Enchanted forest

In literature, an enchanted forest is a forest under, or containing, enchantments. Such forests are described in the oldest folklore from regions where forests are common, and occur throughout the centuries to modern works of fantasy. They represent places unknown to the characters, and situations of liminality and transformation.

The forest can feature as a place of threatening danger, or one of refuge, or a chance at adventure.

Folktales

The forest as a place of magic and danger is found among folklore wherever the natural state of wild land is forest: a forest is a location beyond which people normally travel, where strange things might occur, and strange people might live, the home of monsters and witches. Peasants who seldom if ever traveled far from their villages could not conclusively say that it was impossible that an ogre could live an hour away. [C. S. Lewis, "On Science Fiction", "Of Other Worlds", p68 ISBN 0-15-667897-7] Hence, in fairy tales, Hansel and Gretel found a cannibalistic witch in the forest; [Heidi Anne Heiner, " [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/hanselgretel/notes.html#EIGHT The Annotated Hansel and Gretel] "] Vasilissa the Beautiful, Baba Yaga herself; [Heidi Anne Heiner," [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/babayaga/notes.html The Annotated Vasilissa the Beautiful] "] Molly Whuppie and her sisters, a giant. [Joseph Jacobs, " [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/hanselgretel/stories/molly.html Molly Whuppie] ", "English Fairy Tales"] It was in a forest that the king of "The Grateful Prince" lost his way, and rashly promised his child for aid, [W. F. Kirby, " [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/hoe/hoe1-29.htm The Grateful Prince] ", "The Hero of Esthonia"] where the heroines, and their wicked step-sisters, of "The Three Little Men in the Wood" [Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, " [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/13threemenforest.html The Three Little Men in the Wood] " "Household Tales"] and "The Enchanted Wreath" [Andrew Lang, " [http://www.rickwalton.com/folktale/orange11.htm The Enchanted Wreath] ", "The Yellow Fairy Book"] met magical tests, and where Brother and Sister found the streams that their evil stepmother had enchanted. [Heidi Anne Heiner, " [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/brothersister/notes.html#EIGHT The Annotated Brother and Sister] "] In "Beauty and the Beast", Beauty's father is lost in the forest when he finds the Beast's castle. [Betsy Hearne, "Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale", p 28, ISBN 0-226-32239-4] The evil cat-spirits of "Schippeitaro" live in the forest. [Andrew Lang, "The Violet Fairy Book", [http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/080.htm "Schippeitaro"] ] Indeed, in "Grimm's Fairy Tales", the hero always goes into the forest. It is not itself enchanted, but it contains enchantments and, being outside normal human experience, acts as a place of transformation. [Jack Zipes, "The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World", p 65-67, ISBN 0-312-29380-1] The German fairy tale has an unusual tendency to take place in the forest; even such neighboring countries as France or Italy are less like to have fairy tales situated in the forest. [Paul Delarue, "The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales", p xvii, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York 1956]

Even in folklore, forests can also be places of magical refuge. [Maria Tatar, "The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales", p73, ISBN 0-691-06722-8] Snow White found refuge with dwarfs from her stepmother, [Heidi Anne Heiner, " [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sevendwarfs/notes.html#THIRTEEN The Annotated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs] "] The Girl Without Hands found a hut to stay in when she had been slandered to her husband, [Heid Anne Heiner, " [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/armlessmaiden/index.html The Annotated Girl Without Hands] "] and Genevieve of Brabant found not only a refuge from slander but a doe magically came to her aid. [Max Lüthi, "Once Upon A Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales", p 76, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New York, 1970] Even Brother and Sister hid in the forest after their stepmother turned the brother into a deer.

