The Ash-tree quiz

Question 1. Which literary categories best describe The Ash-tree?

Realism, Everyday Life & Plain Detail
Correct answer: Ghost Story, Gothic Horror & Dread
Detective Fiction, Clues & a Solved Crime
Historical Romance, Courtship & Adventure
Satire, Social Comedy & Sharp Wit

Ghost Story, Gothic Horror & Dread is the best fit. An old country house, a woman hanged as a witch, a shut-up room, and deaths no one can explain build slow dread. It first appeared in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary in 1904.

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Question 2. How does the narrator report Mrs Mothersole's words at her hanging?

As a curse she shouted at Sir Matthew from the cart
As a full confession she read aloud to the whole crowd
Correct answer: As seemingly meaningless words, said in an undertone
As a prayer for the Fell family, spoken very calmly

The narrator writes, "However, all that she is reported to have said was the seemingly meaningless words: 'There will be guests at the Hall.' Which she repeated more than once in an undertone." She does not shout, and the text never calls the words a curse. Her look was furious, though: a reporter of the time wrote that all who saw her said she "presented the living Aspect of a mad Divell." What her words meant is left to the reader.

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Question 3. On his last evening, Sir Matthew sees something run up and down the ash-tree. Why does he doubt it is a squirrel?

Correct answer: Squirrels would all be in their nests by that hour
Squirrels had never been seen in the park before
It was far too big to be any kind of squirrel
It made a sound like a woman talking to herself

It is about half-past nine at night under the full moon of May. Sir Matthew asks, "What is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash? It is never a squirrel? They will all be in their nests by now." The Vicar sees it only for an instant and "could make nothing of its colour in the moonlight," but he could have sworn "it had more than four legs." The next morning Sir Matthew is found dead.

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Question 4. What happened to the women who laid out Sir Matthew's body after they touched his breast?

Their hands turned black, the same color as the dead man's body
They found a curved knife hidden in the bed beside the body
They fainted at once and could not be woken until the next day
Correct answer: Their palms ached and their forearms swelled for many weeks

The Vicar's notes say the women "had no sooner touch'd the Breast of the Corpse with their naked Hands than they were sensible of a more than ordinary violent Smart and Acheing in their Palms." Their forearms swelled, and for "many weeks they were forc'd to lay by the exercise of their Calling; and yet no mark seen on the Skin." With a magnifying lens, the Vicar and Mr Hodgkins found only "a couple of small Punctures or Pricks."

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Question 5. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "but the Casement stood open, as my poor Friend would always have it in this Season"

A heavy wooden chest kept at the foot of a bed
Correct answer: A window that swings open on hinges at one side
A door that leads from a bedroom to a back stair
A curtain drawn around a bed to keep out drafts

A casement is a window that opens on side hinges, like a door. The Vicar notes there was no sign anyone had forced a way into the room, "but the Casement stood open." When the servants first found Sir Matthew, "the window was open," and on the night Sir Richard dies in the same room, "the window stands open."

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Question 6. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "to make trial of that old and by many accounted Superstitious Practice of drawing the Sortes"

Correct answer: Seeking guidance by opening a Bible at random and reading
Copying a dead man's favorite verses to read at his funeral
Sorting through a dead man's papers to find his last wishes
Saying set prayers over the dead at fixed hours of the night

Drawing the Sortes means opening the Bible at random and taking the words under your finger as a message. The Vicar does it three times: "opening the Book and placing my Finger upon certain Words." He calls it a practice many think superstitious, and tries it only in a moment of helplessness. The verses he finds are "Cut it down," "It shall never be inhabited" and "Her young ones also suck up blood."

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Question 7. What did the Vicar, Mr Crome, conclude from his three verses?

That they plainly pointed to the ash-tree as the cause of death
That they named Mrs Mothersole as the one behind the death
Correct answer: That they gave him little help, though a sharper mind might see more
That they proved the Squire had died of poison in his ale

The Vicar admits, "I must needs admit that by my Trial not much Assistance was afforded me." He wrote the verses down only in case "they pointed the true Quarter of the Mischief to a quicker Intelligence than my own." He did not tie them to the tree or to Mrs Mothersole. His funeral sermon took the view, common in the neighborhood, that the Squire was "the victim of a recrudescence of the Popish Plot." Only later can readers see how the verses might fit the tree, the shut-up room and what lived in the ash.

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Question 8. How did the second Sir Matthew finally put an end to the deaths among his cattle?

He cut back the ash-tree's lowest branches from the wall
Correct answer: He shut his beasts in sheds at night and kept no sheep out
He sold the herd and bought new cattle from Norwich farms
He set servants to watch over the fields all through the night

He ended it "by a very simple expedient, that of shutting up all his beasts in sheds at night, and keeping no sheep in his park. For he had noticed that nothing was ever attacked that spent the night indoors." After that the trouble struck only "wild birds, and beasts of chase." Night watches were tried, but "all-night watching was quite unproductive of any clue." The text never says what caused the sickness.

