| "The Lore of the Forest: Myths and Legends" Alexander Porteus, 1928. As the milleniums passed, other epochs of time held their sway, until at the close of the glacial periods forests as wwe now know them covered the land, and, apart from their utilitarian purposes, a very wealth of romance lies hidden within their bosky depths. There, the voice of Nature speaks to the weary wayfarer; the rustling and whispering of the leaves; the sad, yet sweet, cooing of pigeons; the melody of songbirds, or the distant cawing of rooks; the hum of innumerable insects: all impart a feeling of rest, and the strife and jealousies of the world seem far removed. Here in the sunny glades of the forest the ground is carpeted with mosses and flowers, while all around the view is bounded by gigantic trunks of trees each clad with many-coloured lichens, and the whole canopied with leafy boughs whence the feathered orchestra of the woods pour forth their divine meolody. It is recorded that the monk of Hildesheim, doubting how with God a thousand years could be as yesterday, listened to the melody of a bird in the green wood during three minutes, and found that in these three minutes three hundred years had flown.
To a wandererin forest solitudes a sense of mytery is often perceived which lures him on and on into the verdant depths of the woodland world. On a brilliant summer day the tremulous throbbing of the air, seemingly full of whisperings and sighings from an unseen host, appears like the pulsation from the mighty heart of the forest, while, all around, sunlight and shadow form a tangled web of enchantment, which is deepened by soft elusive perfumes floating on the damp zephyrs. In fancy he may feel drawn back to the early primitive ages, when the forest deities would have had a very real existence to him, and he would understand the inner meaning of those oracles which were often spoken in the glades of the primeval woods.
~From "The Lore of the Forest: Myths and Legends", Alexander Porteus, 1928.
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