“Darkness moved down the Mediterranean shores. From the tombs, like mist,
the dead spirits wavered in soot and black plumes along the streets to be
caught in the dark tar that smeared the porch sills. The wind mourned, as if
telling the anguish of the trapped dead.” — Ray Bradbury | The Halloween Tree
Today, we continue reading Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree. The boys continue their adventure into the past by visiting more hallmarks of Halloween and learn a little more about how the holiday came into existence.
Brief Synopsis of The Halloween Tree:
The Halloween Tree tells the tale of a group of boys on Halloween night. They travel to an ancient, ostensibly haunted house on the edge of town and meet a man named Moundshroud who takes them on an adventure through the history of Halloween.
Chapter 11
The boys head to the Grecian isles where they see the Greek Festival of the Dead, aka the Feast of Pots. The festival features food laid out of the sills of each home and the group could smell “cooked meats steamed,” and “The women and children of Grecian” moved throughout the city with “spiced and delectable victuals” (Bradbury).
Additionally, some of the residents were painting pitch onto their doors to trap the wandering ghosts, which, according to Moundshroud, kept the ghosts from getting into the homes.
From there, Moundshround informs them that they are traveling to Rome to view their festivities, where people celebrated the dead. They are all swept up and cast off into the sky.
Chapter 12
The boys, and Moundshroud, all land on “English earth” and find themselves standing “in the midst of a vast field of wheat.” Fairly immediately, they realize they are in danger as an immense figure “forty feet above them in the sky” held a large scythe in its hand and was swinging with great force. He was the god of the Dead, Samhain.
The boys watched as everybody who passed away over the year “rained to the earth” and were changed into animals, from dogs to cats to cows, and all were of miniature proportion.
Bradbury writes: “By the hundreds and thousands the wheat heads snowed up in scatters and fell down as spiders which could not shout or beg or weep for mercy, but which, soundless, raced over the grass, poured over the boys. A hundred centipedes tiptoed on Ralph’s spine. Two hundred leeches clung to Hackles Nibley’s scythe until with a nightmare gasp he raved and shook them off. Everywhere fell black widows and tiny boa constrictors.”
The troupe flees from the unstoppable weapon of Samhain–who calls after them–but they run for their lives. As they fly, they see a dog with who is “yarping with Pipkin’s own dear sweet scared voice” and the once-friend lycanthrope cries out to meet him and disappears.
Chapter 13
Next, Samhain is stopped in his tracks as a voice splits the night in song. Men were together near a bonfire and were chanting a song: “O Samhain, God of the Dead! / Hear us! / We the Holy Druid Priests in / This Grove of Trees, the great Oaks, / Plead for the Souls of the Dead!” Afterward, the men sing another stanza before sacrificing a few small animals to the God of the Dead.
Continuing, the Druid celebration is interrupted by Roman soldiers, who come and put a stop to their celebration. In their equal violence, the Romans fell Samhain, who falls to the earth. Just after, the soldiers are felled by the Christians, and Moundshroud remarks “New altars, boys, new incense, new names…”
Finally they come to the Dark Ages and are present at the October Broom Festival, and the boys are all lifted by brooms, to which Moundshroud tells them that the only thing to do is “hold tight!”
Chapter 14
The boys, flying after Pipkin now, struggle to stay on their brooms. As they flew they began to feel the battering of their own inept flight, as they incurred a “hundred bruises each, a dozen cuts, and precisely forty-nine lumps on their tender skulls.”
They flew through the air until they were over France, Germany, and Spain. They watched as throngs of people fled the Southern Sea, and saw the witches of Europe as they worked in the fields. Moundshroud incredulously tells the boys that “every town has its resident witch” and more, as the worshippers all went into hiding after the Romans came, the Christians, etc.
The group watch as the witches are hung and burned in the night. The boys, though interested once, lose interest in the witches at the sight of their hanging bodies at the crossroads of Europe.
Chapter 15
Moundshroud and co. come to the location of Notre Dame (but before it was built), and find Pipkin hanging from the bell, but they are unable to get to him as their broomsticks have “No life in them.” Moundshroud gets an idea to build Notre Dame right there and then and the bricks begin to fall into place.
As it is described: “It was like racing up through a cake that build itself layer on stone layer, and the wild bell and sad Pipkin shouting and pleading them on” (Bradbury).
However, even as they get to the bell to save Pipkin, he has yet again disappeared into the ether. Moundshroud takes this moment to wonder about the cathedral. At once, all the boys realize that there are no gargoyles present, but Moundshroud tells them that they can “whistle” for them. As they do, the gargoyles “came running.”
Analysis:
Chapters 11-15 of They Halloween Tree work in two different ways:
- The first way these chapters fit together is by the chase through time. After all, our major conflict is that Pipkin has gone missing in the past. So, the boys must find him with the help of Moundshroud. Yet, he continues to be elusive, and promises to “meet them in the air.” The mystery of his imprisonment and flight intrigue the boys, so they must work together to bring him back to safety.
- The second way these chapters fit together is through the linear progression of storytelling. The chronology of narrative is firmly in place. Moundshroud starts the kids at the beginning of Halloween, with Ancient Egypt and the cavemen of yore; additionally, the boys then work through the fields of Samhain and into the Dark Ages. Finally, we rest at the building of Notre Dame Cathedral, which acts as the only light of Christendom necessary, rather than the witches’ fires of olde.
Bradbury’s intent is to show the reader a deeper meaning of Halloween, as opposed to its superficial roots as a form of Devil-worship and Satanism, of which it has little in common. The boys will continue learning this history through first-hand interaction in subsequent chapters.
Works Cited:
Bradbury, Ray. “The Halloween Tree.” Random House, 1972.
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