39 Wolfert's Roost.
lision with the powerful sachem of Sing-Sing.* Many were the sharp conflicts between these rival chieftains for the sovereignty of a winding valley, a favorite hunting-ground watered by a beautiful stream called the Pocantico. Many were the ambuscades, surprisals, and
deadly onslaughts that took place among its fastnesses, of which it grieves me much that I cannot pursue the details for the gratification of those gentle but bloody-minded readers of both sexes, who delight
in the romance of the tomahawk and scalping-knife. Suffice it to say, that the wizard chieftain was at length victorious, though his victory is attributed, in Indian tradition, to a great medicine or charm, by which he laid the sachem of Sing-Sing and his warriors asleep
among the rocks and recesses of the valley, where they remain asleep to the present day, with their bows and war-clubs beside them. This was the origin of that potent and drowsy spell, which still prevails over the valley of the Pocantico, and which has gained it the well merited appellation of Sleepy Hollow. Often, in secluded and quiet
parts of that valley, where the stream is overhung by dark woods and rocks, the ploughman, on some calm and sunny day, as he shouts to his oxen, is surprised at hearing faint shouts from the hill-sides in
reply; being, it is said, the spell-bound warriors, who half start from their rocky couches and grasp their weapons, but sink to sleep again. The conquest of the Pocantico was the last triumph of the wizard sachem. Notwithstanding all his medicines and charms he fell in
battle in attempting to extend his boundary line to that, so as to take in the little wild valley of the Sprain ; and his grave is stil shown near the banks of that pastoral stream.. He left, however, a great empire to his successors, extending along the Tappan Sea from Yonkers quite to Sleepy Hollow, and known in all records and maps by the Indian name of Wicquaes-Keck. The wizard sachem was succeeded by a line of chiefs of whom
* A corruption of the old Indian name, O-sin-sing. Some have rendered it, O-sin-song, or O-sing-song, in token of its being a great market-town, where any thing can be had for a mere song. Its present melodious alteration to Sing-Sing is said to have been made in compliment to a Yankee singing-master who taught the inhabitants the art-of singing through the nose.
