Into the Forest

It has begun. I have stepped off the beaten track and away from everything familiar. I heard my name called in the sound of the wind rushing through leaves, shaking branches, whispering to me spirit to spirit. It has been coming for a while, and despite the months of anticipation and preparation, the first step was still a hesitant one.

'A road. For so long in my mind it had been an unquestioned symbol of travel, adventure and escape, but in reality it’s a lousy metaphor. A road is a tunnel that traps you in linear places, linear concepts and linear time. It provides ease and convenience, but cheats you of everything you might learn if you only had the time and curiosity to leave it.'
- From The Idle Traveller, by Dan Kieran -

I needed to leave, I knew, in order to find something I have long been searching for. I'd been unfurling tentative feelers for the past six years, both outward and inward, and the time had come to try and answer some questions and explore ideas that had captured my imagination.

'T.H. White's Arthur is sent to the forest to seek his identity; many children find woodlands the right place to go to talk to themselves, to dream themselves into a different being, to effect their changeling masquerades away from the eyes of adults. For under the gaze of others, a child can be forced to hold one form, to keep a single identity, but in woodshade and tree-shadow, a child's spirit can stretch, alter and change; it is always easier to change yourself in the dark.'

- From Jay Griffiths' ‘Kith’ via Terri Windling -

I am here to learn, to explore, and also to heal. I am here to work and to play. I am here to be alone with myself and engage in community. 

‘To know the woods and to love the woods is to embrace it all, the light and the dark -- the sun dappled glens and the rank, damp hollows; beech trees and bluebells and also the deadly fungi and poison oak. The dark of the woods represents the moon side of life: traumas and trials, failures and secrets, illness and other calamities. The things that change us, temper us, shape us; that if we're not careful defeat or destroy us...but if we pass through that dark place bravely, stubbornly, wisely, turn us all into heroes. ‘

And yet, despite all the fairy tale warnings, sometimes we're compelled to run to the dark of the woods, away from all that is safe and familiar -- driven by desperation, perhaps, or the lure of danger, or the need for change. Young heroes stray from the safe, well-trodden path through foolishness or despair...but perhaps also by canny premeditation, knowing that venturing into the great unknown is how lives are tranformed… 

Sara Maitland compares the transformational magic in fairy tales to the everyday magic that turns caterpillars into butterflies. "[S]omething very dreadful and frightening happens inside the chrysalis," she points out. "We use the word 'cocoon' now to mean a place of safety and escape, but in fact the caterpillar, having constructed its own grave, does not develop smoothly, growing wings onto its first body, but disintegrates entirely, breaking down into organic slime which then regenerates in a completely new form. It goes as a child into the dark place and is lost; it emerges as the princess, or proven hero. The forest is full of such magic, in reality and in the stories."'

- Via Terri Windling -

If I have learnt anything from fairy tales, it is that you get nowhere in life without straying off the path, at least for a little while. The woods are there for you to lose yourself in, but, and this is the important thing, they are where we find ourselves again. We need the woods to become more than what we were.

‘We need the woods—the metaphor and symbol of the woods, the mythology of the woods. But all stories begin in a real place—as breath and movement in a physical space—and soak up the colour and texture of that place. When the woods are gone, the metaphors lose their power, the stories cease speaking from the silence of the trees.’
- Via Unsettling Wonder -  

We need our woods, but once again, they are under threat. The Forest of Dean, my home for the next few months, had not escaped the attention of gas-hungry predators; luckily, in the last couple of days, it has emerged that the companies in question have decided not to explore for gas. This is a huge relief. Our green spaces are sacred resources simply for being green, and the benefits they bring to us as they are should never be undervalued. 

I don't quite know what changes will occur, or what magic will happen here amongst the trees. But there's only one way to find out...

A Gypsy shaman's interpretation of Sleeping Beauty

We Borrow the Earth fell off a shelf in a charity shop as I reached up to replace a book next to it. The title was captivating - so I decided the book had chosen me. I knew to ignore what I'd previously heard about Gypsy culture and tradition - the stories were likely overly romanticised and mysticised accounts - and aimed to read without preconceptions as far as possible. Patrick Jasper Lee's personal experiences and thoughts about his culture and history were fascinating and written in a very engaging manner. As a practising Gypsy shaman he has a deep relationship with the Earth, and a lot of his thoughts about our ruptured relationship with our natural world resonated with me.

