Skip to main content

What role does myth play in Rip Van Winkle?

"Rip Van Winkle" is a myth within a myth. A myth can be loosely described as a story with an element of the supernatural. Diedrich Knickerbocker is a fictional man who gathers stories from the locals in the Catskill Mountains. According to the fictional story, Knickerbocker is the man who recorded the myth of Rip Van Winkle. In his history, the spirits that Rip meets are claimed to be real. The myth of Rip Van Winkle involves the title character coming across ghosts of ancient explorers in the mountains.


According to the myth, Rip Van Winkle goes into the mountains on an autumn day.  He comes across a lone man and follows him. This man is carrying a heavy keg:



His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion—a cloth jerkin strapped around the waist—several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulders a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with the load ("Rip Van Winkle").



Rip follows the man and helps him. He soon discovers more strangely dressed men. They are drinking and playing ninepins. Rip falls asleep and wakes up after twenty years. He eventually discovers that the men had been the spirits of Hendrick (Henry) Hudson and his crew. According to the legend, they appear every twenty years to play ninepins and drink.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more