"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" uses metaphor to illustrate Ichabod Crane’s dreamy disposition and tenuous grasp on reality. When Ichabod reads his favorite book on New England witchcraft, fact and fiction blend:
It was often his delight […] to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and there con over old Mather’s direful tales, until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes.
Ichabod is so absorbed in his book’s fantasy world that the text becomes a veil over his eyes. By referring to the book’s pages as a mist that clouds Ichabod’s vision, Irving demonstrates how the book has become far more than an entertaining pastime for Ichabod—it is his way of seeing and experiencing the world. When the Mather-induced mist is before his eyes, every sound he hears, from the cry of a bird to the rustling of a shrub, becomes a supernatural omen.
