In times past, forests represented something magical and dangerous, because it was unknown. A person might go into the forest, but they would stay on known trackways, go to known places. Not content with mundane dangers of the forest (getting lost, starving to death, attacked by robbers, killed by wild animals), human beings would extrapolate from these to dangers of a more otherworldly kind. There might be witches and wizards, talking animals and trees, fairies, ogres and other monsters. Fearing the forest seems to me a bit like being scared of the dark – it’s what you can’t see that will get you.
The Grimms’ brothers “Hansel and Gretel” uses the forest as it’s setting for both a mundane and a magical danger. The two children are abandoned in the forest by their parents due to a famine where they are unable to feed the children and themselves. (Interestingly, the story blames the instigating mother while the ineffectual father who goes along with her plan is not held responsible. The children, when abandoned in the forest, wander for a long while and become very hungry. But then the story turns magical, when they find a cottage with walls of bread, “cake for the roof and pure sugar for windows”. The children hop in, as they are ravenous by this time. An old woman comes out, frightening them, but she welcomes them in kindly, feeds them and puts them to bed. However, she is of course a witch, who are always cannibals in these stories and especially fond of children. Hansel is locked up with plans to fatten him up for cooking, while Gretel is put to work. Anyway most people will know the story. The children get the better of the witch, who is burned to death in her own oven. The children find jewels and pearls in her house, help themselves, and find their way home to their father (the mother has conveniently died.) They all live happily ever after.
Charles Perrault’s tale “Little Thumbling” follows a similar vein, though it’s the father who has the idea to abandon the children, and they run into an ogre instead of a witch. The titular character is the youngest son who is very clever and helps his brothers escape by tricking the ogre into eating his own children. (Fairy tales are so lovely, right?)
Baba Yaga, from Slavic folklore, is a witch who turns up in many stories. Her nature is actually changeable, in that she is sometimes a wicked creature and (again) a cannibal. She is very knowledgeable and magical, and in some stories will actually give good advice and help to the hero or heroine. She is ambiguous in this respect – the main characters in the stories she appears in need to tread very carefully in order not to be eaten, and to get the help they need. Where does the forest come in? Baba Yaga lives in the forest in a hut that stands on chicken legs and is constantly in motion. Perhaps the best known story is “Vasilisa the Fair”. The obligatory wicked stepmother in this story constantly sends Vasilisa on errands into the forest, as she knows Baba Yaga lives there and hopes Vasilisa will be killed. As in the other stories, Vasilisa, with the help of a magical doll left to her by her dead mother, manages to keep Baba Yaga from eating her and eventually escapes from the witch.
In these stories the forest is seen as a dangerous place where children can get lost and starve or meet dangerous cannibal monsters such as ogres and witches. I can only assume they’re always cannibals because that is seen as about the worst thing a person can do so it shows how wicked the monsters are.
Of course, a dark and mysterious forest can also be a very good place to hide away from bad people. In the Grimm’s brothers’ “The Girl Without Hands” a man does a deal with the devil, and in exchange for wealth he accidentally trades his daughter. However she washes herself clean and the Devil can’t touch her, so he orders the man to cut off her hands so she cannot wash herself. This latest spectacular example of parenthood does so, but her tears wash the stumps clean and the Devil still can’t touch her. After the girl leaves her father’s house (and who can blame her) she ends up at a palace, where the king sees her beauty and decides to marry her. However, the king has to go on a journey while the queen is pregnant, and he asks his mother to look after her. The Devil, having never forgotten he could not have her, decides to do some mischief by way of substituting letters, and the king’s mother thinks she’s supposed to have the queen and her son put to death. She won’t do it, but does have to tell the queen to leave to escape the supposed purpose of the king. Here’s where the “great wild forest” comes in, as this is where the girl arrives and prays to God for help. Angels hide her in the forest in a small house, and look after her until the king comes looking (as he does not, in fact, want to kill her.)
“Snow White” is probably the most classic example. A wicked queen is jealous of Snow White’s beauty and tells a huntsman to take her into the forest and kill her. The huntsman takes pity on Snow White and lets her run away, but of course this means she’s now lost in the great forest. Wild beasts see her but will not harm her, and eventually she finds a small house. This is, of course, the house of the seven dwarfs, who eventually return and find Snow White asleep on one of their beds, having eaten some of their food. Of course, she would have been safe with the forest to hide her, if it were not for the tattling magic mirror the queen has which promptly snitches on her the next time the queen asks it “who is the fairest”. The queen, disguising herself as an old woman, comes to the house as a pedlar. Snow White (who has to be one of the dumbest heroines) falls for the ‘pedlar’s’ tricks three times, eventually dying, and the dwarves make a glass coffin for her because she is still so beautiful. Enter handsome prince, obligatory wedding, and horrifying end to the wicked queen (who is forced to put on red hot shoes and dance til she dies).
Forests were seen as liminal places, borderlands between worlds. Their inhabitants may be all sorts of magical creatures, good and bad, and even trees may talk or have their own agency. The forests themselves may be magical (such as the Norse Forest (Myrkvior), or simply containing magical creatures. The forest as a place of enchantment is universal, appearing in folklore in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. The hero or heroine enters the forest at their own risk, where they may meet with blessing or death, but always with adventure.
Bibliography
“The Great Fairytale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm”, Jack Zipes. 2001.
“The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales”, Translated by James Stern 1944.
Eclectic Assemblage 