Would Washington Irving Lose His Head Over Fox's 'Sleepy Hollow'?

Almost everyone knows Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," the 1820 tale of Ichabod Crane, the lanky school teacher in post-revolution upstate New York who is tormented by the headless horseman.

The new Fox TV hit "Sleepy Hollow" reimagines Crane waking up in modern day Sleepy Hollow as a swashbuckling demon fighter who got the girl 200 years ago.

The show has been a bit of a boom to the real Hudson river New York town, but how close is the TV show to the real story? Not very says Brian Jay Jones, author of "Washington Irving: An American Original."

Irving's Ichabod is in love with Katrina Van Tassel and he does not win her affections, while in the TV show they were married and she was a witch.

In Irving's story, Ichabod is a lanky, awkward American school teacher. In the show, he's a college professor played by the dashing British actor Tom Mison.

But would Irving be unhappy with having his story changed so drastically?

"I think Irving would love to see what people are doing with his work," Jones tells Here & Now's Robin Young. "I think he'd get a kick out of this kind of stuff."