But I was truly delighted to find he had expressed opinions on fairy tales and their importance in our (imaginative) lives - I'm not sure how often I've read interpretations that haven't been from a Western academic perspective. Below, I've shared Lee's thoughts on Sleeping Beauty.

'La belle au bois dormant' by manu4-20-5 @ dA

"It saddens me to think just how much we have pushed the fairy-tale world underground, this beautiful magical world which once fashioned everyday life and the initiations of our deeper past in Europe. But a student of mine once said to me, 'These Romani teachings of yours reawaken the Sleeping Beauty within me.' This comment could simply sound like romantic fantasy, but it touches the very heart of the Romani shamanic journey. The lady who spoke these words was French, but this phrase also says a good deal about the spirit of the imagination which once thrived in western Europe and which is now very much like a great and beautiful princess, sleeping within us, and also beneath us within the Earth."

'The Sleeping Beauty' by KmyeChan @ dA

"Long ago, Sleeping Beauty, a spirit recognisable to all of us who have European roots, came under the spell of a wickedly clever fairy, whose spirit worked through many gullible sorcerers. These sorcerers threatened to kill the beautiful princess - or to take the beauty of the imagination away. The princess would prick her finger when she was 18 - civilised life would be a test for this natural spirit, nine being a crucial number for testing the soul of a great princess - and she and all her people would fall into a deep sleep in which they would know nothing of their older life, until a handsome prince found his way to the castle, kissed the princess and woke her. Then they would all live happily ever after - or reunite with their imaginative lives again. I believe we are still in that deep hypnotic slumber in our physical world, together with the beautiful Earth spirit, or princess of our land, and I believe that this seemingly eternal sleep affects us when we journey."

'Wild Nocturne' by lauraborealisis @ dA

"The Sleeping Beauty was thus a sad tale expressing the story of the Bari Weshen Dai, 'the Great Forest Mother', who was a beautiful feminine spirit residing in the forests of Europe. Her fate was sealed when the spell was cast. And she still now sleeps, entombed beneath the Earth, and also within us. Interestingly, in the French language The Sleeping Beauty is called La belle au bois dormant, 'The Beauty of the Sleeping Wood'!"

'Forest Thinking' by jslattum @ dA

"I often tell students who come to learn the craft of Romani journeying how we can take on the role of the handsome prince who kisses this beautiful lady. For a greater part of us is sleeping along with her, as we are all entranced by the spell. But when she wakes, in the future, we will wake too, and she will wake, because that is her fate also. No bad spell can last forever. The 'good' image must inevitably follow the 'bad' one! And we will eventually outwit the one who created this powerful soul-numbing slumber. Who knows what will happen when the Sleeping Beauty finally wakes!"

'Spiritual Journey' by Tamura @ dA

"The journey I conduct with students around the theme of waking the Sleeping Beauty is always one of the most important journeys, for it serves to rekindle the student's relationship with Puv, the Earth Spirit, via the Bari Washen Dai. It can help to develop essential assertiveness and also direction."


Patrick Jasper Lee, We Borrow the Earth: An Intimate Portrait of the Gypsy Shamanic Tradition and Culture (London: Thorsons, 2000), 222-224.

What the Woods Want

When we close a book and put it away, how can we see how vast the world contained inside truly is?

I have a peculiar relationship with the novels of Diana Wynne Jones. I read a fair amount of them as a child, and I remember they had me hooked straight away and kept me engaged from cover to cover; they were magical, with fascinating storylines like no other, and there were a lot of surprises and twists near the end. But if you asked me, I wouldn't be able to tell you what a single one was about.

Why? I honestly have no idea (I like to think I have a pretty good book memory). So I've dug my old books out of storage and made a promise to read them all and love them again. And to remember why. I've already made a start; I've read Hexwood and wanted to share a rather beautiful sentiment from the very end of the novel.

The book doesn't sit comfortably in either the fantasy or sci-fi genre, as there is wood magic and mythical creatures as much as travel through space and time. But as the story draws to a close and the ends are tied together, the predominant setting, the woods, will not let the characters out until it has been granted a gift for all that it has been through:

'You told me the Wood can form its own theta-space and become the great Forest,' Mordion said to him. 'Does the Wood only do this when a human being enters it?' 

