The floating sloop is one of the most distinctive, unexpected images in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” A sloop is a small ship with a single mast, and Irving describes the optical illusion that Ichabod sees as he looks at the sloop while on his way to the Van Tassel’s:
A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air.
At first glance, this descriptive passage has almost no bearing on the action of the story; it reflects Irving’s Romanticist interest in landscape and nothing more. However, the presence of an optical illusion may also reveal key insights into Ichabod’s mental state. In a few short pages, all of Ichabod’s illusions are about to be destroyed. Katrina will reject him, and afterward he'll leave the superstitious neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow and gain a solid grounding in reality as a justice of the Ten Pound Court. The suspended sloop provides a moment of narrative suspension for Ichabod, allowing him to rest briefly in his fantasy world before he arrives at the party where he will face a rude awakening. Irving uses the image of the sloop to let reader’s into Ichabod’s fanciful perspective and blur the boundary between fact and fiction.
