The boys’ journey continues to 16th century Paris and Notre Dame Cathedral and finally to Mexico for the Day of the Dead celebration. Here I’ll mention that The Halloween Tree includes a subversive view of Christianity, as the boys witness the persecution of innocent witches in the dark ages in the name of Christ.
“Now the Christians come and cut the Romans down-new altars, boys, new incense, new names,” Moundshroud says. The boys witness the extinction of the druids and their religion at the hands of the murdering Romans, whose polytheistic approach to religion is itself eradicated by the coming of Christ. They are whisked away to pre-Christian Europe and encounter the cowled, scythe-wielding Samhain, the druidic god of death from which Halloween derives its origins. The boys travel back to ancient Egypt and view that culture’s reverence of the dead, including its great pyramid-tombs, mummies, and the worship of the sun god Osiris, murdered each night by his jealous brother only to rise again the next morning. Along the way he reveals the origins of Halloween and its association with death. Moundshroud offers to take the boys on a dreamlike trip back through time in order to save Pipkin. When the boys call to him, his pumpkin light goes out and he vanishes from sight. En route they have to cross a deep ravine, which proves to be a metaphor for the Valley of Death, and Pipkin fails to reach the other side.
Moundshroud takes the boys to see The Halloween Tree.
The boys decide to go trick-or-treating at a haunted house, and there they encounter the ghostly, skeletal, white-haired Mr. Later we learn that Pipkin is suffering from an acute bout of appendicitis. But the call of Halloween is too strong and he joins his friends. A ninth boy, Pipkin, is notably absent from the group, and when he finally emerges from his house it’s apparent something is terribly wrong: He’s pale, moving gingerly, and clutching at a lancing pain his side. The Halloween Tree opens with eight young boys gathered together on Halloween night to go trick-or-treating. This neat little tale is ostensibly for children and young adults, but it contains an illuminating look into the origins of Halloween as well as an honest exploration of our own cultural view of death, that greatest of all mysteries. This review may be a little out of season, but it was with relatively recent memories of carving jack-o’lanterns and taking my costumed children out to trick-or-treat that I listened to The Colonial Radio Players dramatized adaptation of The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. Would you dive into the dark ocean, boys? Would you fly in the dark sky? What is Halloween? How did it start? Where, why, what for? Witches, cats, mummy dust, haunts… it’s all there in the country from which no one returns. Themes: / Fantasy / Halloween / Death / Religion / Time Travel / Witchcraft / Paganism /
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