The Ones We Meet in Darkness

The Fairy Tale Forest: Part Five

Dec 28, 2023

Part Two: The Hero’s Journey vs The Forest Story

It begins with loneliness. It is a thing that must be undertaken on your own, that first step into the embrace of the forest. After all, it is a difficult thing to be truly lost if you are not alone.

The forest, though, is not an empty thing, and you are bound to encounter some of its inhabitants. We discussed the Wolf already, but there are others to prepare for.

A reasonably common forest-dweller is the disguised fairy—or witch, or enchanter, or whatever else, something that was probably a deity in the first incarnation of the story. Something that looks human, usually old and infirm, and is in reality a being of incredible power.

This being—the fairy, we’ll call it—waits to test the traveler (the reason for this is never given, though if it is a fairy I think it’s fair enough to assume it is at least half out of boredom). The test is one of morality, specifically of charity, usually a request for the traveler to share a bit of his food. Often this is preceded by the failure of the traveler’s elder brother(s). In this case, the traveler’s provisions will be significantly less than that of his brother(s), cut by at least half and usually of poor quality.

Failure of the fairy’s test has varied results. It could be a direct punishment—usually in the form of a curse—or it could be that the one who fails simply goes forward without the fairy’s help and so cannot withstand what he faces next.

(Pro tip: If you encounter the fairy when going to chop wood, you will cut your leg off if you don’t share your food. That one’s basically guaranteed.)

The traveler who passes the test, however, gains the gratitude and aid of the fairy. This too can take many forms, usually advice or a gift of some sort which will either come with a quest for the traveler or help him with the one he has already undertaken. It is this test which determines whether or not the traveler is a worthy hero.

Should the traveler encounter the fairy, it is usually the first and last of the forest-folk met in the story. It also provides obvious lessons: it is good to be kind, your elders have valuable wisdom to share, and not being kind might mean an axe to the leg. All good things to keep in mind.

More interesting—to me, at least—are the animals. These (usually) three are often met before the Wolf: an ant, a fish (often a salmon), and a bird (almost always a raven). There are other animals one might meet, and we could probably spend a truly exhausting time listing and analyzing them all, but these are the main ones. These three serve a similar purpose to that of the fairy, a test of charity. The traveler encounters each when they are in need of help. The required help varies (though the fish is pretty much guaranteed to need help getting back into the water), but the promise is always the same: If the traveler will help, the animal will help them in kind at their hour of greatest need.

Not once has the traveler ever believed this. Understandably, he finds it highly unlikely that these creatures could provide any sort of help, certainly not the kind they offer. But he helps them, each and every one. They don’t ask much more, really, than a moment’s inconvenience. He helps them with no expectation of a reward—and not long after, of course, is richly rewarded as promised.

now that you’re in my cult, please recruit <3

It is worth noting the sorts of animals the traveler encounters. The ant suggests industriousness. The fish, if a salmon, suggests wisdom and virility, but any fish is an animal which lives beneath the surface in the chaos of the water. The raven is another sign of wisdom and wit, and when it is not a raven (or a crow) it is a bird of prey, a creature of perception. It follows, then, that the traveler incorporates these traits when he comes to the aid of the animals.

This is not a complete catalogue of all the forest-dwellers one might encounter, but it is serviceable. Because, for once, I’m not really here to talk about symbolism.

(Plot twist, am I right?)

Look, I’ll be the first to tell you that what these forest folk symbolize is incredibly important. Every bit of a fairy tale is worthy of analysis. You could probably come up with ten different meanings for any of those animals if you wanted to, and have them all be reasonably plausible.

Sometimes, though, you need the thing on the surface. Yes, industriousness and wisdom and the like are terribly useful, but the ones the traveler encounters are also something far more simple: they are strangers in need of help, and strangers who will help you. In other words, they are friends to be made.

Yes, dear reader, this one is about the power of friendship. And worse, kindness. I’m just as disgusted as you are.

In the dark of the forest, when you are hungry and tired and alone and all the world seems against you, there will be others, often in worse straits than your own. All of you struggling, all of you lost. There will be times when you are walking, when you have been walking for too long and you’ve lost the path and you’re not sure there even was one to begin with, and then to make matters worse some insect starts crying out for help. And no one will ever know if you pass it by. Few would even care. It can’t do you any good, whatever it says. It’s only an ant.

You’ve still got to kneel down in the dirt and help it. Not because it can help you, not because anybody will care, for no better reason than the fact that it’s right. Because you’ve got to be kind in the forest. The kind ones are the only ones who make it out alive.

You might be saying, “Wren, that’s a little trite, don’t you think? Plenty of people make it in the world without being kind.” And to that I say yeah, they do, but they don’t make it out of the forest. They become something terrible within it. They are the ones who become the robbers, the witches, the ogres. They are the ones who fall asleep on a bed of gold and wake as a dragon. They don’t exactly lead the most fulfilling lives—all hunger, all want, all hate.

(And that word choice is deliberate, by the way. Kind, not nice. The ones who are nice but not kind are the ones who feed the children candy before devouring them.)

So you be kind. You do your good deeds and expect nothing in return. And eventually you wind up with your leg in a proverbial trap and nothing to help you but the fruits of your kindness, and that is when you learn the infinite value of an ant.

When I first began this series, I said you must become lost. But of course you’re not supposed to stay lost. You’ve got to be found some time or other. Friends help. After all, it is a difficult thing to be truly lost if you are not alone.

The forest is old and large and dark. The forest is terrible. The forest is full of monsters. And you must go into it and become lost—you, and everybody else. They’re lost, too, and lonely.

So find each other. Help each other out. Fight the monsters together. Share your bread, divide your spoils, and spare a thought for the struggles of the ant. Before you know it, the lot of you will be stumbling out from beneath the leaves into the light of the sun, tugging each other along to meet the next great adventure.

It begins with loneliness. It ends with love.

Wren Scarborough

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