The only difference is how the legend is carried and manipulated through subsequent generations. Unfortunately, such a sanguine point-of-view does not hold up either. Because the legend itself is regional in nature, the tale of the headless horseman conveys the sinister application of rhetorical devices used to exile the spirit of Americanism. If it were a legend, then the legend would have carried out beyond its geographical area. Moreover, the legend itself read like propaganda more so than an actual tale, considering how the story applied scare tactics against ambitious fellows, such as Crane, who intended to infiltrate the secret society of the Van Tassel's. For example, towards the ending of the story, you get the impression that the narrator knows more then he lets on. He goes on to report the suppositions of the old country wives, segues into Brom Bones's suspicion grin, and then wraps up with a generalization about the placidity of Sleepy Hollow. Each designated character in the story pleads ignorance, and we are forced to resolve on our own guesses. Considering the last stroll we witnessed of Crane's journey back home...

It is then that we begin to sympathize, but right before he becomes a real person he is discarded from the story, swiped away from existence as he began speculating what that journey was really all about.
Works Cited

Donald Anderson. "Irving's the Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Explicator 61:4 (2003):

Anthony, David. "Gone Distracted": "Sleepy Hollow," Gothic Masculinity, and the Panic of 1819." Early American Literature| 40:1: 24 April 2008. http://www.wf2dnvr6.webfeat.org-15888487.pdf

Piacentino, Ed. "Sleepy Hollow' comes south: Washington Irving's influence on old southwestern humor." Southern Literary Journal| 30:1 (2007): 24 April 2008. http://wf2dnvr6.webfeat.org-350540.pdf

Plummer, Laura; Nelson, Michael. "Girls can take care of themselves': Gender and storytelling in Washington Irving's 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Studies in Short Fiction 30:2: 24 April 2008 http://wf2dnvr6.webfeat.org-9511241790.pdf

Pollard, Finn. "From Beyond the Grave and Across the Ocean: Washington Irving and the Problem of Being a Questioning American." American Nineteenth Century History 81.21 (2007): 24 April 2008. http://wf2dnvr6.webfeat.org-24154127.pdf