The local rites are the most important spiritual foundation of the universe. That's what they believe anyway. No one takes them very seriously since they are a circle consisting of eight trees; and who believes what a tree has to say anyway? The local rites have very much knowledge, which they collected over the course of their long tree life of about 10000 years, and now store in their root files. Despite their old age each new day holds something surprising for them. The local rites do everything together, which is to a large extent because as trees they cannot move particularly well. Apart from their stationary existence the trees are very flexible probably because of their daily gymnastic routine. One of the most important hobbies of the local rites is, besides philosophy, to create a plan to show the universe what a rake is. It is unclear, however, whether the universe will ever come past the local rites and whether it can be impressed with a fish from the Doedelsea, a rake.