At other times, the marvels they meet are beneficial. In the forest, the hero of a fairy tale can meet and have mercy on talking animals that aid him. [Jack Zipes, "The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World", p 115, ISBN 0-312-29380-1] The king in many variants of the ballad "The Famous Flower of Serving-Men" finds an enchanted hind that leads him astray uncanny, but it brings him to a talking bird that reveals to him a murder and that a servant of his is actually a woman, whom the king then marries. [" [http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiFLRSERV2;ttFLRSERV2;ttFLWSERV2.html The Famous Flower of Serving-Men] "] It is in the forest that the dwarf of "Rumpelstiltskin" [Jacob and Wilheim Grimm, " [http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~wbarker/fairies/grimm/055.html Rumpelstiltskin] ", "Grimm's Fairy Tales"] and the fairy of "Whuppity Stoorie" [ John Rhys, " [http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/rumpelstiltskin/stories/whuppity.html Whuppity Stoorie] ", "Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1901. Volume 2.] reveal their true names and therefore the heroines of those tales have a way to free themselves. In "Schippeitaro", the cats reveal their fear of the dog Schippeitaro when the hero of the tale sleeps the night in the forest. [Andrew Lang, "The Violet Fairy Book", [http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/080.htm "Schippeitaro"] ]

The creatures of the forest need not be magical to have much the same effect; Robin Hood, living in the greenwood, has affinities to the enchanted forest. [Holt, J. C. "Robin Hood" p 9 (1982) Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27541-6.] Even in fairy tales, robbers may serve the roles of magical beings; in an Italian variant of "Snow White", "Bella Venezia", the heroine takes refuge not with dwarfs but with robbers. [Italo Calvino, "Italian Folktales" p 739 ISBN 0-15-645489-0]

Legends

The danger of the folkloric forest is an opportunity for the heroes of legend. Among the oldest of all recored tales, the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh" recounts how the heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu traveled to the Cedar Forest to fight the monsters there and be the first to cut down its trees.

In Norse myth and legend, Myrkviðr (or Mirkwood) was dark and dangerous forest that separated various lands; heroes and even gods had to traverse it with difficulty. [L. Sprague de Camp, "Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers: The Makers of Heroic Fantasy", p 227 ISBN 0-87054-076-9]

Romans referred to the Hercynian Forest, in Germania, as an enchanted place; though most references in their works are to geography, Julius Caesar mentioned unicorns said to live there, and Pliny the Elder, birds with feathers that glowed.

Medieval romance

The figure of an enchanted forest was taken up into chivalric romances; the knight-errant would wander in a trackless forest in search of adventure. As in the fairy tales, he could easily find marvels that would be disbelieved closer to home. John Milton wrote in "Paradise Regained" (Bk ii. 359) of

Fairy damsels met in forest wide
By knights of Logres, or of Lyones,

and such ladies could be not only magical aid to the knight, but ladies for courtly love. [C. S. Lewis, "The Discarded Image", p130 ISBN 0-521-47735-2]
Huon of Bordeaux met Oberon the king of elves in the forest. [Katharine Briggs, "An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Boogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures," "Huon de Bordeaux", p227. ISBN 0-394-73467-X] Guillaume de Palerme hid there with the princess he loved, and found a werewolf who would aid him. In "Valentine and Orson", Valentine is aided by a wild man of the woods who proves to be his long-lost brother.

This forest could easily bewilder the knights. Despite many references to its pathlessness, the forest repeatedly confronts knights with forks and crossroads, of a labyrinthine complexity. [Penelope Reed Doob, "The Idea of the Labyrinth: from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages", p 177, ISBN 0-8014-8000-0] The significiance of their encounters is often explained to the knights -- particularly those searching for the Holy Grail -- by hermits acting as wise old men -- or women. [Penelope Reed Doob, "The Idea of the Labyrinth: from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages", p 179-81, ISBN 0-8014-8000-0] Still, despite their perils and chances of error, such forests are places where the knights may become worthy and find the object of their quest; one romance has a maiden urging Sir Lancelot on his quest for the Holy Grail, "which quickens with life and greenness like the forest." [Penelope Reed Doob, "The Idea of the Labyrinth: from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages", p 181, ISBN 0-8014-8000-0]

Dante Alighieri used this image in the opening of "The Divine Comedy", where he depicted his state as allegorically being lost in a dark wood. [Penelope Reed Doob, "The Idea of the Labyrinth: from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages", p 287, ISBN 0-8014-8000-0]

Into the Renaissance, both "Orlando Furioso" and "The Faerie Queene" had knight-errants who traveled in the woods.

