Ichabod Crane

### Project(s)

Headless: A Sleepy Hollow StoryUnsolved Babesteries Episode Five: Bruce McConnell

**Ichabod Crane** is the protagonist of *Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story*. He is a curious science teacher who moves to Sleepy Hollow and becomes roommates with The Headless Horseman.

## Personality

He is a nervous, curious, awkward, and lovable nerd. Ichabod tries to stick to the facts of life, but his beliefs and what he knows are often turned upside down. Ichabod values the truth and wishes to help bring it to light. In new situations, he often gets very anxious. But, if the end result is worth it, he tries to stick it out.

## Background

Ichabod Crane was born in Sleepy Hollow, New York. However, after both of his parents died, he was sent away to live with his grandmother.

More recently in life, he was living in Hartford, Connecticut, teaching science, and taking care of his grandmother. Sadly, his grandmother passed away. Before she passed, she gave Ichabod a strange medallion. This made him want to return to Sleepy Hollow and find answers to his questions.

## Events of *Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story*

Ichabod has moved to Sleepy Hollow to teach science at Sleepy Hollow Middle School and is trying to get himself acquainted before he begins teaching. He takes some directions from a local bard, and he meets his new landlady. Due to unfortunate circumstances, she chooses to raise his rent, so he needs a new roommate. He goes about town putting up posters. This leads to him meeting several of the workers at Colonial Drugs 'N' Stuff such as Matilda Bishop, Kat Van Tassel (he instantly has a crush on her), and Verla Wolfson. The following day, he attends the annual Autumn Gala hosted by the mayor, Baltus Van Tassel, and meets other townsfolk. After leaving the party, Ichabod and his coworker, Brom Bones, run into the fearsome Headless Horseman.

Becuase of his situation, he agrees to be roommates with the Horseman. The Horseman offers to pay rent if they will help them find their true head. After a day of teaching, he goes with Brom and the Horseman to Colonial. With the help of Matilda, they perform a spell to let them take on the form of a skull they are wearing for a day. After the first skull "poofs," they go grave robbing to hunt for more. While looking, an Officer shows up; the others manage to escape, but Ichabod is caught. He now has a court date for a future Monday due to his trespassing.

Right before a date with Kat, they try a new head on the Horseman; the head turns them into a fearsome pirate called Captain Gravy Davy Crowbones. Ichabod tries to introduce the pirate to Kat as his LARPing cousin. She and Ichabod have a pleasant date and talk about the stars and late parents. Sadly, they are interrupted by Brom and the drunk antics of the Captain. Ichabod takes the pirate back to his house thinking it will be safe. But, when Crowbones meets Ichabod's inconsiderate landlady, he stabs her. Ichabod is so shocked that he faints.

In the next episode, the Horseman takes on the form of Max Lee. Ichabod once again tries to tell Kat that he is another cousin. Later in the day, almost everyone in town joins together to learn about the town's history through a play put on by the Trousers. However, Max Lee disproves many of the "facts" from the show. This leaves Ichabod even more confused than before about the Horseman's true identity. After the show, Ichabod walks with Max, Brom, and Kat. In an attempt to be spiteful, Brom reveals to Kat that Max is actually the Headless Horseman. Yet, she is not scared; she is excited and in awe! Ichabod is greatly relieved by this, but he still has worries about his court date.

Ichabod tries to get the skull of a great lawyer, but it does not go to according to plan. He is left with Devlyn Versace, a Youtube prankster. His court session goes terrible. In addition to having a sentence of 50 hours of community service, he is slimed. After cleaning up and trying to reconcile with this fate, Kat tells him that her father, the Mayor, would like to have him over for dinner the next night. Ichabod, Matilda, and Brom switch out the head of the Horseman. Instead, they take on the form of Anne Tarry, the Mayor's late assistant. Anne has strong accusations that include the belief that Mayor Van Tassel killed her.

Ichabod's dinner with the Van Tassels is very uncomfortable. Despite Ichabod's disapproval, the dinner is bombarded by Anne Tarry disguised as Ichabod's cousin, Mark (pronounced Maaaaaaaaahhhhhccc). Ichabod tries to distract from her attempts to get suspicious detials out of the Mayor. Additionally, he is trying to distract from the fact that Brom and Matilda are upstairs searching for evidence. Ichabod asks questions and makes Kat upset. He is unsure if he should trust Anne and her accusations or the Van Tassels.

After the dinner, Ichabod meets back up with Brom and Matilda at Colonial. They piece together clues while watching the Horseman perform a comedy routine as Bruce McConnell. Others find the jokes terrible, but Ichabod laughs. Later on, Ichabod begins his community service. While working, the Babes are also there and Dr. Crayon shows up. He shares a celebratory flute of champagne with Ichabod because he has just finalized his divorce with Douffe, Ichabod's landlady. He also shares that Douffe should be waking up from her stab induced coma soon. After Ichabod finishes his day of service, he brings a sea log to the store. Using this, other evidence, and *Bing*, they realise that the Horseman's head is likely in the Storms Inn's basement.