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Question 9. When Sir Richard builds a great family pew, Mrs Mothersole's grave is opened and her coffin found empty. What does Sir Richard order done with the coffin?

Correct answer: Burn it, though a good many people thought it foolhardy
Rebury it in the same spot beneath the new family pew
Send it to Cambridge so that scholars could study it
Keep it locked inside the church until the bishop could visit

The pew was built out on the north side of the church, and several graves had to be disturbed. Mrs Mothersole's "coffin was fairly sound and unbroken," yet "there was no trace whatever inside it of body, bones, or dust." The narrator adds, "Sir Richard's orders that the coffin should be burnt were thought by a good many to be rather foolhardy, though they were duly carried out."

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Question 10. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "at the time of her burying no such things were dreamt of as resurrection-men"

Preachers who promised that the dead would rise again
Gravediggers paid by the parish to rebury old coffins
Villagers who claimed to see the dead walking at night
Correct answer: Body-snatchers who dug up corpses to sell for dissection

Resurrection-men were body-snatchers who dug up fresh corpses and sold them to doctors to cut up and study. The narrator says no one thought of such people when Mrs Mothersole was buried, and that it is hard to imagine any reason to steal a body "otherwise than for the uses of the dissecting-room." So the narrator can find no ordinary explanation for the empty coffin.

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Question 11. Sir Richard tells the Bishop that something scratched at his window and left lines and marks in the dust on his sill. What explanation do they agree on?

Twigs of the ash must have swept the glass in the wind
A servant must have been playing a trick in the night
Birds nesting in the ash must have hopped on the sill
Correct answer: Rats must have come up to the windows through the ivy

Sir Richard first blames "the twigs sweeping the glass," but the Bishop points out there was no gale and says the nearest branches "miss the panes by a foot." Sir Richard asks what, then, "scratched and rustled so - ay, and covered the dust on my sill with lines and marks?" The narrator says, "At last they agreed that the rats must have come up through the ivy. That was the Bishop's idea, and Sir Richard jumped at it." Whether it was really rats, the story leaves to the reader.

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Question 12. Which of the Vicar's verses does Sir Richard call "one prudent piece of advice"?

It shall never be inhabited
Her young ones also suck up blood
Correct answer: Cut it down
Thou shalt seek me in the morning

Reading the old Vicar's notes, Sir Richard says, "my grandfather's Bible gave one prudent piece of advice - Cut it down. If that stands for the ash-tree, he may rest assured I shall not neglect it." He calls the tree "a nest of catarrhs and agues," meaning a source of colds and fevers. He plans to have it cut down, but he dies before that can happen.

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Question 13. Sir Richard opens his grandfather's Bible himself and finds "Thou shalt seek me in the morning, and I shall not be." How does he react?

He goes pale and decides to sleep in another room after all
Correct answer: He laughs it off and says he will have no more prophets
He asks young Mr Crome to pray with him before he rides on
He orders the Bible locked away along with the old papers

He jokes, "Your grandfather would have made a fine omen of that, hey? No more prophets for me! They are all in a tale." He keeps the West Chamber. Later, just before he is found dead in the morning, the narrator sets the same line on its own, so the verse seems, afterward, to foretell his death. The text does not name the book of the Bible this verse comes from.

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Question 14. How does the narrator tell the night of Sir Richard's death differently from the rest of the story?

Correct answer: He shifts into the present tense and puts the reader in the room
He hands the telling over to Sir Richard's own diary for the night
He lets the Bishop describe it, since the Bishop sat up by the bed
He skips the night and reports only what the servants found next

Most of the story is told in the past tense, often through old papers. Here the narrator writes, "And now we are in his bedroom, with the light out and the Squire in bed." No character in the story sees what happens. In the half-darkness it seems that he "had several heads, round and brownish," and the narrator asks, "It is a horrible illusion. Is it nothing more?" The switch makes the reader the only witness.

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Question 15. A gardener climbs a ladder, looks down the hollow trunk with a lantern, cries out and falls. What does the story tell us about what he saw?

He tells the Bishop he saw a woman's face down in the dark
He says he saw a nest of rats, just as the Bishop had guessed
Correct answer: Nothing: it shows the terror in his face but never says what
He describes a heap of bones, which the men then dig out

The people below "saw his face struck with an incredulous terror and loathing before he cried out in a dreadful voice and fell back from the ladder." Two men caught him. "He was in a dead faint, and it was some time before any word could be got from him. By then they had something else to look at": his dropped lantern had set the tree on fire. The story never says what he saw. It shows the fear and leaves the sight to the reader.

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Question 16. Who went as near as he dared to the first burning body that fell on the grass?

Correct answer: The Bishop of Kilmore
Sir William Kentfield
The gardener on the ladder
Lady Mary Hervey

"The Bishop went as near as he dared to it," and found it "veinous and seared." Sir William Kentfield stayed under the tree with the Bishop, but it is the Bishop who looks closely at the first body. It is also the Bishop of Kilmore whose account of what was found under the roots ends the story.

