Washington Irving presents the story of Rip Van Winkle, a good-natured yet chronically lazy subject of a British province living at the foot of the Catskill Mountains in New York. While Rip is well-liked by the village children and fellow idlers who gather at the local inn, he suffers under the constant tongue-lashing of his shrewish wife, Dame Van Winkle, due to his absolute aversion to profitable farm labor.
Seeking escape from his domestic tribulations, Rip wanders into the high solitudes of the mountains with his faithful dog, Wolf. There, he encounters a strange, melancholy company of antique Dutchmen playing ninepins in a hidden amphitheatre. After serving them liquor from a heavy keg, Rip drinks deeply of the potent beverage and falls into a profound, unnatural sleep.
Upon waking the next morning, Rip finds his gun rusted and his dog gone. When he stumbles back toward his native village, everything appears bewilderingly transformed. The familiar Dutch settlement is larger, houses have fallen to decay or been newly built, and a bustling hotel bearing the sign of General Washington stands where the old inn once welcomed him.
Rip soon realizes that twenty years have passed while he slept. The townspeople speak an incomprehensible political jargon about elections and Congress, and his old companions are either dead or changed by war. His sharp-tongued wife has passed away, and his children have grown into adults who barely recognize him.
The village elders, including old Peter Vanderdonk, confirm the supernatural reputation of the mountains, noting that Hendrick Hudson and his crew periodically return to haunt the region. Ultimately, Rip takes up residence with his married daughter, free from the burdens of matrimony and resuming his idle place as a village patriarch.
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