The wizard narrowed his eyes at the children. They watched in horror as he reached for his wand. Should they run? Was there anywhere to hide? They held their breath as he muttered a few rhymes and pointed his wand at them…and nothing happened at all, for it was spring and the wand was far too busy growing buds and dreaming of leaves to bother with children just being kids and a grumpy old wizard.
The most important thing to remember about enchanted forest finding is that any rules are mere guidelines. An enchanted forest may contain one or more of the ‘classic’ traits or none at all. It may be a forest, or it might only be a forest if you were to shrink yourself down to the size of an ant and start looking up at dandelion stalks or renegade clover. A change of perspective can go a long way when it comes to enchantment.
An enchanted forest should always have one or two old trees. The older the better because dryads, or tree spirits, become friendlier with age. The younger ones can be quite shy, but of course there are exceptions to every rule. Trees themselves are most often easy friends, as long as you are nice to them and don’t damage their roots or their bark.
You can tell how old a tree is by looking at its bark. Like people, trees get wrinkles when they grow older. Unlike people, they are very proud of their wrinkles. Consider each as a laugh line, earned from happy memories and a well-told joke, summer vacations and family camping trips. In trees, these wrinkles look like deep grooves between flakes of their bark. There may be spiders or fairies making homes in the shadows of these grooves, and that is to be expected after all, for they are such happy places and make a wonderful place to rest until you feel better. Flies and other sorts of insects reading this should avoid the ones with spiders, of course.
Some of these old trees are so enchanting that they can even make an enchanted forest out of a lawn, which is very fortunate for children who cannot shrink down or get their clothes dirty and who only get to see forests on summer vacations and weekend trips to the country. Enchanted forests are much better received if taken in daily doses, after all, but you must do the best you can. Imagining an enchanted forest is also a good idea, and can do wonders to strengthen your imagination muscles.
An enchanted forest should also contain a stream, a brook, or some sort of watery place. A puddle after the rain will suffice, of course, and the muddier the better. Desert-dwelling people will have to make do with an enchanted cactus, of which I have little expertise, but as I understand it, cacti have secret (magical) stores of water and this should suffice. This water is important because it gives entrance to water sprites, undines, and the occasional freshwater mermaid which is refreshing for everyone. They are also handy for making children squeal with delight and give them all sorts of stories to tell their friends at school.
Following these guides (or not) should have you well on your way to finding or imagining an enchanted forest of your own. I recommend returning again and again until the forest becomes as familiar with you as it is its own soil. After all many fairies, trees, and the like enjoy a rare glimpse of a human once in a while themselves, as some of them (fairies in particular) are never certain if we are real or not.
The crow glared a moment at some noisy children before he returned to reading his newspaper. It was old news; it took forever for bugs to produce this sort of thing, but he considered himself a crow of the world and as such he liked being seen reading the paper now and then.
Discarded by humans, the old bridge fell back under nature’s control. A brave tree or two took root in pockets of soil blown in by the wind, clinging to tiny cracks with desperate roots. Lichens feasted upon the concrete, crumbling the stonework bit by bit until the roots could grow bolder and stronger as the years went by.
Humans began to stop and look at it in wonder, thinking not of ruins but of the tenacity of nature and the power of patience.
“Find me a castle, and there I will live,” thought a bit of lichen caught by the wind.
They traveled the land and soared through the air but there weren’t any castles to be found.
“An old bridge might suffice for a bit of seed with a flexible dream,” suggested the wind.
The lichen agreed and lived ever so happily, after all.
She couldn’t quite reach. Not yet. It might take a few more years or growing in fact, but she was closer now than she had ever been and that was a fine thing to be proud of.
King Neptune’s crown had been tossed away by an angry whale a century or so ago, flying through the air with all the confusion of any sea creature that finds itself to be an unexpected bird. It landed with a soggy thud in a forest near the coast, where it waited to be found. In the meantime it cloaked itself in moss, embarrassed to be naked in the air without any water to cover it up.
“Come closer,” the brook said. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
The tree knelt down to listen and the brook babbled all its secrets.
The troll froze, clinging to the tree. The humans had surprised him. Shaking with fear, he pressed himself tighter against the bark and willed the humans not to see him. He was terrified of humans. He’d heard they built bridges and roads they charged other humans a toll to cross. Barbaric! Trolls had given that up a century or so ago.
There she slept for far too long, turned to stone: an ancient relic of a fossil record that had forgotten her. No true love’s kiss for her to wake, no thawing of flesh from ice, she was stone and it was stones that built the earth, that housed the moss, and cupped the pathways carved by water. So long as she was stone she was safe, and she was stone forever.
Jennifer Shelby 