<P> "Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving first published in 1819 . It follows a Dutch - American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed the American Revolution . Irving wrote it while living in Birmingham, England as part of the collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent . The story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains, but Irving later admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills ." </P> <P> "Rip Van Winkle" is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War in a village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains where Rip Van Winkle lives, a Dutch - American villager . One autumn day, Van Winkle wanders into the mountains with his dog Wolf to escape his wife's nagging . He hears his name called out and sees a man wearing antiquated Dutch clothing; he is carrying a keg up the mountain and requires help . Together, the men and Wolf proceed to a hollow in which Rip discovers the source of thunderous noises: a group of ornately dressed, silent, bearded men who are playing nine - pins . </P>

Fairy tale about a man who slept for 100 years