'I had not thought of this,' said Yam. 'Yes, I believe that when not reinforced by my field, the Wood requires human assistance to change.' 

'And not all humans will help,' Mordion said. 'I think what the Wood is trying to tell me is that it requires its own theta-space permanently, so that it can be the great Forest all the time, without having to rely on humans.'

I'm sure we've all experienced something like this, when we walk through the woods and it feels like it goes on forever, like it's the most magical place in the world and can't possibly be just a 20 minute drive from home. Diana Wynne Jones' Woods feel the same thing, and want to experience this vastness and greatness without needing a person inside to believe it into existence. 

I can imagine the same would be true of books. When we finish reading a great story we carry the world it created inside of us, whether it's the bygone England of Austen or the dystopian England of Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now, Middle Earth or Narnia, or the anyplace and anytime of fairy tales. How huge, how magnificent, and how in the world can all that be in something small enough to carry in a handbag?! 

We don't need to be inside the book, physically turning the pages to bring its world to life. There is a special relationship between book and reader that creates an everlasting world after a single union, which doesn't exist until the book has been read, and afterwards exists in both.

As I continue to re-explore my collection of Diana Wynne Jones novels, I fully intend to make sure her worlds continue to exist in me as well as the book. Let's make this magic happen!

Tales from the Wild Wood

Whilst on my writing hiatus here I was planning some new posts for my forest series...however in that time the wonderful Terri Windling has been posting her Into the Woods series, which I encourage you all to read. I've lost my motivation and my ideas, but never mind! Her posts are beautiful and inspiring.

For my final forest post I would simply like to draw your attention to a fascinating and entertaining series I have just discovered on BBC 4: Tales from the Wild Wood. It follows a year long project bringing an abandoned woodland back to life, trying to make it valuable for the 21st century.

Source

When Fantasy Left the Forest

When fantasy left the forest...so did we.

'Inviting forest' by perodog @ dA

Looking at the connection between nature and happiness, and the books that get us outside...

One of the most poignant discussions for me in Gossip from the Forest was about the amount of time children are spending outdoors:

We are doing something very alarming to our children - and, making it worse perhaps, we have fooled ourselves that we are doing it for their sake, for their safety. The amount of unsupervised time outside the home that young people get to enjoy is being reduced year on year (the average child has lost a whole hour a day already this century). (1)

In 2007 Unicef published a report that stated children in the UK are the unhappiest of all the economically developed countries. Despite children themselves stating that 'having plenty to do outdoors' would make them happy, their parents felt under pressure to buy them the latest gadgets and gizmos instead (read The Guardian article on this here). The lack of connection to nature, or 'Nature Deficit Disorder', has made our country miserable. This worried David Bond so much that he set up Project Wild Thing and gave himself the title of Nature's Marketing Director, thinking that Nature needed a helping hand in getting children back outside. He created the Wild Time App, featuring a wide range of nature based activities that can be done in the time you have available, whether it's 10 minutes or 2 hours. The National Trust has also provided a list of 50 things to do before you're 11 3/4.

'Exploration' by perodog @ dA

There are numerous reasons for this deficit, but Maitland identifies a key factor: the books children read these days aren't relevant to the natural world around them.

Interestingly, we have also abandoned another genre of literature, one which encouraged children to see themselves as capable on their own in the wild. There is a sort of novel for younger readers that was immensely popular up until the last quarter of the twentieth century and that has now well-nigh disappeared: stories of adventures in which children are on their own and deal with problems under a veneer of realism; novels like Swallows and Amazons or The Famous Five... (2)

Looking at the shelves in bookshops I would not have imagined this myself; Enid Blyton seems to be a pretty permanent fixture at least. In 2010 The Famous Five publisher tried to boost sales of the series by modernising the language, although they claimed their sales weren't suffering before they took this action. Perhaps this is the problem, then: relevance to the modern world. Maybe the child is too harsh a critic to really believe it possible that parents would let their children go off alone on camping trips like Julian, Dick, George and Anne do. Suspending disbelief to make this seem credible would then make the book a fantasy tale rather than an adventure story...would it not?

