Rip Van Winkle is based on a folktale. Henpecked Rip and his dog Wolf wander into the Catskill mountains before the Revolutionary War. There they meet a dwarf, whom Rip helps to carry a keg. They join a group of dwarfs playing ninepins. When Rip drinks from the keg, he falls asleep and wakes 20 years later, an old man. Returning to his town, he discovers his wife dead, his daughter married, and the portrait of King George replaced by one of George Washington.
Two stories from the Catskill Mountains: one featuring a man who sleeps for twenty years, waking to a much-changed world and the other, a superstitious schoolmaster who encounters a headless horseman.
