As I explained in a previous blog entry, in the course of drawing and writing my picture book, The Scarecrow Harvest Festival, I came up with backstories for most of the characters. Maybe someday I'll compile them all into a companion volume, but for now, have another one! This is the story of that guy in the middle up there with the wrinkled suit and the head full of candles.
FEUILLEMORTE
The road from Deerford to Souhaven is a long, lonely route passing old, tangled forests thick with vines and brambles, shadowed by hemlocks, and haunted by vampires, glowackus, and stranger beasts. The swamps along the trail bristle with quilled horsetails and clumped sword sedges, the waters dappled with the green of duckweed and alive with choruses of frogs, whispering night birds, and screaming fisher cats. There are blocky sandstone ridges marked by the fossil paths of long-dead saurian beasts and haunted by their ghosts.
The loneliness and foreboding dread on this road can be overwhelming. Thus it was a great relief for travelers in decades past when they came to one particular marsh along the trail that was aglow with fireflies gathered in such huge numbers that one could read by their combined light. This marsh was a sign that they were within sight of the unsurprisingly-named Firefly’s Rest, one of the only inns along this dark trail.
The inn and marsh were fondly remembered landmarks for many years. But, sadly, progress marches on in the River Valley. The stream that fed the marsh was diverted and the wetland itself filled in to provide land for fields. And with the marsh went the fireflies. The inn remained prosperous, many guests agreed that an intrinsic part of its charm and magic had been lost along with its titular insect greeters. Millicent Tunis, the owner of the new fields built on top of the marsh did not forgotten the importance of the fireflies, though. She had many fond memories of being greeted by them when she passed the marsh on the way to Souhaven when she herself had been a young woman trying to make her way as a trader. To honor their memory, and to advertise the inn, she and her family set out dozens little lanterns in their fields, creating their own swarm of dancing lights to greet guests. Initially they made the lanterns themselves from metal scraps but soon guests of the Inn began to donate their own lanterns, some of them brought from distant lands specifically to place in the fields
For a while Millicent and her family hung the lanterns themselves. That proved to be exhausting work, however, and the family had a hard time balancing the task with planting, harvesting and other work.
The Autumnal Powers looked upon this situation and breathed life into the old scarecrow that stood in the field. They dubbed him Feuillemorte and gave him the task of keeping the lanterns lit and the memory of the fireflies alive.
Nowadays Feuillemorte wanders the fields nightly, inspecting each lantern to make sure it’s lit. His own head is made from a driftwood stump and adorned with magic candles that will only burn themselves, but do not touch the dry stalks of the field.
Travelers still bring lanterns from all over to hang in Millicent’s Firefly Field. A few months ago, the innkeeper even began cataloguing the stories behind them, and collecting them in a hefty book in the inn’s small library.
Locals and travelers alike have developed an affection for Feuillemorte as well, and volunteers have ensured that he receives consistent repairs and a new outfit once the old one gets too ragged.