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Question 17. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

Lady Fell was away from the Hall on the night before Sir Matthew died.

Happened

"Lady Fell was with her mother, who was dangerously ill, and Sir Matthew was alone at home." That is why the Vicar was easily persuaded to stay for a late supper.
Sir Matthew catches Mrs Mothersole in the ash-tree and holds her until help comes.

Didn't happen

He never catches her. He testified that each time she took alarm at some noise he made, and "all he could see when he got down to the garden was a hare running across the park in the direction of the village."
Mr Hodgkins, the physician from Bury, finds no poison in Sir Matthew's evening ale.

Happened

Mr Hodgkins declared on oath that he could not "discover that any matter of a venomous kind was present in it." Even so, the neighbors talked of poison because of the swelling and blackness of the body.
Mrs Mothersole makes a long speech from the gallows, cursing Sir Matthew by name.

Didn't happen

The text says "all that she is reported to have said" was one short line, "There will be guests at the Hall." She repeated it "more than once in an undertone." She never names Sir Matthew.
William Crome stays on at the Hall to meet the guests that afternoon.

Didn't happen

He is "riding from Norwich to Bury St Edmunds" in haste. He leaves the old Vicar's papers with Sir Richard, and the two part before the guests arrive in the afternoon.
Sir Richard tells his housekeeper to put the Bishop of Kilmore in his old room.

Happened

After choosing the West Chamber, Sir Richard tells Mrs Chiddock, "Put the Bishop of Kilmore in my old room." So the Bishop is to have the room Sir Richard is leaving.
Sir Richard says something left lines and marks in the dust on his windowsill.

Happened

He asks the Bishop what it could be "that scratched and rustled so - ay, and covered the dust on my sill with lines and marks?" They settle on the Bishop's idea of rats in the ivy.
Sir Richard's window is open on his first night in the West Chamber.

Didn't happen

He tells the Bishop, "But I had not my window open last night." It is on the next night, which is "still and warm," that the window stands open.
A white tom-cat falls into the hollow trunk of the ash-tree.

Happened

The cat crouches in the fork of the lower boughs, watching something inside the trunk. When it cranes over the hole, "a bit of the edge on which it stood gave way, and it went slithering in."
Workmen cut down the ash-tree on Sir Richard's orders.

Didn't happen

Sir Richard planned it ("the tree is to come down tomorrow") but died first. The tree is never cut down. It burns after the gardener drops his lantern inside it: "All that day the ash burned."

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Question 18. The narrator calls Mrs Mothersole a victim of the witch-trials, yet says of his tale, "I cannot altogether sweep it away as mere invention." Where does this leave him?

Sure that she was a real witch who earned her punishment
Sure she was innocent and that the whole tale is invented
Unwilling to discuss the witch-trials, as a mere digression
Correct answer: Unsure either way, so the reader must judge for himself

The narrator wonders whether the accused believed they had powers, or meant harm, or whether their confessions "were extorted by the mere cruelty of the witch-finders." He says "these are questions which are not, I fancy, yet solved." He calls her "a victim," yet the events give him pause. His answer is to hand the question over: "The reader must judge for himself."

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Questions and answers

Question 1. Which literary categories best describe The Ash-tree?

Question 2. How does the narrator report Mrs Mothersole's words at her hanging?

Question 3. On his last evening, Sir Matthew sees something run up and down the ash-tree. Why does he doubt it is a squirrel?

Question 4. What happened to the women who laid out Sir Matthew's body after they touched his breast?

Question 5. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "but the Casement stood open, as my poor Friend would always have it in this Season"

Question 6. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "to make trial of that old and by many accounted Superstitious Practice of drawing the Sortes"

Question 7. What did the Vicar, Mr Crome, conclude from his three verses?

Question 8. How did the second Sir Matthew finally put an end to the deaths among his cattle?

Question 9. When Sir Richard builds a great family pew, Mrs Mothersole's grave is opened and her coffin found empty. What does Sir Richard order done with the coffin?

Question 10. Match the term to its meaning in the story: "at the time of her burying no such things were dreamt of as resurrection-men"

Question 11. Sir Richard tells the Bishop that something scratched at his window and left lines and marks in the dust on his sill. What explanation do they agree on?

Question 12. Which of the Vicar's verses does Sir Richard call "one prudent piece of advice"?

Question 13. Sir Richard opens his grandfather's Bible himself and finds "Thou shalt seek me in the morning, and I shall not be." How does he react?

Question 14. How does the narrator tell the night of Sir Richard's death differently from the rest of the story?

Question 15. A gardener climbs a ladder, looks down the hollow trunk with a lantern, cries out and falls. What does the story tell us about what he saw?

Question 16. Who went as near as he dared to the first burning body that fell on the grass?

Question 17. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

Question 18. The narrator calls Mrs Mothersole a victim of the witch-trials, yet says of his tale, "I cannot altogether sweep it away as mere invention." Where does this leave him?