There is a rather striking similarity between Saki's "The Open Window" and Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Both Framton Nuttel and Ichabod Crane are victims of their own morbid imaginations. There really isn't anything physically wrong with Nuttel. His ailments are all imaginary. Otherwise all the doctors he consulted could have found something to treat. Ichabod Crane is a schoolteacher, yet he is extremely superstitious. Just as Vera uses Nuttel's imagination to frighten him out of the house, so Brom Bones uses Crane's imagination to frighten him away from the home of the beautiful and wealthy Katrina van Tassel, the girl they are both courting. Both stories end with a chase scene. Framton Nuttel believes he is being pursued down the country road by three ghosts armed with guns. Ichabod Crane believes he is being pursued by the legendary "Headless Horseman," who is really Brom Bones carrying a pumpkin which is supposedly his head. Bones throws the pumpkin at Crane and frightens him out of his wits. He will not be coming a-courting at night again. Saki may have gotten his inspiration for "The Open Window" from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Washington Irving was a much older writer. He was born in 1783 and died in 1859, Saki (H. H. Munro) was born in 1870 and died in 1916.
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