The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
DENDROPHOBIA: fear of trees
HYLOPHOBIA: fear of forests
NYCTOHYLOPHOBIA: fear of forests at night
Evening (1821) by Caspar Friedrich (German, 1774 – 1840)Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841 – 1919) A Walk in the Woods (Madame Lecoeur and Her Children), 1870Oh, What a Busy Day, Gyo Fujikawa, 1976Moon Filly by Elyne Mitchell Australian children’s book cover illustrated by Robert Hales 1968Early-twentieth century illustrations by Artuš Scheiner (1863 – 1938)Charles Livingston Bull batSophie and Little Star coverGiant Redwood Trees of California (1874) by Albert Bierstadt (German-American, 1830-1902). Berkshire Museum. These trees are among the oldest living things on EarthJulius Sergius von Klever 1850 – 1924 A Moonlit Night In Forest 1923Adrienne Adams, of course. Not many picture book illustrators make use of flat black.‘Sunset over the Winter Forest’, Heinrich Gogarten, oil on canvas, 1881Down came the white owl by Florence M. Anderson from The Land where Stories Grow 1929Léon Carré (1878–1942) ‘Nourgihân’s shining face alone lit up the darkness’The Dawn Shops 1942 by Joyce Lankester Brisley of the Milly Molly Mandy books‘The Divine Comedy’ (Inferno, Canto 1) Engraving by Gustave Doré, 1860sIllustration for HEDGEHOG’S HOME, ca.1949. Vilko Gliha SelanThe Moon Singer by Clyde Robert Bulla, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (1969). The illustrations below are from the same book. Trina Schart Hyman is demonstrating her versatility here. The Moon Singer by Clyde Robert Bulla, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (1969). I love the way she has rendered the moon. The Moon Singer by Clyde Robert Bulla, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (1969) Charles Livingston, Bull BatVladimir Vtorenko – Tales of the Brothers Grimm, Old Woman In The Forest. Fritz Baumgarten (1883-1966), Easter Bunny card. Someone’s not getting their eggs delivered tonight. Or maybe bunny’s exhausted from delivering all those eggs the night before?
Rokuro Taniuchi art for Japanese publication Shuukan Shinshoo. If you like this artwork, you’ll also enjoy When The Sky Is Like Lace.
The Green Knowe Peter Boston
Jill Barklem, Autumn Story (Brambly Hedge series) originally published in 1980.
Margaret Tarrant (English, 1888-1959) Midsummer Night
El rey de la creacion, por Sancha, 1904, Madrid, baby in a forest, surrounded by helpful animals.
Mikhail Bychkov – Peter Pan’s death in the forest.Joop Polder is a contemporary artist born in 1939 in The Hague, The Netherlands.. This one is called Tram In The Forest, completed in the 1970s.Cherry Moon Little Poems Big Ideas Mindful of Nature by Zaro Weil and Junli SongDIE GEBURTSTAGREISE (1976), Monika Beisner. In English: The Birthday Journey.Elsa Beskow, 1874-1953 Illustrations from her book Children of the Forest fairy spirits play see-saw with mushroom sprites.Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) illustration for Our Lady’s Child, illustrating a Grimm fairytale.Józef Wilkón is a Polish illustrator born in 1930. He also sculpts animals.from Alarming Tales November 1957THE FLIGHT OF OSVALDOBARNABE IS AFRAID OF NOTHINGあゆみとひみつのおともだち 大友康夫 1979
The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame, in which most illustrated versions contain a picture of the Wild Wood.
[In] many of the stories that follow, woods seem to conspire against humanity. That forests should be pitted against human ambition is a long-established notion that is woven into the geographies of culture. If the city is the conventional home of civilisation and politics, the forest is something like its opposite. … In some situations this makes the woods a welcome refuge from the world of human affairs. … But in most of the tales here, trees are no safe haven. Rather, they are places of violence, bewilderment and death: the majority of the stories here include a tree-related human demise. Bad things happen in the woods, and not just in the stories in this collection. Mainstream cinema turns time and again to the forest as a place of horror.
from the introduction to Weird Woods
TABLE OF CONTENTS WEIRD WOODS: TALES FROM THE HAUNTED FORESTS OF BRITAINMan-Size in Marble by Edith Nesbit
The Striding Place by Gertrude Atherton
The Man Who Went Too Far by E.F. Benson
An Old Thorn by W.H. Hudson
The White Lady by Elliot O'Donnell
Ancient Lights by Algernon Blackwood
The Name-Tree by Mary Webb
The Tree by Walter de la Mare
"He Made a Woman--" by Marjorie Bowen
A Neighbour's Landmark by M.R. James
N by Arthur Machen
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
