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A STRANGE TALE OF RIP VAN WINKLE

Once upon a time there was a farmer called Rip van Winkle. He lived in a village in the mountains with his wife and two young children, a daughter and a son. Rip was a very happy and kind man and he got on very well with all the children in the village. They loved him because he played games with them and often told them stories.

He spent a lot of time in the village inn because he was, in fact, a very lazy man. Rip was happy to do just enough work to live. Instead of working on his farm, he would go fishing and hunting or sit in the village inn talking to his friends. His family was very poor and he always argued with his wife. One day after a big argument Rip went to the forest and came to a beautiful valley, high in the mountains. Suddenly he heard a strange voice calling his name. An old man, dressed in old fashioned clothes, was trying to carry a barrel and asked Rip to help him. Rip agreed. They took the barrel to a cave, where there were more people dressed in the same strange clothes. After that the old man gave Rip a drink from the barrel. Rip immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Some time later he woke up under a tree in the same valley. He was alone. He was worried about his dog and he knew he was going to get into more trouble with his wife. Then he noticed a curious thing – hair was over his shoulders and his beard was over a foot long! Rip couldn't understand what had happened. He decided to get back to the village. As soon as he got there, he realized that everything was different, and there were lots of new houses. The people in the village stared at him with his long hair and beard and old clothes. Rip thought their clothes were strange and he didn't recognize anybody at all.

When he got to his house, he saw that it was old and abandoned. He went to the center of the village and everything there had changed completely. The old inn was now called the Union Hotel. Before he went in, he listened at the window. The people were talking about things he hadn't heard of – the elections, the president, the war. Rip went in and described his wife, family and asked people where they were. It turned out that his wife had died two years ago and all of his friends had either died or left the village. But his children were still there! They pointed to a young man sleeping under a tree. Rip realized it was his son! Then a young woman carrying a baby came up to him. It was his daughter!

In the end, Rip went to live with his daughter. He still didn't do much work. He spent the time as before, fishing, hunting and telling stories to children outside the village inn. He told stories about life before the war, how he had met some strange people in the mountains – and how he had gone to sleep for twenty years!