The landscape of JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth is complex, extensive and packed with forests, each with its own detailed history spanning many thousands of years.
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There was a silence, for suddenly the dark and unknown forest, so near at hand, made itself felt as a great brooding presence, full of secret purpose. Listen: Join Chris Riddell and Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough in the dark Germanic forest of the Brothers Grimm – and don't forget the breadcrumbs.
The symbolism could hardly be more potent. Most children today are told the version of the story where Red Riding Hood is eventually rescued by a huntsman – or woodcutter. In some versions, Red Riding Hood escapes the wolf in some she is eaten.
In some versions, the wolf stalks Red Riding Hood through the forest, eats the grandmother, then lies in wait wearing her clothes.
What happens next varies from telling to telling, but it’s fair to say that the forest does not come out of it well. In most of the stories, a naive young girl in red is sent out alone into the woods to deliver food to her grandmother. Little Red Riding Hood is one of Europe’s very oldest fairy tales, with versions of the story found as early as the 10th century. Sorry, this clip is not currently available So, what do you do with the students who have proved themselves the naughtiest, boldest, and most rule-breaking ever to have attended Hogwarts? Escort them to the place they’re least supposed to go and call it detention, of course. Most horrifying of all, it’s home to hundreds of huge spiders, hungry for human flesh.Īs symbols for danger and the unknown go, the Forbidden Forest is pretty strong. The forest is a constant in the Harry Potter novels: a place where illicit meetings are staged, secrets are concealed and stark warnings offered to wizardkind. This hair-raising quotation shows Hogwarts’ Forbidden Forest in all its threatening, vaguely nightmarish glory. – JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) Harry thought the blood seemed to be getting thicker. They walked for nearly half an hour, deeper and deeper into the Forest, until the path became almost impossible to follow because the trees were so thick. Listen: Rosamund Barraclough braves the fearsome heffalumps to step into the world of AA Milne for The Essay. This was the tree that inspired every child who read about it to yearn for their very own slippery-slip – a marvellous slide that takes the user all the way to ground level via a trapdoor in Moonface’s circular treehouse room. Is there anything more nostalgic than the whispering of Enid Blyton’s Enchanted Wood? This beloved series, dating back to the 1940s, follows the adventures of three children, Jo, Bessie and Fanny, who venture into the woods near their home and discover The Magic Faraway Tree. – Enid Blyton, The Magic Faraway Tree (1943) The Enchanted Wood loomed up big and dark.
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The series prequel, The Magician’s Nephew, sees Digory and Polly stumble into the magical Wood between the World, an eerie place that enables travel between our world and countless others including Narnia and the desolate, forbidding Charn.
Those frozen trees aren't the only woods to feature in the Narnia universe. We discover that the White Witch has cast a spell to make it “always winter, but never Christmas”, preventing the growth of a magical tree that would topple her cruel reign. But here, when Lucy first enters Narnian forest through the back of the wardrobe in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, she finds its branches blanketed in snow and ice. In later books, CS Lewis’ Narnia is a lushly forested idyll.
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