Begrudgingly, Ichabod keeps watch outside the store while Matilda brings Paulie Tahoe, a heist extraordinaire, to life. While keeping watch, Kat approaches and apologizes for her behaviour at the dinner. Douffe interrupts their conversation. Surprisingly, she wants to be a part of whatever schemes Ichabod (and others) are in. Ichabod leads the two ladies inside and learns about their roles in the Storms Inn heist. Thanks to Paulie's clever leadership the group manages to get into the basement. Using his medallion and a piece of treasure, Ichabod creates a doorknob that unlocks a hidden room.

Inside the room, there are many secrets. There is treasure, the diary of Anneke Storms, and her skull. Ichabod helps Matilda break a protection spell on the diary. The diary reveals that the Horseman is Henrietta Hudson, and it explains that Storms is a distant relative of Ichabod. After Anneke turned more sinister, she renounced her last name and started going by her mother's last name, Crane, instead. When Brom, Matilda, and Ichabod go to leave, they are met by Officer Baader Meinhof and Baltus Van Tassel.

Ichabod is locked up with the other two in jail. Eventually, Judy Gardenier and Kat break them out of jail. Once they escape, Ichabod is excited to put the skull of Anneke on. But, they drop it. Instead, they turn to the diary to look for clues of the location of Hudson's skull. During this, Kat tries to convince Ichabod to go with her so that he can help her ask her dad for the truth. However, Ichabod declines and decides to help Brom look for the skull. They all agree to meet back up later that night. Ichabod realises that it would be a better use of their time to visit Dr. Crayon. So, the pair sneak into his house and get into his safe. Inside the safe, Ichabod finds much needed proof. Additionally, he finds a shocking paper- a death certificate for Kat.

While running around to find the rest of the group, Ichabod bumps into a new bard. He asks the bard what happened to the "other guy" and gets confusing responses. Quickly, he decides it isn't worth it, so he and Brom run to the Van Tassel house. Judy, the Horseman, and Verla join them. With the help of Verla, they put on a new head, and it turns out to be the old bard, Diedrich! Bard on bard chaos begins, but Ichabod is drawn away and upstairs by someone calling his name. Once upstairs, he is knocked out.

When he wakes up, he finds himself tied up on the floor of the church. From the darkness, Kat emerges from the shadows and begins to explain the situation and confirm Ichabod's suspicions. She wants to use Ichabod as her next deep-sleep sacrifice so that she can stay alive for another year. When Brom bursts in, he tries to rescue Ichabod, but he fails and gets tied up. Kat and Matilda become distracted by the new bard; this gives Ichabod and Brom the chance to let Diedrich sneak in and untie them. When Kat and Matilda return, Ichabod tries to defuse the situation by requesting more details. Diedrich sings about the past, then Kat stabs him. Ichabod helps catch him, but he passes away and turns back into the Horseman. Ichabod cracks the final clue to the skull's location, and he finds it under floor boards in the church. However, he is forced to get on the sacrifice alter and hand the skull over to Matilda. Luckily, Matilda decides to not perform the spell on Ichabod, and she gives the Horseman their skull. Ichabod watches as Kat passes away and the Horseman takes on the form og Henrietta Hudson.

Henrietta thanks them, and she is able to accurately tell them the town's past history. She walks with the group, and Ichabod thanks her for all that she has done. In turn, she once again thanks him. To her and the Crane name, he symbolises the amendment of an old wound. She hands over her sword to him; it has the word 'GLORY' engraved. Then, she dissapears.

A few months later, he is happily working at the high school teaching science and surrounded by friends. After a day of work, he bikes home to meet his new landlord.

## Other Tidbits

* He is alergic to basically every type of animal. And, he has asthma.
* He uses *Bing*.
* He hase taken a master class on pressure points.
* He teaches in room 727 at the school.
* He loves the stars and astronomy.
* He wears a onsie in Episode Three: The Briny Booty.
* He used the code "Devlyn" to get 10% off the purchase of his bike named Gunpowder.
* Ichabod makes a brief appearance in the fifth episode of *Unsolved Babesteries*. The episode takes place after the events of the sixth episode of *Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story;* he can be seen reading the manuscript of Elizabeth Van Tassel outside at night.
* Keeping track of what scenes during (out of order) filming Ichabod did and didn't have his satchel was very hard. Shipwrecked tried their best to not make any mistakes, but they still had to edit the script once to correct one error.
* During Shipwrecked's 2022 online auction, various Ichabod related pieces were able to be bid on. The pieces were his green cardigan (sold for $165), sketches of him from the courtroom (sold for $50 and $25), a skull from his classroom (sold for $50), his medallion (sold $500), his blue sweater ($45), his pants from the early promos (sold for $30), and eight of his roomate posters (sold for various prices).

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Episode One: The Local Legend
2. ↑ Episode Two: The Ghosts in the Graveyard
3. ↑ Episode Ten: The Haunting of the Hollow
4. ↑ Instagram post about Ichabod's satchel
5. ↑ Shipwrecked Comedy Auction on GalaBid