We have kept the magical element of fairy stories in modern books for young people; fantasy worlds are now the location of adventures and moral combat. But we have abandoned the immensely reassuring realist element of these old tales: the forests are dangerous but you can survive; use your own intelligence and courage and you will come back safely. (3)

The wonderful thing that fairy stories create is this idea in the back of the mind that when you walk through a forest, something magical might happen to you. There are few other stories I can recall from my childhood that give me this sensation when I walk in the woods, or indeed in any other natural place.

So, do we need to bring the magic back home? Is this the challenge of the modern writer, who cares about magic, who cares about nature, and who cares about the wellbeing of children? A quick browse of the list of current children's bestsellers and upcoming releases tells me that most of the stories are fantasies or mysteries set in the city (often with supernatural creatures prowling the streets at night). I'm not surprised. Ten years ago when I was a teen, finding a new book set in the countryside felt like a rarity even then. Maybe this can be my challenge as a writer. And a challenge as a reader, to find these rare jewels - any suggestions would be most welcome, please share them with me in the comments!

'A tree of a salamander2' by perodog @ dA

Related posts:

Woods between Worlds

Exploring the Forest

(1) Maitland, Sara, Gossip from the Forest, (London: Granta, 2012), 98.
(2) Ibid., 104.
(3) Ibid., 105.

Woods between Worlds

This is the first post in what I hope to be a series of short articles relating to forests and fairy tales, inspired by Sara Maitland's writing in Gossip from the Forest. In this post I look at the links between the 'casual magic' of the forests and their setting as a place of transition for characters in and beyond fairy tales.

Source

Woods between Worlds: Magic and Transition in the Fairy Tale Forest

There is magic between the pages of fairy stories. We can't always see it, but it's there. This magic will often be found and felt amongst knotted trunks and snaking branches, between the barriers formed by tangled undergrowth and a dense, leafy canopy. It will be practised by plants, animals and people (mostly old people) but never, on any account, will it be sought for or used by you.

'Magic is something you are given, something that is done to you or around you,' Maitland explains in Gossip from the Forest (1). Have you ever set foot within the boundaries of a forest and felt a change in atmosphere? You cannot walk into a forest and look for magic, but the knowledge that there is magic there, and that it might cross your path, definitely gives the forest an atmosphere unlike any other natural place, heightened by the fact that you are on alert for its sudden, random appearance. It could happen to anyone, any time:

I know of no other cultural tradition that treats magic in this odd casual way. I believe it is a distinct forest magic that grew out of the experience of living in woods, where you cannot see far ahead and where things change abruptly. (2)

This casual magic does seem to have one rule, however:

The magic comes to them, without solicitation or endeavour. It is usually in the form of assistance, not solution: they have to use the magical gifts they are given, and they have to continue to work or suffer or both. (3)

If magic was the goal, the forest would be the destination. But magic finds you in the forest: you enter seeking your fortune, escaping abuse, looking to prove yourself, and you leave armed with the power to achieve your goal. The casual magic of the forest is linked to the transition of the character's ability or status, an emotional or physical turning point in their journey; and this role of the forest is one that has lingered in literature, beyond the realms of traditional fairy stories.

Source

In C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy enter the world of Narnia through the wardrobe and find themselves in the woods. It contains magical creatures (here we meet the faun, Mr Tumnus) but also a familiar item from their own world: the lamp post. The imagery provided by this infiltration from their world highlights the transitional nature of the woods. When Lucy and Edmund spend time alone in Narnia they do not wander far, but Lucy's time alone in particular empowers her and provides her with enough understanding of the creatures and rules of the land to motivate the others to keep travelling onward on their quest.

Lewis also created 'the wood between the worlds' in The Magicians's Nephew. It is, as its name suggests, the place Diggory and Polly appear when they leave their own world, containing the access points to other worlds. It has a peculiar effect on the children, who find it hard to hold on to memories of who they are and where they are from. Diggory claims, 'It's not the sort of place where things happen. The trees go on growing, that's all.' (4) This, I believe, is a common misconception of forests in our post-industrial world. I could take a guess and say that Lewis was commenting on the way we use our forests now, no longer for our livelihoods but for occasional days out...but, really, in the context of the book nothing needs to happen there: it is just a transitional place containing magical portals to access other worlds.