While these works were being written, expanding geographical knowledge, and the decrease of woodland for farmland, meant the decrease of forests that could be presumed magical. In "A Midsummer Night's Dream", William Shakespeare wrote of a forest that was enchanted specificially by the presence of Oberon and Titania, the fairy king and queen; like many forests in Shakespeare's works, it becomes a place of metamorphisis and resolution. [Northrop Frye, "Anatomy of Criticism", p 182, ISBN 0-691-01298-9] Others of his plays, such as "As You Like It", take place in a forest, which contains no enchantments but acts much as the forest of folklore. [Holt, J. C. "Robin Hood" p 9 (1982) Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-27541-6.]

Modern fantasy

The use of enchanted forests shaded into modern fantasy with no distinct breaking point. In "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", L. Frank Baum depicted the wild and dangerous parts of Oz as being forested, and indeed, inhabited with animated trees with human-like traits, a common feature in children's literature. [L. Frank Baum, Michael Patrick Hearn, "The Annotated Wizard of Oz", p 303, ISBN 0-517-500868 ]

J.R.R. Tolkien made use of forests as representing enchantment and the ancientness of the world: Mirkwood, Fangorn forest, and the Old Forest. [John Clute and John Grant, "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy", "Forests" p 362 ISBN 0-312-10869-8] He also made use of folklore about trees, such as the willow, believed to uproot themselves and stalk travelers, in Old Man Willow. [Katharine Briggs, "An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Boogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures," "Fairy trees", p159. ISBN 0-394-73467-X] His elves are strongly associated with forests, especially Mirkwood and Lothlórien. [Andrew Light, "Tolkien's Green Time: Environmental Themes in "The Lord of the Rings", p 153, "The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy", ISBN 0-8126-9545-3] Still more, Tom Bombadil is a "genius loci" of the Old Forest, the wooded land about the Shire, [Tom Shippley, "The Road to Middle-earth", p 108, ISBN 0-628-25760-8] and the ents acts as the forest come to life. [Andrew Light, "Tolkien's Green Time: Environmental Themes in "The Lord of the Rings", p 154, "The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy", ISBN 0-8126-9545-3]

Following him, the forest is often a magical place in modern fantasy. It continues to be a place unknown to the characters, where strange dangers lurk. [Philip Martin, "The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature: From Dragon's Lair to Hero's Quest", p 115, ISBN 0-87116-195-8] It is particularly close to folklore in fairytale fantasy, featuring in such works as James Thurber's "The White Deer" and "The 13 Clocks". [Brian Attebery, "The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature", p 148, ISBN 0-253-35665-2] It features in other fantasies as well. For instance, in the contemporary fantasy Harry Potter books, the forest near Hogwarts is forbidden because of its magical nature. The home of unicorns, centaurs, and giant spiders, it continues the tradition of the forest as a place of wild things and danger. [David Colbert, "The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter", p 91-2, ISBN 0-9708442-0-4] In "My Neighbor Totoro", the forest home of the Totoros is an idyllic place where no harm will come to the heroines of the movies. [Helen McCarthy, "Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation", p 123, ISBN 1-880656-41-8] In contrast, in the Tohou Project series by ZUN, the Forest of Magic is an extremely dangerous place crawling with Youkai.

The forest is often filled with magical animals, plants, maybe even magical rocks and creeks. Often there will be elves, dwarves, and other mythical creatures that may or may not have been made up by the author on the spot, and trees that talk or with branches that will push people off there horses, and thorny bushes which will open to let people in but close and leave people stuck inside, and other plants that move, or turn into animals at night, or the like. Perhaps there will even be creeks which will turn unwary travelers into frogs if drunk from, and maybe sorcerers live somewhere in the depths of the forest.

References