Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales ofghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless  horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes call him. He would delight them eqully by his anecdotes of withcraft, and the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn around, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!