrope, the caging of a cardinal. Katrina is enchanted and says, "You can do magic! Teach me!"
Why does she respond with those words in particular? The emphasis on the word 'can.' "You can do magic!" It is almost as though she had wondered about it previously. Before this scene, she gave to him her mother's book, A Compendium of Spells, Devices and Charms of the Spirit World. Why give to Ichabod, a man she barely knows, a book so special to her; a book whose content is controversial. Granted, he was a nonbeliever she wished to convert, but how would the text, non-practiced, aid or convert him? It doesn't quite add up unless Katrina perhaps sensed the potential for magic within him.
Ichabod's abilities and intellect in regards to scientific deductive methods surpass that of his colleagues and the townspeople of Sleepy Hollow. A fact of which he is not unaware. He is, however, a subject of ridicule and contempt in New York and distrust and disrespect in Sleepy Hollow. He seemingly lives a life of relative isolation, in part due to his devotion to his studies and, overall, a lack of desire to engage in social activity. Isolated like his mother, isolated like Katrina. They are in the room but not of it. To see them is to see in them the unknown, and that is frightening to some. As with so many things in life, fear or misunderstanding leads people to respond with hate or derision.
Friendship for Ichabod is achieved only with someone younger than him because, despite his countenance, he is at heart closer in age to Young Masbath than his fellow man. Though Ichabod does certainly have unique characteristics which set him apart, his oddities lie beneath the skin. How is it that Ichabod alone developed such advanced insight concerning forensic science and became, as it were, an innovator of such techniques? Perhaps, though he bases himself in ration, reason and science, his inventions and methods come to him by means he cannot understand, long kept buried.
It would be the ultimate justice for Ichabod, a character so initially steadfast in his refusal to believe in the supernatural, to have once used magic himself.
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* 1. The status of Mary Archer's mother is debatable as Mary says her mother was not a witch in the script and novel. Her dialogue in the film, as it's edited, more than likely matched that of the books at one time.
* 2. It could also be argued that Katrina, being a witch, might have had a forewarning of Ichabod's future peril. That his life would somehow come to depend on the book remaining close to his heart. One could with this theory also suggest that most any book of the same thickness might do to stop a bullet.
* 1. The status of Mary Archer's mother is debatable as Mary says her mother was not a witch in the script and novel. Her dialogue in the film, as it's edited, more than likely matched that of the books at one time.
* 2. It could also be argued that Katrina, being a witch, might have had a forewarning of Ichabod's future peril. That his life would somehow come to depend on the book remaining close to his heart. One could with this theory also suggest that most any book of the same thickness might do to stop a bullet.
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