<P> The story of "Rip Van Winkle" itself is widely thought to have been based on Johann Karl Christoph Nachtigal's German folktale "Peter Klaus", which is a shorter story set in a German village . It tells of a goatherd named Peter Klaus who goes looking for a lost goat . He finds some men drinking in the woods and, after drinking some of their wine, he falls asleep . When he wakes back up, twenty years have passed . </P> <P> In many ways, the story is a classic European faerie tale of a man who is actually rewarded for helping the faeries move their barrel . They advance him to a time in life where he is free of his nagging wife and is now old enough for it be respectable for him to take it easy and play with children, working when he wants to instead of when he has to, supported by his loving, grown children . The theme of independence is also explored; the young Van Winkle lives in British America and is a subject of the King; the old Van Winkle awakes in a country independent of the Crown . On a personal level, the awakened Van Winkle has gained another form of "independence": being widowered from his shrewish wife . </P> <P> In Orkney, there is a similar folktale linked to the burial mound of Salt Knowe, adjacent to the Ring of Brodgar . A drunken fiddler on his way home hears music from the mound . He finds a way in and finds the trowes (trolls) having a party . He stays and plays for two hours, then makes his way home to Stenness, where he discovers 50 years have passed . The Orkney Rangers believe this may be one source for Washington Irving's tale because his father was an Orcadian from the island of Shapinsay and would almost certainly have known the story . </P> <P> In Ireland, the story of Niamh and Oisin has a similar theme . Oisin falls in love with the beautiful Niamh and leaves with her on her snow white horse, bound for Tir Na nOg--the land of the ever - young . Missing his family and friends, he asks to pay them a visit . Niamh lends him her horse, warning him never to dismount, and he travels back to Ireland . But 300 years have passed; his family and fellow warriors are all dead . When Oisin encounters some men trying to move a boulder, he reaches down to help them, the girth of the horse's saddle snaps, and he falls to the ground . Before the watching eyes of the men, he becomes a very, very old man . </P>

Summary of rip van winkle short story by washington irving