A Fresh Look at the Legends
of Snow White
and Rip Van Winkle

An old and dear friend once shared (no it wasn’t around a campfire) that there were two groups of little men who peopled her early childhood fantasies. They were Snow White’s dwarfs* and the keglers who seduced Rip Van Winkle into his twenty-year sleep.

*Did you know that that before Disney found the Snow-White story that the tale was entitled, Snow-White and the Seven Little Men?

The dwarfs that Disney created in the shadow of the seven men were friendly and cute, with idealize personalities, presented no problem. There was never an occasion when her mother, father, or brother had to check under the bed for alien visitors.

The keglers, on the other hand, were more menacing. She never admitted to being fearful, but after a family trip to Sunnyside, in New York’s Catskill Mountains and learning of Washington Irving’s 1819 short story, Rip Van Winkle, there were times when she would inspect the closet and behind the drapes for evidence of those little demons.

Irving portrayed the mysterious men as the ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew. He dressed them in elaborate, old-fashioned Dutch clothing, and as the legend grew, they shrank to the size of little people.

“I first “met” the keglers on the postcards my parents bought in the Catskills, and only after having the chance to compare both stories did I realize that both Snow White and Rip Van Winkle were cautionary tales. Snow White had to sweep under the rug to find her pay, a warning to young people to do their jobs thoroughly. Rip got into trouble because he was lazy, preferring to play with children, and wander in the wilderness. He had a nagging wife, who no doubt had reason to complain. Her husband avoided work and let his home and farm fall into disrepair.”

Irving may have been inspired by Orkney folklore that told of a drunken fiddler who went to a party of trolls, stayed a couple of hours, and went home to find fifty years had passed. The tale was not, and is not, unique to the British Isles, for there are Jewish, Chinese, Greek, and Irish legends that involved the magical passage of time.

Although Rip Van Winkle was a literary creation, he joined an American pantheon of legendary heroes. Like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and the Jersey Devil, he became strongly associated with the location of his tale.

In the unlikely circumstance that any reader doesn’t know Rip’s story, he awakened after twenty years to find his nagging wife dead and his close friends gone, many lost in a war. His grown daughter takes him in, long beard and all, although he must have made her uncomfortable proclaiming himself a loyal subject of King George III. In his long absence, the colonies had revolted and formed a new nation.

Alas, Rip’s long sleep didn’t change his ways. He lived out what was left of his life in idleness, reminded of his encounter with the bowling men every time there was thunder in the mountains.

The Catskills became a vacation retreat, so it is not surprising that postcards were produced in great quantities. And foremost among the themes that entertained visitors was the tale of Rip Van Winkle. One of the most popular “Rip” cards shows the old man, bearded and ragged, leaning on a staff with a tall mountain the background.