the wild wood

For a while during my childhood my family lived in England. In the north of Yorkshire, on the edge of the national park. So after school and on weekends, I began to wander out of the housing estate and up the lane into the woods.

The woods were mostly beech and chestnut, but with some pine, hawthorn and oak mixed in. The path through the trees led to a river, and further across the river was more forest. When I went into the further areas of forest I found unexpected delights: a whole clearing of wild bluebells one spring; a huge ancient quarry covered in brambles, with caves in the chalky walls. Once I paused on the path and looked up through the trees and met the eyes of a small owl, sitting up there looking down.

In winter I followed the traces of rabbits and foxes through snow. When I was in the areas that weren't my habitual territory, I felt prickly and wary. I stalked along like a rodent, looking over my shoulder and just a wee bit twitchy. (I'm small and I'm female, so I tend to think like prey.)
Many years later, visiting my parents as an adult, I went up down to the woods, crossed the river and walked much, much further than I had ever done, until I came into a much denser part of the forest. It was an early spring afternoon, a little chilly but very clear. As I proceeded along the path through the conifers, I began to have A Feeling.

It was unlike any other feeling I had ever had in the woods, and it went much deeper than the sensible wariness of a small animal off its normal beaten track. It wasn't just that I was out of my territory--it was more that I felt out of my DEPTH. I felt I was in the presence of a power that was completely undomesticated. Like a truly wild, very large animal. This wood could eat me if it chose. It knew I was there and it was breathing all around me and tolerating me. I was awed, and not a little scared.

As I walked along, pondering what this feeling meant, and what it wanted me to do, a voice in my mind said, "I'm in the Wildwood". The Wildwood was the ancient, primary forest that covered Old Britain. The place of bears and wild boar, outlaws and Robin Hood. The domain of the Horned One and the source of legends and myths that persist to this day.

I continued along with my shoulders prickling for about ten steps, whereupon the path turned into a small clearing. There on a panel it said, "This forest was once part of the old wild wood, which covered most of Britain". (Or words to that effect.) All the hair stood up on the back of my head. Because I had KNOWN it, and it was the wood itself that told me.