Stay close to the path. That’s the simple rule in the forest. In the forest of myths leastways. But is it simply a question of not getting lost? Is it a rule passed down through oral history as a sensible guideline? Because surely no people were really dumb enough to need telling this? Even children - and most fairytales didn’t seem aimed particularly at children, once you heard them properly - knew not to wander off into the unknown. It is a pretty basic survival trait. Anyway, lions and tigers and wolves would surely pay little heed to paths. Perhaps they would treat them as they might a waterhole, and see it a fine place for prey to be found?
Humans would probably never evolved into anything beyond a reasonably stupid monkey if they’d really needed to develop folklore just to pass on insipid advice like ‘Stick to the path if you don’t want to get lost’. It seems there must be a meaning beyond the surface, for which folklore with all its unveiled threats and bloodlust developed. Perhaps the rule then was simply ‘Obey the rules’. The moral is one of threat to those who go against the social structure, that the belly of wolves awaits those who disobey the conformity of tradition and the authority of ‘common sense’.
And this then is what that oral history, its thickly woven strands of legend and history were telling us: not sound advice, or even primitive legislature, but a sense of identity. The preservation of identity, and its deepening through the detail of a sense of being. This identity that could be threatened by those who wandered off the path, yet of course was enriched by those who did exactly that. For without those who wandered, there would be no tales for the telling, and in the long run, no evolution and only the slow dessication of cultures and identities.
Dominic saw movement off the path. A figure, moving, then stood behind the foliage, watching them. Toverel turned too, to look, and motioned to raise his bow.
‘You don’t have to try and shoot every thing you see,’ whispered Dom.
‘I know the woods of this world. There are things here indeed.’
Dom moved towards the figure a couple of steps, stood on the edge of the path and peered into the trees. The figure didn’t move, stood only still, watching. So he took another step or two, into the sudden undergrowth, burgeoning in its spring surge to the very edge of the path. A dividing line so clear and stark, there was no doubting its purpose as a line of demarcation: if this indeed be the world of symbols, then let this much be clear.
And so the figure immediately became somewhat clearer. A person, definitely. A woman, old, dressed in black. And she seemed to be smiling through the leaves and blossoms, there in the shadows of the forest. Urging Dom on, pulling him towards her.
‘Stop’ said the elf, pulling at his shoulder, but Dom moved on another step, and another. The old woman became clearer now, he sensed something there.
An old woman, dressed in black. No pointy hat, but for the rest, clearly a witch.
‘Very good young man.’ she said, emerging now more fully into view. ‘Care for an omlette?’
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