The following legend of Sleepy Hollow does not involve a headless horseman in New York, but rather a figure and an incident passed down in the traditions of our own valley. There is very likely a core of fact here, and the tale's embellishments are, I think, quite reasonable for the period between 1822, when California was governed from Mexico, and 1850, when it became part of the United States.

For the facts involved, I wish to thank Audrey LaBelle, the unofficial historian of Sleepy Hollow, and Karen Cashman, author of the "History of Sleepy Hollow," written in 1972.

Envision an earlier time, an autumn evening when the full moon of All Hallows Eve rose above a panorama of a Sleepy Hollow very different from that of today. There was no Homeowners' Clubhouse with swimming pool, no manicured homes snuggled along a poplar-lined Butterfield Road, no tennis courts, no Sleepy Hollow Church, no Hidden Valley School. There was no San Domenico with its riding ring and beautifully designed academic buildings.

Our current panorama of Sleepy Hollow has its own bucolic loveliness maintained with vigilance by its residents, but it is very removed from the Canada de Herrera of the mid-19th century, in which this particular story has its setting. An All Hallows Eve moon then would have illuminated a scene of hills dotted with shadowed cattle, of silver-shaded, gnarled and knotted live oaks, of coiled copses of chapparel. Near its entrance was the twisting, sparkling stream of salmon-filled water that we now know as Corte Madera Creek.

On the east side of the valley then stood and perhaps still stands a live oak of particular size and beauty, casting in high relief its brilliant black and fateful shade. It was, as were many of the oaks, draped and festooned with wisps of Spanish moss that swayed lightly and noiselessly in the evening breeze.

This singular tree plays a fateful role in our tale, which begins in 1836, when Domingo Sais, one of sixteen children of Dominga and Juan Sais, a soldier, left the Presidio of San Francisco on a raft. Traveling with the tide across the great bay, he drifted until he was able to land on what is now Point San Quentin. He then wandered inland as far as the present site of San Anselmo, where he built his first house of rushes in the area of our town known as Lansdale.

In 1838, Domingo applied to General Mariano Vallejo, the military governor of the Northern California frontier, for permission to occupy land in Marin County. This was the land grant known as Canada de Herrera, which consisted of 6,659 acres covering what is now Sleepy Hollow, Fairfax and segments of San Anselmo. It was productive land, yielding both rich harvests of timber, which were shipped to San Francisco by schooner from Ross Landing near the present site of the College of Marin, and fine grass to feed Sais's large herds of cattle. Timber was difficult to steal, but cattle were not, which brings us to our tale.

The Dastardly "Little Emperor"

El Emperito is a shadowy figure; his appellation means "little emperor," but emperor of what or whom, we can only guess.

We can imagine, though, his identity. The son of another soldier, landless but with hope of betterment, he too applied to Vallejo for these rich and promising lands. But Sais had moved faster, and these rich properties slipped through the grasp of El Emperito. The seeds of discontent, planted in fertile soil of envy, sprouted, matured and multiplied. This was his land from which he had been denied his rightful tenure, or so he believed. After all, hadn't he built his home of logs, mud and reeds on the hillside at the end of the Sleepy Hollow valley first, long before Sais had arrived? Now, on clear days, his view included the newly built and much grander home of the hated rival.

Slowly at first, and then more rapidly, the prized cattle of Domingo Sais began to disappear. Sais reacted by dispatching his ranch hands to determine and detain the culprit. Three of these men in turn vanished. Nor was Sais the only rancher to lose cattle. As the unidentified villain's ill-gotten gains increased, so too did his reputation. The shadow world of such activities whispered silently of El Emperito -- the little king of cattle thieves.

The Deed Is Done

On All Hallows Eve of 1840 our story reaches its awful climax. The light of a full moon greatly aided El Emperito in his rustling activities, and he was driving an unusually fine catch of cows and calves from the valley toward his secluded hiding place somewhere along the meandering creek beyond.

On a later night they would be delivered to his contact, and he would once again receive his reward of the heavy bag of silver coins. Many such bags he had already received. Since there was little in the way of banks at the time, and he would not have trusted them anyway, he buried his hoard beneath a massive, lichen-covered boulder which he could move only slowly with an iron bar. The boulder was beneath a twisted and knotted oak that cast its black shadow across the shimmering Sleepy Hollow hills.

We do not know his thoughts that All Hallows Eve of the full moon. We can only conjecture. Did El Emperito perhaps wonder if the extraordinary brilliance of that moon made his activities more perilous? Did stop to consider that the light of it would illuminate his moving silhouette for watchful and silent forms to observe? Were the cattle more nervous, anxious, testing the breeze with widened nostrils? Would they, alarmed, convulse and scatter, creating a clamor to alert those watchful and silent forms?

Perhaps he was careless; perhaps the moonlight did cast a brighter gleam and picked out with diamond clarity the moving forms; perhaps a branch cracked with sudden savagery beneath a passing hoof. Suddenly crashing, thundering violence exploded everywhere; horsemen dashed inward upon him from every direction. The cattle panicked, their lowing reaching a tremulous pitch, their horns clashed as they began to run and scatter.

The Final Moments

And then it was over, for El Emperito, tried and sentenced in the split second between recognition and capture.

The final moments of this tale were played out in the moonlight with ghastly finality: grasping, clawing hands, the thickly braided noose, the twisted silvered oak and from it hanging, with the shining moss, the shadowed figure of the cattle thief and self-proclaimed Emperor, his body slack and lifeless, slowly twisting and winding in the nighttime breeze. The oak is still there; legend has it that if you know where to look, you can find the old rope scars, the branch healed but still gouged and contorted. And the lichen-covered boulder? Did Sais ever find it and the treasure beneath? No one knows. So look carefully along the hills of Sleepy Hollow as you enjoy their beauty, and perhaps it would be well to have in hand a sturdy iron bar -- just in case.

Sleepy Hollow resident Patricia Swensen is a retired professor of art history at Sonoma State College.

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