Perhaps the most well-known American fairy tale is 'Rip Van Winkle.

' It contains mystical

aspects, such as an enchanted wood, and concentrates on ordinary village life, as seen in many
traditional European fairy tales. However, the change in the pub's name from King George the
Third to General Washington demonstrates that this is an indisputably American story.

Rip Van Winkle goes to sleep before 1776, when the American colonies are still dominated by
the British, and wakes up after the American War of Independence, when the British yoke has
been lifted and the United States of America has emerged as an independent nation.

A man falls asleep for several years and awakens to discover the world around him drastically
altered — completely different. Indeed, it was an old idea: Diogenes Lartius, a Greek historian
who lived 1,500 years before Irving, tells a similar story of Epimenides of Knossos, who lay
asleep for fifty-seven years in a cave. Another key antecedent to 'Rip Van Winkle' is the
Christian tradition of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, who fell asleep for two centuries to avoid
persecution.

The German folktale 'Peter Klaus' by Johann Karl Christoph Nachtigal had the greatest
influence. It involves a man from a modest village who meets some odd men partying in the
woods, falls asleep after partaking of their drink, and wakes up to find twenty years have gone,
just like Irving's novel. Why did Irving use an old plot method in his American Revolutionary
War story? What are our options for interpreting the story?

One interpretation is that Irving is attempting to minimize the American Revolution with this
lighthearted story. Rip Van Winkle sleeps right through it, which is quite an accomplishment
considering how loud it must have been. Although three of his friends have perished – one
likely in the war itself – when he returns to his village, the others have survived, and he soon
returns to sitting and conversing with them outside the pub where they used to converse
together.

The pub's name may have changed to reflect the transition from one George to another, from
King George to George Washington, but life for these ordinary folks has remained substantially
unchanged. Rip's son is a carbon copy of his father: the following generation is very similar to
the previous.

The story's hilarity, particularly in Rip Van Winkle's role as a henpecked spouse, supports this
interpretation. If Dame Van Winkle is like Old Mother England, ruling over Rip (representing the
American colonies), her death is a welcome relief for Rip, but nothing more. Rather than
anything more spectacular, he is relieved.
MHYKO ANDREI E. SABARRE