What satire can be found in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?

This is obviously a story about stories and storytelling
and the limits of the imagination, and Irving carefully constructs his satire to focus
on the dangers of believing in stories too much and trangressing the boundaries between
fiction and non-fiction. He chiefly does this through the character of Ichabod Crane,
who is presented as a man who does not understand the limits of imagination. He is
obsessed by his dreams of marrying Katrina Van
Tassel:

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...soft anticipation stole over his mind of
dainty slapjacks, well buttered and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate
little dimpled hand of Katrina Van
Tassel.

However he is unable
to live up to those dreams and is genuinely shocked by Katrina's refusal. His lack of
discernment is key in the way that Brom is able to trick him, because he is unable to
identify that the legend is just that: a story. This is of course linked to the
postscript of this tale, when the wise storyteller is very clear about his perception of
fiction and reality:

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"Faith, sir," replied the storyteller, "as to
that matter, I don't believe one half of it
myself."

Thus the target of
this satire is our own tendency to blur the boundaries between stories and reality, and
the way that we leave ourselves exposed when we do so, just as Ichabod Crane did. We
must heed the message of this story and never let our imaginations get the better of
us.