Source

Tolkien's Middle-Earth universe does not see characters travel between worlds, but immerses the reader in an alternate universe that still uses the forest as a magical, transitional space. Immediately upon leaving the Shire, as they flee the black riders, the four hobbits find themselves in the Old Forest, marking the end of normality and familiarity and the start of one of the most epic adventures in literature. Hobbits believe the Old Forest to contain trees that are 'awake', and later on Merry and Pippin come into contact with the Ents (tree-herders) when they find themselves in Fangorn Forest. This, again, marks a change in status for the two hobbits, from danger to safety, and from an old mission to a new one.

I could go on (5). There are forests in all types of literature, for all ages, all showing the impact the fairy tale forest has had on them. This is also abundantly clear in Disney films, even though they have moved away from the traditional stories. In 'The Princess and The Frog,' (6) Tiana and Naveen find themselves in a foresty bayou where they must face up to their personality flaws and learn to co-operate (as well as find a good witch); and Carl and Russell from 'Up' make an early stop in their balloon adventure in the jungle, where they better learn how to get along and meet other magical members of their group. 

One of the points Maitland wanted to make in her book was that forests and fairy tales grow and evolve together. Our world has changed dramatically over the years, and even though we are not getting out into these legendary places of mischief and magic like we used to, and even though there are factions trying to tell us fairy tales are bad, the legacy of fairy tales and forests continues to inform our lives, whether it is through films, books, music, or even just a vague feeling that causes a shiver down our spines when we walk through the trees. I think the clue is in the first line of every story: once upon a time. Once upon a time there were fairy stories and forests. There were, there are, and there will always be movement, change and magic in the world.

Related Posts:
When Fantasy Left the Forest
Exploring the Forest

(1) Maitland, Sara, Gossip from the Forest, (London: Granta, 2012), 157.

(2) Maitland, 158.

(3) Maitland, 157-8.

(4) Quotes sourced from ePubBud as I don't have my copy of the book to hand. Unfortunately this means a lack of page numbers, but the quoted text is from chapter 3.

(5) I considered all the transitional and magical elements of Harry Potter's various trips into the Forbidden Forest each year, but something about it wasn't quite right...I then realised it was because there was a broken rule: Harry Potter had his own magic, and sought magical knowledge. Despite the forest being used for various transitional purposes, the magic was not casual.

(6) Although you could try and draw a parallel between the classic fairy tale, I find the Disney film to bear very little resemblance. However, Tiana's violent dislike for Naveen does recall my preferred ending to the story, where the frog is turned into a prince through being hurled against a wall by the princess, rather than from a kiss. 

Exploring the Forest

For Christmas this year I received a truly inspirational present: Gossip from the Forest by Sara Maitland. Although I was lucky enough to be given several books, this is the one I couldn't resist delving into first, and I was instantly hooked. I am now halfway through and loving every page!

Source: Waterstones

Each chapter is devoted to a specific forest Maitland is exploring, and her writing seems to effortlessly mimic a chain of thought that links types of trees, the forestry-oriented history of the country, and of course the relationship with fairy tales. The chapters on the woods are interspersed with interesting re-tellings of fairy tales that draw their magic from this landscape: one that stands out for me is her version of Hansel and Gretel, which deviates completely from the familiar tale and instead examines their lives as adults, coping with what went on in the darkest depths of the trees...

The most wonderful discovery so far is a chapter entirely devoted to the very part of London I grew up in - turns out my neighbourhood, West Norwood, gets its name from a contraction of 'North Wood', which covered a vast expanse of what is now south London. Reading about the history of a place I know so intimately has caused a stir inside me: I literally grew up on the long lost roots of ancient woodland! Whenever I go into green spaces, especially woods, I feel so alive and free in a way that is hard to express, but which I want to channel in order to create some interesting writing for THCV...

So, inspired by Maitland and my own woodland adventures, I have decided to dedicate a series of posts to exploring the forest and our links to them in fairy tales and books in general. I want to pick up on some ideas Maitland posits, look at specific books that capture the magic of the forests, and hopefully go on my own version of a forest adventure...