Irving alludes to medieval romance literature throughout the story, when he describes Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones as “knights-errant.” For example, when Ichabod rides to the party at the Van Tassel castle, Irving depicts his hero as follows:
[…] thus gallantly mounted, [he] issued forth, like a knight-errant in quest of adventures.
The knight-errant is a stock character in chivalric romances, a solitary wanderer who spends his days searching for maidens to rescue and rival knights to duel. This allusion does not reflect well on Ichabod, whose scrawny body and borrowed horse appear unimpressive in comparison to a knight. But the story doesn’t stop there in its emasculation of Ichabod. Through Diedrich Knickerbocker, Irving continues to use allusion to poke fun at his hero’s weakness:
But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow horse that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness […] Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. His sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers’ […] A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called[.]
The image of an exaggeratedly skinny horseman riding a put-upon old horse is reminiscent of the Spanish epic Don Quixote by Cervantes. The epic’s titular character is known for being an idealistic madman. Ichabod and Quixote share many physical characteristics —both are bony, pointy-nosed horsemen—and by alluding to Don Quixote, Irving suggests that they may share some of Quixote’s delusional mental characteristics as well.
