Character/Judge

Rip Van Winkle

American folk hero

Rip Van Winkle was a Dutch-American man who lived in a village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains. One day, while hunting in the mountains, he encountered a man carrying a keg of alcohol. Rip helped to carry the keg to the man's friends, a group of men playing a game of nine-pins. Rip joined them in drinking from the keg, and soon became so intoxicated that he fell asleep. He awakened to discover that 20 years had lapsed, and that he had slept through the American Revolution.