Gothic 2 Returning English

[Lucrecio Houle]

Thismod is made based on GTR (GOTHIC TEXTURES REPLACER) for the game "G2 Returning: New Balance".

The purpose of this mod is to make the look of weapons and armor more "gothic", without huge swords, sledgehammers and other vertukhai...

The mod includes about 120 armor and weapon changes.

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

I believe it was the very peculiarity of the name, and the idea of something mystic and dreamy connected with it, that first led me, in my boyish ramblings, into Sleepy Hollow. The character of the valley seemed to answer to the name; the slumber of past ages apparently reigned over it; it had not awakened to the stir of improvement, which had put all the rest of the world in a bustle. Here reigned good old long-forgotten fashions; the men were in homespun garbs, evidently the product of their own farms, and the manufacture of their own wives; the women were in primitive short gowns and petticoats, with the venerable sun-bonnets of Holland origin. Each small farm had its prolific little mansion, teeming with children; with an old hat nailed against the wall for the house-keeping wren; a motherly hen, under a coop on the grass-plot, clucking to keep around her a brood of vagrant chickens; a cool stone well, with the moss-covered bucket suspended to the long balancing pole, according to the antediluvian idea of hydraulics; and its spinning-wheel humming within doors, the patriarchal music of home manufacture.

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent, whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees.

The walls of the Old Dutch Church are roughly two feet thick, and constructed of local field stone, and in many ways, the church has been unaltered over time. The tiny church bell was cast in Holland in 1685 and richly decorated with bands of gargoyles, birds and animals, and still rings out over the surrounding area.

Early members of the congregation are buried in the Old Dutch Burying Ground, which is adjacent to but not a part of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, the final resting place of many notables such as Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler and Washington Irving himself.

The Old Dutch Burying Ground is a tranquil treasure of early American and colonial era history. The tombstones found there are not only historical records of some of the earliest families of the area, but curious works of art as well. Most of the early stones are of red sandstone, and typically carved with the names and dates, an epitaph and quite frequently, winged effigies. Several are inscribed in Dutch, reflecting the language common to the area until about 1800. The earliest stones date to the mid 18th century, though field stones mark the location of earlier graves, and quite likely there were many 17th century graves here as well, their markers long gone as they were likely carved from wood.

Fans of the old television series Dark Shadows will note, that in the film version of the same name, the crypt of Barnabus Collins was the receiving crypt in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, where corpses were once held when the ground was too frozen to dig graves. Collinswood in the same film was set in Lyndhurst Castle, which you pass on Route 9 just south of Tarrytown.

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle, gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the churchyard, between services on Sundays; gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overran the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent millpond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.

The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered, long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in their graves, before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communities.

There is a magic to finding a place of legend, seemingly long lost. I sat in the silence for a long time, thinking of the legend, and wondering how a spot which was known to every resident of the vicinity a little over 200 years ago, had managed to get itself lost, especially when scores of bikers and joggers pass each day, along with probably tens of thousands of cars. Probably because in this day and age, people forget to look up.

It was one of those spacious farmhouses, with high- ridged but lowly sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun; in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock- oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.

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 marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of 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 round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!

One of the quests which Jonathan Kruck and I set for ourselves was to find the spot where the headless Hessian likely lost his head. Based on the historical records and some archival writings, Jonathan had sussed it out that the battle had to be the Battle of White Plains, as there were very few battles in the immediate vicinity which had both Hessian soldiers and cannons.

And so we searched on, until we finally found the spot which just felt right, and seemed to match the historical record. And sitting by the banks of the Bronx River, which turned out to be surprisingly serene, secluded and quiet, a sense of magic descended upon us.

The Van Tassels continued to suffer indignity at the hands of the invading British it seems. One day in November of 1777, the farm and residence of Cornelius and Elizabeth Van Tassel was attacked and sacked by British and Hessian regulars. The Van Tassels put up a fight, which only incensed the attackers, who set fire to the farmhouse, after capturing the inhabitants. Whilst watching the flames catch and then consume, Elizabeth in a panic, noticed that their baby girl by the name of Leah, was not with them. Grief-stricken, she ran towards the burning house, intended to enter and search for her baby. Her flight was thwarted by a Hessian soldier, who quietly escorted her to an adjacent shed, where the baby was found, wrapped up in a blanket, unharmed.

Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the daytime; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favorite haunts of the Headless Horseman, and the place where he was most frequently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the Horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder.

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