(Insert Butt Joke Here)
There were so many body parts left un-discussed in Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. That rider could have been missing anything, but no, Irving had to go the uninspired route and leave him headless. How dull.
This comic is now a venue for the very best butt jokes.
One of the interesting things about legends and stories is the sheer ridiculousness of the vast majority of them. Things that couldn’t possibly be true are held as real by people that, for some strange reason, desperately want to believe them. The people in Irving’s tale mirror many of those in the world today. There are many individuals that cling to strange stories and rumours of monsters despite the lack of facts involved. A few hundred years ago, there were legitimate fears about specific places and a general lack of knowledge lead to the dissemination and belief in stories that made no sense. Nowadays, however, we still hear ridiculous rumours and people immediately believe them. We can assume one of two things: A) these people are fools and are ignorant or B) they have a need to believe in more than meets the eye. Perhaps the world we live in now lacks a certain mystery and spiritual quality that it once had, I really can’t say for sure.
That’s not to say that we should stop wondering, stop being curious, give up searching for new and strange things. It’s just that we need to use our heads as well; temper curiosity with reason. That’s the lesson to take away from Irving in this case. If you let fear rule your life, nothing good will come of it.
All I know is that if you tell people about a spectral horseman with no head, they might wonder about it and take it seriously, but if you tell them about a horseman with no ass they’ll laugh it off.
Really though, it’s all a joke.
Oh and there are still shirts available! Get ’em while they’re hot!
And look at that…news post links are finally back!
The Assless Horseman, just like the Handless one, No one knows…!
I like to generally believe in folklore that seems interesting, I don’t take them full on seriously but it’s interesting to question and wonder if it was really real.
“Perhaps the world we live in now lacks a certain mystery and spiritual quality that it once had,”
There’s a science fiction short story – ‘The Edge of the Map’ by Ian Creasey – which deals with this exact issue. You should try reading it.
And as always, great comic. I really ought to comment more often.
I was going to make some comment about assless chaps but really that’s:
1. Not Western, and
2. Pretty damn bad, even for my standards.
But really. People HAVE to have something(s) absurd to believe in. Maybe it stems from some desperate / subconscious trigger that avoids pure disillusionment with the “actual” world, so it perhaps acts to alleviate that.
What gets me the most is that some of the strangest tales in folklore are often the most popular. The only thing I can even speculate that exacerbates it is that with the growth of scientific theory over the past few millennia, the more absurd stories tend to gravitate toward horizons that objective study has yet to (or will never) breach. Dreams, the very-distant past, the very-distant… distance… ephemeral beings that exist more as an idea, the list continues on and on.
We can’t call things “magic” as often anymore that can’t be rationalised via a chemical formula, a mathematical equation, or medical study.
I think there’s probably something in humans that causes us to be eternally superstitious – it’s probably the same bit of our brain that lends itself towards making religion (or some sort of spiritual/mythical beliefs) part of every society we know anything about.
Yeah, I’ll admit it. I laughed out loud.
Tim Burton’s next movie.
How did he lose his ass…?
I definitely read that as “Spectral Spider Robot,” Washington Irving’s often overlooked character.
me too!
As opposed to myself, the horseless ass man.